Ethiopia Trip #1: The Basics

My goal is to have a blog a day this week....or close to it.  We've been running crazy since the moment our plane landed in the states and we're honestly still struggling to just do real life....but we know we need to update you all on what went down.  So let's start with the basics.

-First off, I've been telling everyone.....the trip was FABULOUS!  Such an awesome time.

-We got to meet our son for the first time.  We spent a few hours on Monday and Tuesday of our trip with him (more on all of that in another post).  Suffice it to say that HE IS AWESOME!

-We cleared Ethiopian court (which we shared with you from Ethiopia).  This basically means the country of Ethiopia recognizes Elias as our son now.

-So why didn't he come home with you?  Well the United States government now has to have their say.  All our paperwork (and some more that we're adding to it this week) goes to the US Embassy in Ethiopia.  They go through it and make sure everything looks good.  They've already approved us to bring A child in the US.....now they have to say that THIS child is the one.

-Any idea how long that will take?  They tell us 6-8 weeks.  Could be sooner.  Could be longer.  We've done this enough to not put time tables and hopes on things. 

-This will sound silly.....but bear with me......if you could take out the fact that we got to meet our son for the first time, and take out the fact that we cleared court......this would've still been an awesome trip.  We got to see things we've never seen in Ethiopia before.  We got to go places we haven't gone before.  We met new friends, we caught up with old friends.  We tried new places to eat and new foods.  We'll try to share some of this side of our trip in the coming days as well.

FOR YOU:
-Prayer.  We aren't done yet.  We need you to pray us the whole way through this thing.  There are still lots of details that need to be worked on...which we'll be sharing in the coming days.  Today literally we're finishing more paperwork....cause you know we haven't done enough yet.

-Also pray for little E.  We want him home now.  We want him to be safe and loved up on.