Well, it's been a long week for us, anticipating hearing something from our agency.
But basically, we heard nothing. Until today, we called them and they said our documents are in process of being authenticated by the Ethiopian Government and once that is complete our court case will be filed.
Usually, the court case for international ethiopian adoption is opened and dates set within two weeks of filing. The dates for court are , according to our agency, usually set for two weeks and four weeks from the date the case is opened. ( There are two hearings. One we attend and one we do not.)
So, as best we understand, our case is not actually open yet, but should be within the week, if the documents return ready to go in the next couple of days.
So, best case scenario, we file for court by Monday July 2nd , the preliminary hearing, which we do NOT attend, will be on the 16th. Then the final hearing date on the July 30th...... Which we DO attend.
The next few days are critical in determining whether or not we meet our girls before the rainy season, when the courts close for a minimum of 8 weeks, sometimes 12.
So praying people, could you ask for a miracle?
We are hoping for this best case sceanrio to juts play out. And if not, then peace while we wait.
It's very hard to just wait!!!
In the meantime, let me just say that while I have been waiting, I have been becoming more and more passionate about kids who need homes connecting with parents who want kids! or more kids to love!
Posts to come on that soon!
Monday, June 25, 2012
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
It's on!!!
We received word today that our Dossier is in country. Yeah!!! We are almost there!!
I am trying to get confirmation of dates etc, but it looks like we could be travelling for court anytime after July 9th!!
I have a packing list in hand sent to us today!!
It's on!!
I am trying to get confirmation of dates etc, but it looks like we could be travelling for court anytime after July 9th!!
I have a packing list in hand sent to us today!!
It's on!!
Monday, June 18, 2012
SOME GOOD NEWS: A letter from our agency.
Dear Bill and
Jeanette,
I'm SO pleased to be able to report to you that we received
your federally-authenticated paperwork back from Washington DC on Tuesday, and
that your entire dossier was shipped to Ethiopia officially yesterday evening
(Weds., 6/13/12), so it should arrive at our office in Addis
Ababa very soon.
Then your dossier will be considered officially "in-country" in
Ethiopia. We are very excited for you to have this portion of the
Ethiopia adoption journey accomplished now, and we're looking forward with you
to what's unfolding next for you, Kumneger and Kalkidan--your whole
family!
Congratulations!
Yours sincerely,joy
Jeanette,
I'm SO pleased to be able to report to you that we received
your federally-authenticated paperwork back from Washington DC on Tuesday, and
that your entire dossier was shipped to Ethiopia officially yesterday evening
(Weds., 6/13/12), so it should arrive at our office in Addis
Ababa very soon.
Then your dossier will be considered officially "in-country" in
Ethiopia. We are very excited for you to have this portion of the
Ethiopia adoption journey accomplished now, and we're looking forward with you
to what's unfolding next for you, Kumneger and Kalkidan--your whole
family!
Congratulations!
Yours sincerely,joy
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
THE LATEST:
Our Dossier has been shipped to Washington DC for processing. If it can get processed and back to our agency in less than two weeks, it is still possible for us to get a court date this summer and meet our girls before August.
We have no control over this process. We are just praying and hoping for speedy processing!!
If we don't get a court date this summer, we won't meet our girls until late fall as the courts close in Aug/Sept/Oct for the rainy season.
Any prayers you have time for would be greatly appreciated!
Our Dossier has been shipped to Washington DC for processing. If it can get processed and back to our agency in less than two weeks, it is still possible for us to get a court date this summer and meet our girls before August.
We have no control over this process. We are just praying and hoping for speedy processing!!
If we don't get a court date this summer, we won't meet our girls until late fall as the courts close in Aug/Sept/Oct for the rainy season.
Any prayers you have time for would be greatly appreciated!
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Why Ethiopia In General:
Some details:
-Ethiopia is the birthplace of the drink many of us know and love-Coffee
-Ethiopia is home to one of the oldest civilizations in the world. That's neat!
-Ethiopia is home to more than 5 million Orphans.
-Ethiopia is the fabled location of the Ark of the Covenant
Some details:
-Ethiopia is the birthplace of the drink many of us know and love-Coffee
-Ethiopia is home to one of the oldest civilizations in the world. That's neat!
-Ethiopia is home to more than 5 million Orphans.
-Ethiopia is the fabled location of the Ark of the Covenant
Why Ethiopia? FINAL SEGMENT
Fast forward to March of 2011. I was waiting on a friend at a medical center. I had some time to kill sitting in the waiting room. All of my classwork was complete, personal stuff etc.
I was actually kind of down emotionally and needed something to occupy my mind. Bill and I had tried to take a vacation in march to have some positive movement in our lives, but there were some serious problems with the vacation....starting with missing our flight....because neither one of us paid attention to the time on the tickets. :(
The classes I was taking were good but really heavy and dark subject matter..so didn't really want to think about that.
We had been getting more and more bad news from the infertility people. Just when we thought we'd hit the bottom, the bottom would give way and we'd be sliding down another tunnel of questions and pain and just anger really.
So, I tried to pray that day. My prayer was something like this:
"God, if you have kids for would you just show us dang it."
And the reply I felt in my spirit was." Well, Jeanette, you haven't exactly been looking."
So, I thought, Hm, I guess I could start looking. And for the next few hours I did. I had been given by friends some websites where you could view photo listings of waiting children and i began to do that.
I started praying for a connection with a child. Maybe a name, or maybe that the child loved music like we do. Something to let me know that the child was meant to be in our family.
I signed up on one particular sight that allowed me to create a profile where I could be matched to children according to our specifications of age etc.
Oddly, I guess I was being too picky, because I didn't get ANY matches.
So, then, I remembered something our friends had said about special needs kiddos. I included them in my profile and BINGO! Matches abounded.
I started looking at photos and watching videos and soon had about 100 kids in my profile. I wanted to parent them all! I knew that wasn't realistic though. So We had to narrow it down.
I was so excited to show Bill.
He was totally on board with a special needs child and so it began. In the end, god did the narrowing for us, because out of the original children I put in my profile, only two remained in five months when we finally got serious about putting in our application.
When we finally made the call about the only two children left in our profile, we foudn out what coutry they were in. Just take a guess!
YOU GUESSED IT!!!
Ethiopia!
So there's your answer.
The kids we felt called to parent were not in Haiti. Had they been in Haiti, we'd be going there. Had they been in Madagascar....off we'd be.
But they were in Ethiopia. So THAT is Why Ethiopia!
Fast forward to March of 2011. I was waiting on a friend at a medical center. I had some time to kill sitting in the waiting room. All of my classwork was complete, personal stuff etc.
I was actually kind of down emotionally and needed something to occupy my mind. Bill and I had tried to take a vacation in march to have some positive movement in our lives, but there were some serious problems with the vacation....starting with missing our flight....because neither one of us paid attention to the time on the tickets. :(
The classes I was taking were good but really heavy and dark subject matter..so didn't really want to think about that.
We had been getting more and more bad news from the infertility people. Just when we thought we'd hit the bottom, the bottom would give way and we'd be sliding down another tunnel of questions and pain and just anger really.
So, I tried to pray that day. My prayer was something like this:
"God, if you have kids for would you just show us dang it."
And the reply I felt in my spirit was." Well, Jeanette, you haven't exactly been looking."
So, I thought, Hm, I guess I could start looking. And for the next few hours I did. I had been given by friends some websites where you could view photo listings of waiting children and i began to do that.
I started praying for a connection with a child. Maybe a name, or maybe that the child loved music like we do. Something to let me know that the child was meant to be in our family.
I signed up on one particular sight that allowed me to create a profile where I could be matched to children according to our specifications of age etc.
Oddly, I guess I was being too picky, because I didn't get ANY matches.
So, then, I remembered something our friends had said about special needs kiddos. I included them in my profile and BINGO! Matches abounded.
I started looking at photos and watching videos and soon had about 100 kids in my profile. I wanted to parent them all! I knew that wasn't realistic though. So We had to narrow it down.
I was so excited to show Bill.
He was totally on board with a special needs child and so it began. In the end, god did the narrowing for us, because out of the original children I put in my profile, only two remained in five months when we finally got serious about putting in our application.
When we finally made the call about the only two children left in our profile, we foudn out what coutry they were in. Just take a guess!
YOU GUESSED IT!!!
Ethiopia!
So there's your answer.
The kids we felt called to parent were not in Haiti. Had they been in Haiti, we'd be going there. Had they been in Madagascar....off we'd be.
But they were in Ethiopia. So THAT is Why Ethiopia!
Why Ethiopia? The Long Answer Part Five:
OK so I said this was a long answer....so for those who have asked me in person "Why Ethiopia?" and I don't know what to say...this is why. Its a lot for one conversation.
So, after reading the book, we kept pressing ahead with our infertility things that were going on at the time, and also, we were both taking classes for various things, so we were really busy. I didn't have time to be looking into adoption or so I thought.
For weeks, there were lots of little news soundbites, etc that kept coming across my path about people adopting from Ethiopia. One family, kept hearing about more siblings of their adopted child and went back to adopt them all!
And eventually, I did take some time here and there to look into adopting from the Congo and Zimbabwe...and it really just wasn't something that was set up and easy to do.
During this time, my husband and I were leading a small group bible study at our church with another couple and TWO different families in the same month contacted me asking for more details about our group and mentioned the fact that they were in the process of or had already adopted Ethiopian children! CRAZINESS!
Ethiopia was everywhere! :)
OK so I said this was a long answer....so for those who have asked me in person "Why Ethiopia?" and I don't know what to say...this is why. Its a lot for one conversation.
So, after reading the book, we kept pressing ahead with our infertility things that were going on at the time, and also, we were both taking classes for various things, so we were really busy. I didn't have time to be looking into adoption or so I thought.
For weeks, there were lots of little news soundbites, etc that kept coming across my path about people adopting from Ethiopia. One family, kept hearing about more siblings of their adopted child and went back to adopt them all!
And eventually, I did take some time here and there to look into adopting from the Congo and Zimbabwe...and it really just wasn't something that was set up and easy to do.
During this time, my husband and I were leading a small group bible study at our church with another couple and TWO different families in the same month contacted me asking for more details about our group and mentioned the fact that they were in the process of or had already adopted Ethiopian children! CRAZINESS!
Ethiopia was everywhere! :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)