Waiting to Travel

It has been almost 6 months since we accepted our referral of our son. With all the new policies that were put in place in January, we are still not close to traveling. It is very disheartening to think that our son is sitting and waiting for us. We have cleared all the hurdles on the US side of things now we wait for two Ethiopian Signatures. One from the regional director and one from the Minister of Women and Children. It is frustrating to know that our paper has been sitting on the desk of the regional director for a couple of months now. We pray that she will sign within the next week or two so that we can make it to Ethiopia before court closure in August. We are getting down to the wire. Please pray for our situation as well an many others who are exactly where we are in this process.

A Referral !!!

Yes finally the call we have been waiting for. I received the call around 10am on January 22nd. When I realized it was Sally, from our agency, it really did not hit me that she would be calling with a referral. A couple weeks before we had looked into a 7 year old boy that was on the waitlist. He was not "referral ready" yet but we were given some of his information. On Monday, Jan. 20th we found out that he was not 7 years old but much older. Somehow his birthdate was wrong on his paperwork so unfortunately we would not be getting him. So when Sally called two days later I was not expecting a refferal, I assumed she was calling about the 7 year old. So needless to say when she said she a little boy for us to consider I was over the moon. Madi and Ethan happened to be home from school that day, due to the recent snow, so they were able to see his picture and read about him. It was awesome to share that with them. Unfortunately, Dan has been working out of town during the week so he was not home with us. We did facetime that evening with him and agreed wholeheartedly as a family that he would be our son/brother. We had to wait a few days for the adoption contract to be finalized then all our paperwork was sent to USCIS. Now, we wait for a paper called a PAIR letter. Without this letter we can not travel for our first trip. Meanwhile we found out this past week that our Birthmom courtdate is March 10th. This court appearance is for his Birthmom to agree to us adopting him and taking him out of the country. We pray that she will have peace about this process.