Great News!!!

We got a call yesterday from our case worker that the birth parent embassy interview went well! I was very relieved to hear that and felt a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. Now we wait for our PAIR letter from NBC here in the US. I have heard of another family getting theirs less than a week after their BP interview. So I am holding out hope that we might receive ours just as quickly so that we can send it onto Washington DC to get authenticated. I feel like we are accomplishing a lot but still so far away from meeting our girl. I have to take each step at a time and praise God when each one is accomplished. Someday soon I'll be holding our precious one in my arms!!!

So excited today!! We finally heard that we have a birth parent embassy date for this next Wednesday, January 29!!! I was looking for emails for two weeks now because the custom is for our family to be copied on the emails between our agency and the US Embassy but I received none of them. This afternoon our case worker surprised me and called to let us know that there was a date set up and very soon. So now we wait for this to occur and pray in the meantime that the family makes it and that everything goes well. After this is when they issue this new PAIR letter. Once we receive that in the mail we send it to Washington DC through a courier service to get authenticated from the State Dept. and the Ehi*pian Embassy. Once that is completed we send it onto Ethi*pia and their court will review our case and set up a birth family interview then we get our interview date with them. I have really no idea on a timeline on this but to guess I might say 7 or 8 weeks from this first interview. I would totally guess that we might end up going for our first trip around the middle of March. I would love for it to be much quicker but pray it isn't later. Thanks for following along with us on our journey.

Showing His Glory!!

      Well, He showed up and in a big way! The Friday before New Year's we received an email from our adoption agency concerning some talk about Ethi*pia closing all foreign adoptions. We honestly weren't too concerned from the way they worded everything but then by Saturday changed our mind. There was lots of news and talk about closing and we were very scared. We asked others urgently to pray and I think I was in constant communion with God on this matter. I felt like I was grieving and was so very worried that we wouldn't be able to bring our little one home. During this time I realized how guarded I was keeping my heart from fully loving our daughter. I had been so afraid of something bad happening that I kept up a wall. With the thought of really losing her I let down those walls and knew that I loved her with my whole heart. On Monday we received some very reassuring news that they were not going to close, at least anytime soon. I felt finally like I could breathe once again.
      Then we went to our friend's house for a long New Year's celebration and had tons of fun. On the last day that we were there I received a voice mail from our CW from our agency. She was asking if we had received two emails that morning about the US Embassy requesting a birth family interview. I had been checking my email on my phone a lot during the time that we were gone but didn't receive anything. I called her back and found out that they probably went to my spam and sure enough they did. I had just called NBC again that morning in hopes to find out some information on our case and had gotten our officer's voice mail. I had called two times within the last two weeks and had been told both times that it was still pending so I was completely shocked to learn that our case had in fact been sent on. I am praying for things to move quickly and miraculously fast from now on. He provided this nice surprise for us when we thought we were so far behind so I know the Lord can continue to move mountains and provide a miracle!!!