What Next?

Now that we have our referral we have stepped into the wait, part two.

Let me explain...

Our agency will contact their Ethiopian office this week and our file and case will be presented to the Ethiopian government and we will be assigned a court date. Depending on how busy things are we can expect a court date to be anywhere from 4-6 weeks from now.

The court date is when officials will gather in an Ethiopian courthouse to review all the documents in our Dossier and all the documents that represent Chala and his status as an orphan. If all the documents are in order, the appropriate people show up, the court docket isn't too full, the electricity is working....and, well, you get the picture...then we will be officially and legally be named as his parents.

Obviously, as you can imagine, it is very common not to pass court the first time.

When we do pass court, we will then travel approximately 8-12 weeks later (depending on how quickly we are able to get our embassy visa appointment).

Best case scenario would be for us to travel as quickly as 3 months from now, or the end of May. More realistic scenario would be for us travel in June/July/August.

We feel extremely fortunate that we have a lot of pictures (20+) and even a short video of our little guy (he can clap!) to help tide us over during the wait. We also have promises from a few other adoptive families in our agency who are heading over to Ethiopian in March to pick up their children to take more photos for us.

Here are some specific prayer requests you can pray for:

- Emotional and physical health for Chala and for him to somehow know he has a family.
- Efficiency and no delays in this next part of the wait.
- Funding. While we previously thought we had at least 7-9 more months to raise the rest of money, we now have possibly only 3. It is going to be awesome to see how God provides!
- For us to find a vehicle that can hold three carseats, has low mileage, and is within our budget.

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