What now?

I keep being SO thankful for God's goodness to us these past couple of weeks. There are some families who turned in paperwork the same day we did who are still waiting for a referral and many who received a referral months before us who have a court date later than us. I don't know why God has been so generous to us, but I am so very thankful to have received a referral and court date this month!

So, what happens between now and traveling? A lot.

1. April 1 - Joseph and I will get re-fingerprinted up in Indy. We might have committed some terrible crime in the past year and our fingerprints expire in early May. Silly, silly.
   
2. April - Joseph and I will finish up our vaccinations. We'll receive tentative travel dates from our agency and begin working on flights and planning travel.
   
3. End of April - We'll get an update on our baby boy with pictures and updated medical information. We can ask five particular questions too, so if you have any good questions to ask about a 7 month old we'd love to hear them!
4. April, May or June - We'll have a baby shower!! I'll let you know when and where as soon as I know.
5. 1st week of May - Week of prayer for our pending court date, MOWA (Ethiopia's social services type organization) will prepare paperwork for our court date, our agency should find out if our baby's birthmother and/or living relatives will be summoned to court, if so, they will contact them and arrange/pay for their travel
6. May 11 - court date!!!! This is the biggie. About 30% of families do not pass their first court date, so we do covet your prayers that all paperwork is in order, relatives can appear at court if needed, judge is not sick, electricity is on . . . you get the idea :-)
   
7. From here it takes one of two paths. If we do not pass, we're back to waiting for our agency to get a court date, which can take 1 week - 3 months. If we DO pass, we move on.
8. May 12-? - We will get our official travel dates, AWA gets adoption decrees, a birth-certificate, passport, ID's, official consulate TB testing, and all kinds of other stuff in order for us to come to Ethiopia for our final consulate appointment.Pray that this is all able to be completed quickly. Any number of factors can delay this process and it needs to be completed before we travel.
9. Late May or early June - we'll travel to Ethiopia to sightsee for a week, then meet up with other AWA families in Addis for a week of adoption activities.
10. Finish up some final paperwork in Addis, meet our baby boy for the first time!!!!, go to the consulate appointment, get him a Visa, and head on home!!
11. Met with MUCH rejoicing back in Bloomington!!!!!!!!
12. Re-adopt in Indiana :-) Fun, fun, but at least I'll get to see our cute son.