Anxiously Waiting

We are packing and checking the list. I will probably take forever getting through airport security. I have managed to get all of my electronics in my carry on bag. The lap top computer, camera, video camera, portable DVD player, all the chargers and the power adapters you could imagine. I sure hope they don't have any weight restrictions on international flights. If so I am in trouble.

We are trying to figure out what we need to take vs. what we want to take. Our neighbor is a sales representative for a clothing company and is going to send along clothes for the CWA orphanage. Hopefully we can dedicate one entire suitcase just to that. We have also asked Sam's Club if they will donate vitamins and children's Tylenol that we can deliver to AHOPE. (AHOPE stands for African Hiv Orphans: Project Embrace, as you can probably guess from the name they care for Hiv/Aids positive orphans.) They have agreed to make a donation. We are still not sure how much they they plan on giving us or if they are going to help with some kind of matching agreement.

Our next concern is that the US Embassy has decided to do additional days through the holidays. Normally adoption embassy dates are always Tuesday, however, Christmas is on Tuesday, and New Years, is on Tuesday too. Which would mean that we would not be able to go until the first or second week of January. In order for children to still get home and in and effort not to have a huge back log they decided to fit adoption dates in on Thursday for both weeks! We are concerned that if we get an embassy date of the 27th of December we will have to leave on Christmas eve to be in Ethiopia on time. Please pray for us that we won't get that date! As great as it would be to get the kids sooner we would have to leave the boys alone for Christmas!

We feel horrible praying not to get and embassy date! But wow, it would be so hard for the younger boys to understand why we would choose to leave them to go get their new siblings on Christmas! Zoe is praying we do get the 27th so that she will still be on Christmas vacation and wont have TONS of homework upon her return. So once again we find ourselves trusting that God will do what is best for EVERYONE involved.