update

It seems that our paperwork glitch is a bit bigger than we anticipated... We are still hopeful that it might be cleared up next week. That would be great news for us!

The rest of the week has been busy with trips to Soddo and to Adama. Some long and busy days there! But what an amazing experience! It has been wonderful to get out of the city and see some of the countryside. I am keeping a journal that i will post when we get home - we only have dial up here at the guesthouse - so no photos till we get home... Its all been amazing and overwhelming. We are so in love with Ethiopia!!! There has been so much to take in and digest -some very easy and more very difficult. The people are so amazing and we feel like we have family here now.

Today we did some shopping and it was hard to stop :) So many beautiful things! We visited the Former Wood Carrier shop this morning. They weave amazing scarves!! Took lots of pictures and will put them up when we are home. We had Marcos - some might know that name :) take us shopping and he got some good deals for us. One shop keeper told us 'he is dangerous'!!! He got some good prices!! Marcos toured us around and also took us the Ghion Hotel where we enjoyed the park and some lunch.

We managed to sneak a peak at Bedi yesterday. We were at the orphanage just for a few seconds. Germachew told us that the nannies think he will be a scientist - he examines things very carefully. It is so evident how much they love him! He cried again... but he is warming up just a little bit.

Its so hard to believe that we have to leave in just a few days!! The good news is that we will be coming back soon - its going to be hard to leave that second time!!!!

Court

Hi there, we had our court appointment this morning. Unfortunately we didn't pass this time. We were missing our MOWA letter and as soon as it comes we will pass. Martha was thinking it might come as soon as today and hopefully before we have to leave next week. I won't lie, it is disappointing! It is just a formality and nothing is in question so that is good. It is just a matter of one paper. As soon as the paper comes we will be able to see him again. Until then, we have some busy days ahead of us. On Wed/Thurs we will travel to Soddo to see where he was born. On Friday we will travel to Adama with the other families who get to have visits with their kids. Hopefully we will have good news in the next post that we have officially passed court!

what a day

just so you know. i am keeping a diary that i will down load to the blog when we get home. i feel like if i don't write things down right away i will forget the details. So, this is just a brief story of our day. Seeing our boy was something else. I knew him right away - and he knew us cause he was the only one in the room that started to cry!!! We sat on the floor and played with the other 7 kids and waited for him to warm up a bit. It didn't take long to have him playing peek-a-boo with us. What a time! In the end we were left alone with all the kids and he crawled over to me and wanted me to pick him up - melt my heart... He is tiny but healthy and great. We saw 4 teeth in there - and he crawls with lightening speed. It was quite a morning. We spent the rest of the day recuperating and resting - feeling the jet lag! Tonight we walked to a pizza place not far from the guesthouse and had a great time there. Tomorrow we are going to church in the morning. By the way - the weather is amazing!!! I could get used to it!

We made it!

Hello from Ethiopia!!!

We arrived this afternoon, have settled in to our room and had a bit of a rest. Our flights went well and all of our luggage arrived in one piece. Right now we can't access email or facebook...hopefully we can figure it out. We are going to keep it short for now. Tomorrow at 10:00 am we will go to the orphanage and meet Bedi for a short visit! It is still so surreal - tomorrow we will see our son for the first time!!!!

That is all we know for now - will tell more when the jet lag fog clears.

love
Mike and Brenda

Bags are packed!

This day has finally come. The bags are packed - and weighed - lots of room to bring home some goodies!!! The lists have been checked and double checked. We are officially ready to roll. Before we know it we will be at the airport and ready to begin this trip of a life time.

Its been so busy getting ready to leave that I am sure it will sink in at some point that we will soon be meeting our son. That is just an amazing concept to me - not sure exactly when it will sink in.

I want to take this time to thank all of you - for your love and support through the years. God has been faithful and we can see His hand in each step of the way (even though we don't always understand the 'why'). Many of you have been part of His plan for us and we thank you. So, keep us in your prayers as we experience this trip of a life time. We look forward to sharing it with you!!!!

Next...

The adoption process is long and complicated. I figured maybe i would connect some of the dots for you all.

So, last week we got our court date. - By the way this court date is 4 years and 5 days since we started our adoption... That story however could be a whole new post. - This means we fly to Ethiopia (in 27 days!) and appear in court there. We stand before the judge and answer a few questions. At this point we become Bedi's parents legally. There is always a chance that we might not pass on the first try. When we go for court a representative from the Ministry of Women's Affairs (MOWA) needs to be there and present the judge with a letter to support our adoption. It is common for this letter to not be ready at the time of the court date. This usually results in a conditional pass, you pass when the letter is presented to the court.

After the successful court date, we get to visit our boy. This will be a one time visit for probably a few hours. If we don't pass court we don't get to see our boy :(

During the rest of our trip we plan to do some travelling and site seeing in Ethiopia. We are really looking forward to that.

Then we will come home and wait for the rest of the process. We had talked about staying and waiting for his visa in Ethiopia. This plan has changed. The time line is so uncertain so we have decided that we will be coming home and waiting here.

After our court date, Bedi will be issued a new birth certificate and a new passport. This should take about 2 or 3 weeks.

When those documents are secured, we can then apply for a visa. He will need a visa to travel to Canada. There is one Canadian consulate in Nairobi (Kenya) that services many African countries including Ethiopia. This part can take any where between 2 days and 20 weeks.

While we are very excited to have a court date, we still have a few more hurdles to jump. We are definitely getting closer - the end is in site.

We want to thank you all for the love, support and prayers!! We would have never made it this far without all of you!!!!

Light at the end of the tunnel

Yes - that's right. We can now see that tiny little light at the end of this huge crazy tunnel. On Thursday we got news of our court date! Its funny how this news always comes in a little email. Usually only one or two sentences tell us some kind of huge news. So, March 5th is our date. To be honest I was disappointed that it was SO FAR AWAY... But the process includes 2 court dates. One is for Birth Parents/Social Workers and then one month later is the date for Adoptive Parents. So, Feb 2 is our first date and then March 5 is our second date. In reality this is fairly quick.

I am not having the reaction I thought i would have. Mike is the very excited one and I am getting there. I feel a huge sense of relief but more than anything I am still in shock. You see for the last almost 4 years we have had no sense of timing. We tried to guess and maybe, sort of come up with some kind of time line which has always been way off. This time we have a date. We have a count down. We KNOW when we are going. We KNOW when we will see our boy. Its kind of freaking me out to be honest. We are making TRAVEL plans... I am buying things. Its all feeling a bit crazy.

On every kind of holiday i would daydream and dare to ask myself - will we have a baby next Christmas 0r our next camping trip or next summer... and the answer appears to be yes.

Now the other thing is that it is not over yet. This is like the 7th inning stretch. Its fun to do and it means the game is coming to a close - but it ain't over yet. Still so many things to wait for and some of the hardest part is coming. The sweet sweet day we will see our boy for the first time and the day we have to leave him and come home. I knew this day was coming - I did and I would tell myself "it won't be that bad" - many others have done it. But i know I am going to be a HUGE mess. This, I am not looking forward to - in fact dreading it. We were really trying to figure out how we could make the 'long' stay work - but in reality we just can't do it. I will be on cloud nine if we have to turn around 5 weeks after we get home and go right back to pick him up!!!

So, YAYYYYYYYY we have our court date!! It is exciting to be at this place FINALLY. But with it comes a whole new set of scary and crazy - which we should be used to by now. We are grateful and we are thankful and we are happy! And as my co-worker J would say 'strength for the journey'!