Good News!!!...and no news?????

Last Thursday we received the long awaited news that Derartu was cleared by the Embassy. This means that we are now free to go over and bring her home!!! I can't tell you how much of a relief it was to finally have this resolved. What a horrible time it was to wait and not know. Most adoptive parents say that once she comes home that we will forget what the waiting was like much like a women forgets about the labor and delivery once the baby has arrived. I have a hard time imagining that I will forget the roller coaster of emotions we have endured for 4.5 months, but we will see when she gets here. The obvious question is "when do you go get her?" The surprising answer is that we don't know yet. Under normal circumstances we would have chosen dates and booked plan tickets by now. But we were told two weeks ago that Abdu's case was going to be submitted to the Embassy. This was great news because if he was cleared then we would go get them both. Knowing our luck, guess what has happened? We have now gone the past two weeks and he still hasn't been submitted to the Embassy. Why? Because of a missing letter from the Ministry of Women's Affairs (MOWA). MOWA is an organization in Ethiopia that provides a lot of the documentation for the courts and embassy during the adoption process. I don't fully understand the reason for their existence or what their core mission is, but I do understand we need for them to write a lot of mandatory letters during the process. MOWA is the poster child for the Ethiopian way. What seems to be a routine letter that is required for Embassy submission all of the sudden is like the most drawn out process you have ever been a part of. Not only that, some times it will take two days to get a letter and others it takes weeks. It is almost like MOWA will get to it when they get to it, no rhyme or reason to the method. So that is where we stand. A little girl who is clear to come home but we can't because we are waiting for a routine letter to be submitted by MOWA so our son's case can go to the Embassy. Things will also get a little complicated the longer this drags into April because we have Faith's First Communion at the beginning of May. Her first communion is a hugely important life event that we don't want to become something we "have to get through" because we are recovering from the trip or preparing for the trip. This needs to be celebrated as the wonderful day that it is. I know I ask this every time, but keep praying that things get resolved VERY soon!