Ethiopia Update

Greetings from TN! Sorry we have been blog silent for so long, this semester seems to be quite busy! I (Jason) am currently in the process of studying for my Master's in Theology Exams which take place March 25th, and Michelle is busy working on the hiring process for next year's Residential Life teams. So needless to say, we haven't spent tons of time blogging lately. But we are constantly anticipating the receiving of our referral!!

So here's the Ethiopia Update:

The government in Ethiopia has decided to change their procedures for Adoptive parents. Instead of being able to have a "Power of Attorney" attend all our court dates, we now have to attend, in person, the first court date after we have received our referral. (For those unfamiliar with this process here's a brief overview: sometime in the near future we will receive a referral, which is a picture, name and medical history of a baby boy in Ethiopia. Once we accept that referral and agree to adopt that child the government in Ethiopia requires a few court dates to make the adoption official. Originally, our "Power of Attorney" could attend all these court dates for us. Then, after about 3-5 months and a few court dates, we would travel to Ethiopia to pick up our son.)

With the new change, we will still get our referral in about the same time frame as before (any day now hopefully), but instead of our "Power of Attorney" going to court, we will have to travel to Ethiopia to appear before the courts. Ideally, our going to Ethiopia won't change the timing of this first court date (about 4-6 weeks after we accept the referral). After we appear before the courts, it will still take about 8-12 weeks before we can officially bring our baby boy home. So we will more than likely be going back to Ethiopia for a second trip, but this time to bring our baby home! There is a possibility that our adoption agency could arrange an escort service so we wouldn't have to travel to Ethiopia a second time, but those details are still being figured out.

There is a conference call we are going to be a part of today (Thursday) that should help us understand these changes in better detail. We'll keep you all posted as we find out more.

For now...please keep praying for our son's safety and care. Pray for those who are caring for him. Pray for his parents who are dealing with the difficult decision to give their child up for adoption. And pray for this change in procedures, that the transition will be smooth and that delays won't be long or even existent.

One awesome positive out of this change is that we will more than likely be traveling to see our son much earlier than we had anticipated! So we'll be able to get a bunch of pictures and videos to share with everyone as we anticipate his arrival to his new home!!