This is the day!

This is the day that the LORD has made;

let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Psalm 118:24

Several of you have e-mailed or called to ask about exactly what today involves.  So, I thought I'd take a minute to explain.  WE will not go before a judge today.  A judge in Ethiopia will review our case and file today.  A gentleman from our agency has the power of attorney to be present for us today.  After it has been reviewed with a fine tooth comb, if everything is in order, we will be approved.  If not, we will be postponed, probably until at least late January.  

Please understand, today is not really about determining if we would be an acceptable placement for the child.  That's what we spent the first six months of this year doing.  Today is about making sure that everything is in order and that the paperwork has been correctly completed on both sides.  The majority of issues come from the Ethiopian side of the file.  This is simply because they want to assure that all of their adoptions are done in an ethical fashion, with no coersion or exchange of money involved.   I appreciate that!

When we are approved, we will be assigned travel dates.  We should get those by Friday.  The dates will be somewhere between 3 and 5 weeks from today.  We can't wait!

We will know the results today, probably sometime between 1 and 5 PM.  We will update the blog as soon as we can this afternoon.  Ryan and I are attending the church's annual staff Christmas luncheon for a couple of hours this afternoon.  Not so sure how we're going to eat- but hey, it will be a great distraction while we wait those last few hours.  

Have a great morning, and we hope to have some good news and some precious photos of our boy to share with you this afternoon!  Thanks for all of your prayers and encouragement!