GOOD NEWS and NEW NEWS

GOOD NEWS!: We received our FDL (Favorable Determination Letter) form the US Immigration office. This means that our I-600A form was approved and basically that the US government is ok with us adopting an international orphan. The approval gets sent to Addis Ababa and will wait there for us and our beautiful baby. So we are officially DONE with all the paperwork, letters, notaries, signatures and forms....that is until we get our referral, then there is a whole new stack of papers to sign and forms to approve...yikes. But this is a huge step so we are excited.
NEW NEWS: There has been a change in the process that will affect all families adopting from Ethiopia; regardless of agency. This change has been in the works for awhile but is now actually taking effect. Due to some highly publicized but very rare issues with some recent adoptions the Ethiopian gov has decided that they will no longer allow a representative for the family attend the 1st court date. The old process was that we gave a Power of Attorney Letter authorizing someone from AGCI to act in our behalf at the court. Now we are required to attend court. So what that means is that we will have to travel TWICE to Ethiopia. The trips will be 5-7 weeks apart (we think) and our child will come home with us on the 2nd one. The downside: significant extra cost and missed work and having to leave our baby after meeting her; the benefits: meeting our baby sooner than later, more time to bond with her, more time to see Ethiopia, and we are working on doing a dental service mission for the children in Hannah's Hope and as many of the other orphanages we can!!
So overall we are excited but of course a little concerned with the extra costs. We have so far been blessed with everything we need in the process and continue to rely on Heavenly Father with faith and prayer.
Thanks to all those who continue to support us
PS chantel has been asking me to post this for at least a month, I am kinda a blog slacker I guess..but it's done now