WE HAVE A COURT DATE!!!!

This morning began with a lot of emails to weed through. The first one I noticed was from a family who is in Ethiopia and was sending new pictures to us of our daughter. Of course - I opened it immediately and I was so blessed to see how much she has changed. Her face is beginning to fill out. Her color looks beter! The way her had was in one of the pictures, it looked like she was pointing right at our picture. So cute!!

And THEN.... I opened the "court date" email from Anna. I was so nervous! I am in Longview on my in-laws computer and they have a really slow connection so it was taking the page FOREVER to pull up. And then I read it!!! I immediately yelled out - OH MY GOSH!!!!!!! My mother-in-law and my sister-in-law were here with me and we all started screaming shouts of joy! Our court date is MAY 13!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hello - that's just 2 short weeks away! If was pass - which we are fervently praying for - we will travel anywhere between 2.5 and 4 weeks after the court date. OH MY - We could be in Ethiopia as early as 4.5 weeks from now. YIKES! I have some serious packing and preparations to attend to!

Needless to say - I can hardly stand all this great news! I am beside myself.

Just a testimony about how good God is....

When we received our referral and became aware of how serious our daughter's malnutrition was I felt very compelled by the Lord to ask America World if there was any way we could expedite her court date so she could get the medical attention she might need. But I hesitated to ask that because so many families are waiting and so many children are in need. A few minutes later my friend, Karen, called. She knew nothing about what was on my heart and she knows very little about the adoption process but she said, "I really think you need to ask your agency to expedite your case." Right then, I knew I was supposed to ask.

I submitted my request by email - nervously. I didn't want anyone to think I was being pushy or something. AND I fully expected them to right back and say... we can't do that.

The next day America World sent an email and it said that they were going to do everything they could to expedite our case. I was thrilled to say the least. But a few days later I received an email again from AW that said the judge in ET said they can not expedite cases regarding malnutrition. AW was sad to reveal this news to me and was so worried that I would be disappointed.

I was a little disspointed, of course, but only for a minute because right away the Lord reminded me that the expediting of this case was not really up to an Ethiopian judge - but THE Judge of judges - King Jesus. I immediately started praying to God saying, "The Ethiopian judge may have said no, but you put this on my heart and you can move mountains. You control this case, not the ET judge. Please move on his/her heart and expedite our case."

Let me just say that as I prayed that I was thinking an expedited date would be anywhere between May 30 and early June. NEVER did I EVER think I would get a date on May 13 - that is just beyond what I could have ever imagined!

So - now it's just time to pray for this court date to be a successful one!
Thank you for praying along with us!
Cindy