Adoption Update

We are so close to sending our paper work off to Ethiopia and getting on the wait list for a referral. We have everything we need except my passport. Which I applied for on March 27. We saved pass ports for the time we would be waiting for all the government documents to come back. Not realizing it could take so long to get one. So I called yesterday and payed $72 to have mine expedited. It should come this week. Then we mail 3 copies of everything off to AWAA. They review everything and send it to Ethiopia. It is that date that we become DTE. Dossier to Ethiopia. DTE = on the wait list. Currently the wait for our request is 7-11 months for referral. Referral = receive a picture and information on our child. At that point we accept the referral and wait for a court date (typically 2 months) and then she will legally be ours.

EXCEPT


I have shared before about the turmoil in the Ethiopian government about international adoptions. Officials in the MOWCYA (I think I got the right initials) are investigating adoptions further. There is a recommendation letter you must have on your court date that is written by the MOWCYA. In the past they were writing about 40-50 letters a day. We just received an update that they are indeed only writing 5 letters a day right now. This means a 7 month wait could turn into a 5 year wait. HUGE. OR worst case scenario, they could close the country to adoption completely and we would lose everything we have invested. We have prayed, we have researched, we have had late night soul searching talks. And we are going to take a leap of faith. We truly feel like God pulled our hearts to Ethiopia for a reason. We have this incredible love for this little girl we don't know yet. So when we mail our dossier in we will be sending a huge check along with it. No turning back. Please pray with us that the conflict in Ethiopia gets resolved and that officials see the good that can come from adoption. Please pray that the children ending up in these orphanages are coming from the 4.6 million orphans on the streets and not being coerced out of their parents hands with a promise of a better life in America. And that MOWCYA will again start approving these adoptions.