Last night we welcomed home Gini, Jason, and Beza Miller! The kids and I made a banner and decorated their house with balloons (thanks Pam for letting us invade for a little bit!). Then we went over right before they got home and waited. The kids were all running around like the monkeys that they are, and when they finally drove into the driveway - the kiddos were so excited!! Beza is just precious, and seeing their family together was incredible!! We cannot wait to bring our little "A" home, and reunite the two Hannah's Hope buddies!!! Welcome Home Beza - we love you!!!
We received the call today from our "B" (our case worker at AGCI) that we received court dates today!!! A miracle!!!! If you read my last post, you know that tomorrow is the day that the Ministry of Women's Affairs in Ethiopia is supposedly drastically cutting back on the number of adoptions that they will be processing every day - from 50 to 5. That is a 90% cutback. So we started to pray, and pray, and believe that He is bigger than my fears, bigger than our agency, bigger than the country of Ethiopia. AND HE IS!!!!! We have been given a court date of May 17, and we will hopefully be leaving here on Thursday, May 12, and we will hold our daughter for the first time on Sunday, May 15!!!! We are continuing to ask for your prayers - for the families who continue to wait for court dates, for the government to not implement the 90% cutbacks, and for the children in Ethiopia who are waiting for their forever families. When we go to court, we also need prayer that the letter that MOWA has to send for us to pass court is there - this is definitely up in the air with all the changes that are happening.
Thanks for listening to my ramblings - I am still in shock and awe that we received our court dates!!!! Thank you for praying for us~!!!
Disclaimer - this will be not a fuzzy warm post. It is what we are feeling, and it is not pretty, but we want to be real.
This is not a post that I ever thought that I would be writing. I never wanted to be writing it. Yet, here I am. I actually feel like crawling into bed, pulling the covers over my head, and never coming out. Real grown up, right? Here's the scoop: there have been rumors in the adoption world of huge changes in Ethiopian adoptions, and we have been praying for weeks that were just that - rumors. While nothing is official yet, we received a call from our agency today to let us know about the uncertainty that is surrounding Ethiopian adoptions as a whole, and more specifically, our adoption of "A". If the rumors become true (supposedly this Thursday), only 5 cases of adoption will be processed a day - instead of almost 50. I do not even want to do the math. It means potentially months, possibly years of waiting, while our daughter grows up in an orphanage. We are praying. We are praying for a miracle. We are praying for the children of Ethiopia that this affects - the children who have no voice, whose only longing is for a family to call their own. Don't get me wrong, the thought of unethical adoptions makes me physically ill, but the thought of millions of children sitting in orphanages because of political agendas, etc. makes me sick as well. My mind is a mess of jumbled thoughts and pleading cries - please let us just bring our daughter home. When my monkeys came home from school today - I grabbed them and gave them extra hugs, all the while wondering just how long it will be until I can do that with my daughter. The first thing they always ask when they come home is if we got a court date, and of course today that question brought another flood of tears. I tried to explain simply why I was sad - and my Noah said "Is this how you would feel if I was in Ethiopia and you couldn't come get me?". Oh sweet boy, that is exactly how I feel. Like my heart is broken. But we have hope. We are praying for a miracle. Please pray with us - for our daughter, for the families who are waiting on court dates, for the children who are facing an uncertain future, for the officials to change their minds, for peace for those of us who wait.
Today, this song has played nonstop in our house - Running in Circles by United Pursuit
It is my prayer tonight - that I will place my focus on His face, and not the waves.
