Changes to Ethiopian Program

While we wait on our references to make their way to the Bethany office I'll update you on some changes to the Ethiopian Adoption Program.

Used to be that to adopt from Ethiopia only required one trip to the country. Now it requires two trips: one for court, and one for the embassy appointment when you pick up your child and bring them home. This means that the entire court process changed since when the adoptive parents were not there there was only one court date where the birth parents came, the court reviewed the adoptive parents paperwork and a decision was made. Now that the adoptive parents will be present the court thought it in everyone's best interest to create two court dates per adoption: one for the birth parents, and one for the adoptive parents. Also, an original birth certificate and photos of birth parents and the child are now required.

This means one main thing: more delays in an already long process. Now, at first I was feeling kind of upset about this. I'm thinking, man, this process is already so long and now it'll just mean a longer wait for a referral as they get used to a new court system, then a longer wait for a court date, then more money to travel TWICE, etc. etc. Problems, problems.

But as I keep thinking about it. I'm trying to remember that God holds all things in his hands. Yeah sure, humans can screw it up - but I firmly believe in his power and control to work all things for good.

So I started thinking of the positive. More delay also means: Zeke will be older when the new child comes (and hopefully potty trained!), more time means more time to come up with the money to travel, and here's the big one - if it were sooner, the child God has in mind for us may not even be born yet.

So yeah, there are many downsides to the new process. But a lot of upsides too!