Waiting for Referral Update:

I got up to this this morning:

Two America World Families in the Ethiopia program received referrals on Thursday May 29th

Infant Girl: DTE October 5th 2007
Infant Boy: DTE October 5th 2007

Based on the new referrals. The wait time for both infant girl & infant boy is 7-9 months from Dossier Submission or DTE (Dossier to Ethiopia).

Our DTE is 10/19/07. I had already figured out that the 5-7 months wait wasn't quite right since we have been waiting 7 1/2 months now. *SIGH*

We finally connected with our program coordinator this morning to see what is going on. Our child's blood was sent for lab work last week, and it usually takes 10-15 days for AWAA to receive the results. So, that will likely have us looking at our referral next week. (Seems like it has been 1-2 weeks away for the last 2 months!) I guess this means that he is at the transition home!

This is really hard. Harder than I expected. I think it is worse since we are up against the court date deadline without even having our referral in hand, and court is not moving well.

Jumping ahead a step to court...

It is really uncertain as to whether we will get our case through court before it closes in early August. This will depend on how well cases are moving through. Right now, they're not moving very well due to the power shortage and paperwork issues.

Our getting through court will also depend on how our child came to be an orphan. If he was abandoned, he will need to be in orphan care for 60 days before he can go to court. If he was relinquished, he can go to court when our agency can get him a court date.

The courts will be closed for about 2 months, early August through early October. After courts re-open, guess what? There is a mad scramble with the back-log and more delays.

Please join us in praying specifically that our referral would come soon and that we would pass court before the court closure in August. There are still a lot of steps between uniting us with our son.