Still no word on when we go back to bring Derartu home. Our agency submitted her paperwork to the Embassy twice and it was kicked back. On the third attempt the Director of Layla House talked to a high ranking official at the US Embassy and was told that all cases coming from the region where Derartu is from are being investigated. Apparently this region has been found to have a much higher level of fraud. So instead of submitting the file to have the US Embassy investigate, our Director kept the file and hired an independent attorney to do the investigation as it would be much quicker that way. We checked in last week to see where they were at on the investigation. The only response we got was that the attorney said it would be another week. So we still have our fingers crossed that this week will finally be the week that we get the good news to travel.
We try every day to ask God for patience and understand why this process is going like it is. One of the things that could happen as a result of this delay is that we can bring both of them home at the same time if Abdu's case follows a fairly "normal" timeline. This would save us time and money so that would be good. The other thing we have learned a bit about and will likely pursue is a trip when we are there to go to Derartu's home town to meet the birth family. This is something our agency can arrange for us and we have had other families tell us that it is a wonderful thing that we should not pass on. Lastly, we have had time to get Faith her passport so we think we might take both Kyle and Faith with us on this trip. This would be the trip of a lifetime for them.
We met some great people from Colorado on our court trip in November. We have kept in close contact with them since that trip. They went last week to bring their boys home and were gracious enough to get some pictures of Derartu and Abdu while they were there. Here they are looking great. We miss them so much and can't wait to get back to them!
