This is the Year

We’ve been a little lower profile on updates since things were not turning out as we were hoping or sharing with others. After Thanksgiving with the big disappointment of that weekend’s events in Ethiopia, December was looming before us and I was dreading it. I had really been mentally preparing to be gone from the country, missing out on many Christmas activities, Troy had saved up his vacation for our trip and so it was a tough adjustment to know we would not be travelling that month. In the end it did go quickly and all the festivities of Christmas probably helped it pass. The biggest heartache was just wanting to be with our little girl so we could celebrate with her and start our life with her!  Last Christmas was hard after losing the referral of Meskerem and this Christmas had another ache because we were missing Samira.

2018 has come and we have renewed hope as good progress has been made on our case. Our agency is very optimistic about our case and we really hope we will be travelling no later than next month. If you were to tell me on March 29^th, 2017 that it would be 11 months before meeting our daughter I may have thrown in the towel, been in despair, or just felt hopeless.  It’s crazy to us it’s been almost that long but the little dates we’d countdown to each time we had a court date or something go on with our case have made it manageable. Although I’d always say to know the date we will go would be so nice to mentally prepare for, I see God’s grace in protecting us from that now. It has kept us on our knees, asking God for His hand in every step since our referral. Things not going as good as they could have would get us down but they did give us smaller goals to look toward until the next appointment or court date. Right now we are praying in the next few weeks the judge has all he needs for our case and will set our court date to appear before him.

We hope the end is in sight…..we are feeling very ready at this point and are eager to start bonding with this precious girl!