Hey guys, I just wanted to give a quick update.  As far as Beza goes, he is doing great! January 7th was Christmas for Ethiopia and our agency took all the children out for a special day.  They went to an arcade and had hamburgers and French fries!  We got quit the kick out of that! They took several pictures of the kids and in Beza's photo he was stuffing a hamburger in his mouth.  As much as I wouldn't condone French fries and hamburgers for dinner, it made me happy to see him enjoying an American meal.  So I may need to lower my standards in the coming months! Ha ha!

Today we received some not so fun news about our grant funds.  Our agency had hopes that we would be able to access the funds sooner then later and now that is not the case.  Last week we were under the impression we only had $2100 left for our referral fees but now were back up to around $6500, plus travel.  This may all be so confusing, but I want to explain it the best way I can.  Once those funds are released to our agency (after first court appearance) they will hang onto it until our adoption is complete. We may have some extra fees that will come up such as Child Care fees.  We are now responsible for his daily care of $15 a day and we initially pay for the first 90 days.  But mostly likely we will not have a completed adoption within 90 days, so that's where those extra fees may come in.  So they would be able to access the grant money to cover that.  Then if there is anything left they will give it to us. 

So I am writing to ask for LOTS of prayer! 

1. Pray for our sweet Beza and even though he doesn't know about us yet, that his heart would start to be softened.
2. Pray for us, Satan is definitely trying to work his way in when good things are happening.  
3. Pray that we seek The Lord for all our funding avenues.  It may not look the way we thought it would be, so we just need to be open minded. 

THANK YOU and we love you all!!  
 

Melkam Gena!

As I was signing into to the blog this afternoon to start this I heard two amazing songs that I had never heard before that I wanted to share.

First I want to start by saying a HUGE thank you to all of you for sharing and donating to our adoption of sweet Beza these past couple weeks.  During these last two weeks we have raised $2,460 towards our massive number of $16,995.  So we were able to send our agency $10,845! Woohoo!!!  Obviously we are still short of that BIG BIG number, but our agency is has been very kind to us and is allowing us a little more time to raise the necessary funds. I think they really love Beza as much as we do so they are really rooting for him! :)

As I had posted in the last blog about the grant we had received and not being able to access it till closer to the end of the adoption, well our agency is in contact with them about accessing it early to help with costs now.  So please pray with us that they would find favor in letting us use it earlier then expected.  So, if we are able to access our grant we are currently only $2,150 short of that BIG number. 

We received an email right before Christmas letting us know that the investigation process (that they do for every child) could take awhile because he has been an orphan for so long.  During the investigation process they have to go back 5 years and speak with the individuals who found him and so on.  We really felt it could go either way, but we would never know till we dived in.  So that wasn't a hindrance for us.  Well, yesterday we got an email saying that Beza's investigation was complete!!!!!  Praise God! So as you can see, we are just taking 1 step at a time.  Our goals right now is to just complete Beza's referral fee, later we will work on travel expenses. 

The title to this blog post Melkam Gena, which is Merry Christmas in Ethiopia's native language.  Today is Christmas there and I can't help but wonder what Christmas must look like for him?  Im pretty certain it isn't like ours, but my prayer is that his belly isn't hungry and that he gets some extra special attention today.  This is the last Christmas he will have without a family and BOY will he be spoiled rotten next year!! :)

Kenny and I are so thankful for you all over this past year and a half.  We would love for you all to pray for our sweet boy and this adoption process.  Pray that it will go smooth and move swiftly.  If you feel led to make a donation we would be forever grateful.  There is a PayPal account attached to or blog.  Also we have a way for tax deductible donations as well.  You may make checks out to Ordinary Hero but please remember to put our names (Kenny and Taira Massey) in the memo line.  There address is:
Ordinary Hero
P.O. Box 1945
Brentwood, TN 37024


You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl.  Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see you good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.  Matthew 5:14-16