Here We Go!!!!

It's time!!! We're all packed up and ready to go to Ethiopia!! A big THANK YOU to our amazing Sunday School students and their parents for all of the wonderful donations that are packed away in those big blue totes and one of the suitcases pictured above. The children at Hannah's Hope will be so blessed because of your love and support!

Many people have asked when we will be bringing our children home. It all depends on whether or not we pass court on August 5th. If all of our paperwork is in order and the judge has received our approval letter from the Ethiopian Ministry of Women's, Children's and Youth Affairs (MOWCYA), then we could possibly travel back to Ethiopia four to six weeks later to bring our children home. However, MOWCYA has reduced the number of letters that they process each day, so our approval letter may not be present for our court date. If this is the case, it will delay the process. Because the Ethiopian court system shuts down for a month and a half beginning on August 6th, we really don't know what to expect. We may have to wait until the courts reopen at the end of September before they will look at our case again. Lately, most families have not been passing court the first time. This could add several weeks or months to our timeline. (We will not need to be present when they examine our case again.) God knows exactly what will happen and when, and we are trusting His perfect will to be done.

We would appreciate your prayers this week as we travel (it's a loooonnnggg flight), as we meet our boys for the first time, for the twins as they try to process what is happening, for the twins' birth mother as she attends her court appointment on Monday, for our children who stay at home with their grandparents, for their grandparents (11 days is a long time to babysit), and for our health as we experience a different culture with different foods and unsafe water. Thank you so much! We know that God is going before us and preparing the way, and we pray He would be glorified this week as our adoption journey continues to unfold.

Due to unreliable internet service in Ethiopia, I most likely will not be posting anything to my blog while we are there. I plan to take lots of photos, though, and will share them along with an account of our trip when we return.

Hope everyone has a great week! See you later, and off we go!