What's Next?

Well, now that we have finally seen the face of our sweet son, what's next?

As I mentioned in the referral post, we've been filling out some paperwork.  We've had the referral for 4 days and I've been to Fed Ex twice and our downtown government offices once.  I'm afraid to count the number of emails I've sent.  The faster our paperwork was completed the faster our agency could start working on getting us a court date, so we felt quite the sense of urgency.  

The girls and I at Fed Ex overnighting our referral acceptance paperwork!

Our referral came at a somewhat difficult time in respect to the next steps.  As of late, families have been receiving a court date about two months after their referral.  Unfortunately we are coming up against the court closures over in Ethiopia.  They close during August and September for Ethiopia's rainy season.  Our agency has said they will try and get us a court date before the closures, but  I honestly don't think I've ever seen a family get a court date that quickly and there are quite a few families in the same boat with us.  In order to keep my sanity, I'm planning on our court date to be in October and if we get one for early August I can be very pleasantly surprised.

Whether the court date is in August, October or some other time he is not officially ours until we pass that court date.  We will travel to be present for our court date, but we will have to leave him in Ethiopia and come home.  Then the U.S. embassy in Ethiopia will look at our case and eventually issue his visa so he can come to the U.S.  This will also take a month or two and at that point we will travel back to Ethiopia to bring him home.  We pray that both the court and the embassy steps will go smoothly and we will be able to bring Brother home by the end of the year...if not sooner!!!

Right now we are waiting patiently for all of these things to transpire, but it hasn't even been a week.  On our end, save for a few outfits, we are 100% prepared for him to be home today; so, I don't know how long I'll be able to keep up the "patiently" part of this next phase of waiting.  I suppose I learned a few lessons in the wait for referral that I will have to fall back on.  :-)

Would you please pray that these next steps of getting a court date, passing court, and our embassy investigation would go smoothly?  There are so many possible ways for these next steps to get bumpy or we could easily fly through them.

P.S. In case you are wondering why there are no pictures or information about Brother, we cannot post pictures on blogs or Facebook or give our any identifying information about him until we have passed court and he is officially our son.  Yet another reason to pass court quickly!