...And wait some more...

I haven't updated since we've been back because the last 6 (!) weeks we have just been basically waiting. As I mentioned earlier, when we met Melaku's aunt at court, we found out he had siblings that we had not known about, and that were not listed in his file. It's a big deal when all the info in the file is not correct, so they had to have his aunt come back in at a later date and give all the correct info about his family. She did that, but apparently they also had to therefore have a new court date, which was set for March 8th. Hopefully everything will be finalized that day on the Ethiopian side.

Then, we have to wait some more for the U.S. visas to be processed, which typically takes about a month or so; so we're thinking at this point we'll probably be going back sometime in April to bring the boys back -- hopefully sooner!

The only way we can communicate with them is through letters carried back and forth by adoptive parents who travel there, so it's not too fast. We have sent letters to them a couple of times since we came back, and received some that were actually written before we traveled there in January. We've only gotten one letter from Z so far, but we've gotten lots from Melaku; he goes to school there at Layla House, and I think they have the kids write to their parents pretty frequently. Here is one of his letters:

"I love you my family. I'm so happy for my family. I miss you my family. I am very happy to see soon my family home and my bed. I'm excited to go to America. Sunday is play time soccer ball. Manchester United and Arsnal. Manchester United name is Z-Man, Melaku, Roba, Biniam, Zemdun, Dawit. Arsnal name is Biruk, Shiferaw, Ashenafi, Abi big, Abi small, Samuel. The winner is Manchester United 16 and Arsnal 14 golls. The golls Z-Man 4, Melaku 4, Zemdun 4, Dawit 3, Biniam 1 Bye Bye."

We also got a letter from Meseret which was sweet:

"Dear my family,

I am so fine and merry Christmas to all of you and thank you for that letter sent to me and I am so happy that you adopt us!!! Now I am learning and everything is fine. Thank you so much for everything!!! I love you so much all of you!!"

We needed about $6000 more for our final (yay!) expenses for this last trip, and about a week ago a good friend of ours told us that God spoke to her to give us $3500 of that! What an awesome, amazing blessing that was! So we are very close, only needing about $2500 more. 

Please pray with us for this final amount to come in, and especially for everything to go smoothly on March 8, so that we can bring the boys home soon!