Gladney Approved, One Step Closer??

We received our Gladney approval on Friday, March 4.

I would have posted about this sooner, but it has been a crazy couple of weeks.  When I received the email on my phone, we were sitting at the hospital bedside of my father-in-law, who would walk into the arms of Jesus a few hours later after a battle with cancer.  I am pretty sure that at that point he could still hear what was going on in the room, so I am glad that we got the email when we did.  He asked often how the process was going, so I am glad he got to hear that we were one step closer to bringing home another grandchild to add to his current dozen.  :)

Aside from everything else that happened over the last week, our approval has not brought quite the excitement I was hoping for.  We really don't know if we are any closer to bringing home our kiddo.  With all the unknowns in Ethiopia right now, we just aren't sure what will happen.  We are praying that whatever is going on is just a temporary staffing issue that somewhere along the way something was misconstrued to be more than it is.  I don't know what the outcome will be, but I do know someone who does.  We know that God has led us every step of the way in this process, and we know that he is not going to leave us now to figure out the rest on our own.

Now, we are basically just waiting on our USCIS (immigration) approval, then our dossier will be complete, and we will be on the waitlist.  (We got a very official looking receipt from USCIS and they cashed our check, but we don't have our fingerprint appointments yet.)

The next few weeks should be super busy.  We are going to have another two garage sales (one at our house and one at my mom's)  at the beginning of April to add to our adoption fund.  Next week we will also celebrate Caden's and my birthdays.  That's right, they are 2 days apart.  I brought him home on my birthday. :)  Definitely the best birthday present I have ever gotten.

Please keep praying for us and all the other families that are in the process of adopting from Ethiopia.  As stressful as this is for us, I cannot even imagine the emotions of the families that have already seen their child's face or should have been receiving referrals any day.  Please pray that the government agencies in the Ethiopia that are meeting will come up with a system that is best for the orphans of Ethiopia and will give as many of them as possible a chance of growing up in a loving family.