The Derloshon Family
Over the past 8 months, our family has been thrust into a new culture with a new set of ideals, expectations and stresses. It has been 8 months of readjustment that hasn’t gone as smoothly as we had hoped. For the long-term well-being of our marriage and our family we have made the decision to transition the 6 of us back to the United States. We will be returning this coming August. We are so thankful for the relationships we’ve developed during our time here and are looking forward to continuing our involvement with Embracing Hope Ethiopia through sharing and advocating stateside.
The Shannon Family
The Shannons have been busily preparing for their home assignment in the US. We are looking forward to meeting and seeing many of you while we are on the road for a couple of months.

Caia Turned 10!
Also over the past couple of months we have passed some important milestones in our family. These include; Kidist turned 3, Jerry and Christy celebrated 19 years of marriage and Mihiret had her 1st Birthday!

Mihiret turned 1!
We also passed a huge milestone in being able to finalize all of our adoption details in Ethiopia. Now we wait for another year and then we can do the US side of the adoption.
This summer we will pass another milestone as a family as we start looking at potential colleges for Joshua to attend. He still has some time, but this will be our last trip back to the US for an extended period of time until the summer prior to him going to University.
In the day to day, we stay quite involved as a family. Jerry has had a busy Spring and early summer pastoring at IEC. The church continues to do well. He also has been very involved in trying to get our EHE Expansion Proposal approved. It seems to be close, but not quite there.

Good Friends celebrated Mihiret’s Birthday with us
Christy has been very busy homeschooling, helping the littles to settle in and overseeing the production of tons of handicrafts for us to bring back to The US. She also has been involved in welcoming visitors to EHE and continuing to train our staff.

Joshua and his drums.
Our kids continue to grow like crazy and are looking forward to certain aspects of our visit to The US. They now call Ethiopia their home – ask any of them, but they are looking forward to seeing family and the simple things like; McDonalds, Water Fountains, the Beach and Hot Dogs. The rainy season is starting here in Ethiopia, so they also are looking

Micah is growing up!
forward to escaping the long rainy season this year. We’re not sure if they grasp that we are trading it in for the Hazy, Hot and Humid of the Northeast, but we’ll take it.
Hope to see you soon! Thank you for praying for us.