complete.

Our Bonsa boy is home.

Our hearts are so full.

Thank you all for your prayers and encouragement and support.

Your love has overwhelmed us throughout the whole process.

And I feel like we'll be forever indebted to our friends and family.

We know that the journey of adoption doesn't end when a child comes home.

But the emphasis is no longer on the adoption process, but on our family now.

So, thanks for following along with this blog -

all updates will now be on our family blog.

waiting

Understandably, the most common question I receive these days is: 

When do you get to bring Bo home?

My typical answer: 

I don't know. We've heard that the "average" wait time after passing court is 6-8 weeks.

That's probably best case scenario. We are trying not to get our hopes up too high.

That being said, we were submitted to Embassy a few days ago.
That means they begin the process of "orphan status verification" - making sure that Bo is truly an orphan. The individual who found Bonsa has to be interviewed, the police contacted by this individual have to be interviewed, documents have to be reviewed... etc. etc. etc.
And honestly - we are glad that the process is thorough.

Yes, the wait is hard. Yes, I look at his picture several times throughout the day.
But no, I'm not spending my days sad or angry.
Through your prayers & ours, God has granted us an abundance of patience.
We're enjoying time together and savoring this last "baby-moon" phase.
I'm slowly putting together things that I want to pack for our trip. (Wait til you see his Embassy outfit.)
And making sure the nursery is ready. (All we really need to be baby-functional is a car seat!)
So we spend our days in eager anticipation.

Because at the end of the day, we know Who is writing the story.

...and yeah, we're pretty excited to get this kid in some boy clothes.

1st trip wrap-up

Parts 4&5 of our trip to Ethiopia for court are on the family blog!

july 4, 2012

We got an email this afternoon informing us that our case passed court.

Which means little Bonsa is officially our son.

back home

Just a brief update to say that we're home from our first trip to Ethiopia.

Court was much easier than we anticipated - we are "approved", but not yet official. They're waiting on a letter from the Ministry of Women's Affairs (they're in charge of all adoptions in Ethiopia), and anticipate that everything should be official any day!

Unfortunately for everyone waiting on pictures, that means we still can't post anything.

Meeting our little bean was the most amazing thing we've ever experienced...
Will try to compose myself to give more details when we can post pictures.

Prayer requests:
- That our MOWA letter would speed along so we can officially be B's parents.
- That our embassy date would then speed along so we can bring him home for good!!

--
EDIT: Part 1 of our trip detailed here.

Quick Update from Ethiopia!

Hi friends & fam!

We have been in Addis Ababa since 3:30am on Monday. Things are going well! Right now we're just relaxing in our room at the guest house, watching the city in the rain.

Tomorrow we meet our little guy - I can't even believe it. We'll leave our guest house around 9am and will be meeting B around 11am (4am EST).

Court is on Friday at 1pm (6am EST).

Thank you for your continued prayers!

We love you all!

moving forward...

A few people have asked for an explanation of our timeline moving forward. 

Here's what we know at this point (along with some pictures from our 2009 trip to Ethiopia).

We will be flying to Ethiopia the week of June 25th. Doug is buying tickets TODAY.

We will meet B on Thursday, June 28.

We go to court on Friday, June 29.

After passing court (much prayer appreciated!!!), B will officially be our son.

We'll come back home to the USA probably the day after court.

B will, sadly, not be coming with us.

After passing court, we will await our embassy date, at which point we will fly BACK to Ethiopia.

We really have no clue how long this will take. It could be 6 weeks, it could be 6 months.

(You can all be praying for 6 weeks!!)

It is after this trip to Ethiopia for Embassy that we will bring B home.

Can't be soon enough.

Hope this helps answer some questions for everyone!

Please feel free to ask anything. 

And as always - please continue praying for us & for B & for all the details.

We are so appreciative of all the support and love we've been shown!

Thank you!!

court date!

Friends.

Family.

Internet.

WORLD.

We have a court date.

We will be meeting our son on (or even a few days before?!) June 29!!!!!

HOLY COW.

I am bouncing all over the place in excitement right now. 

JUNE 29.

Dossier. Done.

We put this bad boy in the mail yesterday.

I felt both immensely relieved and slightly panicky at the same time.

Please PRAY that our dossier arrives quickly.

Please PRAY that all of our documents are correct!

Please PRAY for a rapid translation and quick submission to court!

oh, hey.

It is with great joy and incredible excitement that

Doug & I have accepted a referral for an 8-month old baby boy!

We are awaiting information about our court date for "Baby Boy B".

We are keeping his Ethiopian name as his first name,

so we can't share that information on the blog yet.

We're also not allowed to share any pictures via the internet,
but we have hard copies that we'd love to show you in person.

Thank you for your continued prayer & support in this journey!

We can't thank you enough for all the love we've been shown.

God is so good.

glimpses of ethiopia

Celebrating the arrival of our I-171H with some shots from my 2010 trip to Ethiopia. 

I was going to do pictures from both trips, but this post got long quickly...

 Just a glimpse of the country we love...

state police & ethiopian cuisine

1. We got our MI State Police clearance letters in the mail today! That is the last document, aside from our "fingerprinting approval" (technical form is I-171h), is the last document we've been waiting for. Friends... after our fingerprinting on Tuesday, our dossier will be - fingers crossed - COMPLETE!

... Then we just have to send it all over the place and essentially get everything re-approved. Ugh.

Anyway!

2. Doug & I finally went to the local Ethiopian restaurant - Addis Ababa. For those who don't know, Addis Ababa is the capital of Ethiopia, and it means "new flower". Isn't that lovely?! Here are some pictures from our evening.

Walking up:

We were given the option of sitting at a booth or a "basket". We chose the basket.

This is a really convenient dining style - 

You take the basket top off and place the platter of food on top of the basket, 

then after dinner, you just pull up the corners of the cloth, and voila! Your "table" is cleared!

Injera, topped with a variety of meat and veggies. 

Note to anyone who's had injera - they did not make this with teff, so the texture was the same, but it lacked that ... charming vinegar taste. 

 Digging in! So, so good.

 Ethiopian tea! I've never tried this before and it was AMAZING. 

Sweet & spicy & delicious!! 

(Sara, I asked if they had macchiatos, and sadly, they didn't...)

And, I think for my next post, I'll steal my friend Sara's idea - posting some pictures from our trip to Ethiopia so anyone who reads this blog can see some pictures of the country love.

family photos

For our dossier, Doug & I have to include "3-5 Family Pictures". We took a couple today, because we don't have many recent pictures of the two of us together.

 Aw, look at this lovely... KILLER DOG?! Who in their right mind would place a child in this family?!

Ah, thank goodness for the "crop" option...

So, after we print and notarize these photos (yes, we have to make sure these are true representations of our family!), we will have only 3 remaining documents for our dossier: state police clearances (our work is done for this - we are awaiting the clearance letters in the mail), power of attorney & affidavit of the dossier.

ALMOST DONE!

fingerprinting scheduled!

Doug & I received our fingerprinting appointments in the mail yesterday - May 17th!

Every day is a day closer.

I-600A...

... is mailed! 

If you don't know: this document is kind of our request for permission from the US Department of Homeland Security to adopt internationally. Once we receive their approval, they'll mail us another form and our appointment for finger-printing. In the meantime, we'll finish up getting documents for our dossier! 

half.way.

Our home study is officially DONE. Our narrative was approved by our placing agency, so now we're back to filling out more forms and compiling more paper work.

BUT.

This is the halfway point for our end of things.

He is renewing our strength.
Helping us mount up with wings like eagles
so that we may run and not be weary
we may walk and not be faint.

... Or, so that we may dive head first into our dossier and not pass out.

high five.

- Adoption education: complete.
- Home study visits: complete.
- Home study narrative: being revised. I'm hoping our social worker will send it this week!
- Parent resource worksheet: ready to be printed & mailed to CHI.
- Dossier? Bring it on.

In the words of the thankfully inimitable Barney Stinson (of course I don't watch that dreadful show...): WHAT. UP.

(mini celebration dance)

We received the rough draft of our home study narrative from our social worker this morning!

AND our last home study visit will be next Thursday!

Wahoooo!

home study paperwork: done!

Today we mailed our home study paperwork to Adoption Advocates!

sweet ethiopian bean...

we are getting closer.

inching forward.

Just a little update for anyone interested - 

Yesterday, I had my physical and got some blood work done. 

When the results are in, I just need to get the paperwork notarized, and then we are done with the paper chase for our home study!