Time for an Update

I know it has been a while since we posted, but not much has been happening. We are currently in the waiting phase, which understandably involves a lot of, you guessed it, waiting. We are starting to think that our "prediction" may be a little off. Referrals for our agency have really slowed down (or perhaps been nonexistent) for the past couple of months. AAI has been really good about keeping their clients in the loop about what is going on though. Here are a few things we have been told.

AAI recently discontinued working with one orphanage due to trouble obtaining clearance from the Ethiopian government office for additional referrals. This means that AAI is currently working with only 4 orphanages. One of these is rather small and hasn't produced many referrals, but it is currently in the process of working with another larger location and should be able to have a good number of referrals through them. If all goes as planned, hopefully this will happen within the next month.

AAI also recently participated in a teleconference to discuss the current status of adoptions in Ethiopia and to come up with solutions as to how to move forward to ethically and transparently better protect children, birth families, and adoptive parents. Some orphanages are currently being investigated by the Ethiopian government due to unethical practices or poor care, but of the ~200 orphanages in Ethiopia, only 77 are licensed for international adoption, and very few of those are under investigation. This has nonetheless contributed to the recent slow down of referrals, not only through our agency, but also through agencies across the nation. AAI relayed that everyone involved appears to be committed to finding solutions to these problems and that completing adoption cases with integrity and transparency will continue to be top priority for the agency.

All this to say that our adoption may take longer than what we had hoped. When we initially applied with AAI we were told that the time frame from dossier submission to adoption finalization would be 6-16 months, and we have no reason to believe that has changed. Of course everyone always hopes that it will be closer to the short end than the long end, but we continue to trust God and His timing.

Merry Christmas!

Hopefully at this time next year there will be two more smiling faces in front of our Christmas tree!

Predictions

We often get asked "So, when do you think you will hear something?" Usually we don't really know what to say, but now we may have an answer. We have spent the last few weeks perusing other Ethiopia adoption blogs. The blogs vary from families who have just started the process to families who completed their adoption more than 3 years ago. We have (or more specifically one of us has) gone through each of the more than 50 blogs we found and recorded the milestone dates. Finally, an average of the time between each milestone was calculated. Based on all of that, the predicted, projected date of our referral is...(drumroll please)...March 23, 2011.

For those who might be interested (although who knows why you would be) here are the milestone averages we came up with: agency application to dossier submission - 149 days; dossier submission to referral - 168 days; referral to court date - 79 days; and court date to home with child - 39 days. The average for the entire adoption process is 428 days. It is highly doubtful that these numbers are in any way statistically accurate or relevant, but finding them gave us something to do while waiting for our referral and now gives us a day to plan toward.

Feel free to comment with your own prediction or best guess as to when the referral date will be. The person closest may win a prize, or at the very least the opportunity to babysit for us one of these days.

Updates

• We are now number 10 on the waiting list. This is a little disappointing, as we have only moved up one spot in a month. This is also expected because the courts in Ethiopia close from August to October, so now that the courts are back open, our agency expects referrals to pick up.

• Current best guess for our first trip: July to October 2011.

• After 3 weeks as a server, Joy quit. No one was surprised. :-)

• Thanks for continuing to pray with us!  Happy Thanksgiving!

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His Word I put my hope.  Psalm 130:5

Beds!

We bought some cutie toddler beds off of craigslist today. This will probably guarantee that we get two infants! 

Let the Madness Begin!

It’s official. We might be crazy. We both got second jobs in anticipation of adoption expenses. There’s also the slight problem of needing a new car, which our neighbor boys kindly reminded us of when they knocked on the door last month to tell us that our car was on fire. They apparently didn’t know the difference between "a little smoke” and “on fire”. All the same, good to know people are looking out for us in case our car ever is on fire.

Anyway, Jon is delivering pizza for Papa John's and Joy is a server at Genghis Grill. We drew a thermometer to color in as we earn tips. Working towards a goal is more our thing, unlike some of our other blogger friends who seem to enjoy deadlines. :-) We may have been a little ambitious when we made the thermometer, though.  We got it out to color it for the first time tonight and realized we hadn’t even made it up to the first notch. Alas, still freezing.

I will blame this crazy schedule on Dave Ramsey and his debt free propaganda.

National Adoption Month

It is hard to believe that today is already the first of November. Today is also the start of National Adoption Month. If you have never taken the time before, please sit down sometime this month and consider what you would be willing to do to "look after orphans...in their distress" (James 1:27).

Just Facts - Traditions and Celebrations

There hasn't been much to report lately, as you may have guessed by the lack of recent posts. So, we have decided to once again regale you with some facts that you could probably find for yourself through a simple google search. But seriously, who would want to do that when we are telling you everything right here? After the first installment of "Interesting Facts", no one is under the illusion that the facts are THAT interesting. The segment has thus been downgraded to "Just Facts", and today we will be focusing on a few Ethiopian traditions and celebrations.

Ethiopians love to celebrate, whether important events in their history, major landmarks in the religious calendar, or simply special family days. Best clothes are worn, food and drink are plentiful, musicians play, and people dance and sing. There are a number of major celebrations, several of which are state holidays as well. Some of these include: Genna [Ethiopian Christmas: birth of Christ] on January 7; Timkat [Ethiopian Epiphany: baptism of Christ] on January 19; Adwa Day [commemorates the victory over Italy in 1896] on March 2; Siklet [Good Friday] and Fasika [Easter] in April; International Labor Day on May 1; Patriots' Victory Day [celebrates the end of Italian occupation in 1941] on May 5; Derg Downfall Day (or National Day) [celebrates the downfall of the Derg, a communist military dictatorship, in 1991] on May 28; Buhe [the transfiguration of Christ] on August 21; Enkutatash [Ethiopian New Year] on September 11; and Meskel [finding of the true cross of Christ] on September 27.

With the numerous holidays observed by Ethiopians, one might think that birthdays would also be a time of great celebration. That does not seem to be the case. Birthdays tend to be relatively small events, if they are celebrated at all. In many of the rural areas, where families are less likely to adhere closely to dates and times, a birth might be remembered simply based on the season or time of year without an exact date. However, with the growing influence of western culture, particularly in urban areas, people are becoming more likely to celebrate in a western style with cakes, candles, and gifts.

And finally, here is an interesting Ethiopian tradition. When a child loses a tooth, they will throw it onto the roof and recite a poem about a bird coming to take it away. If a bird picks it up, it means a new, strong tooth will take its place. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to find much more information about the tradition or the poem, but we did run across this book - Throw Your Tooth on the Roof: Tooth Traditions from Around the World. I don't think it mentions Ethiopia specifically, but apparently several other countries have the same tradition. So, if one day you happen to see us throwing a tooth onto the roof, please understand that we are following a tradition, not just being weird.

Fun New Things to Learn

Here is a super cute blog that we found called Happy Girl Hair.

In other fun news, all of our paperwork is now somewhere in Africa!  Good job, Assistant Stork!

Out of Our Hands

Today is the day that the paperwork portion of the adoption process is finally over. We just sent our completed dossier to a courier service in Washington DC. It is cleverly named The Assistant Stork because they help adoptive families by delivering adoption paperwork to various places in DC. They will first take our dossier to the State Department and wait while each document is authenticated. Then they will drop off the dossier at the Ethiopian Embassy so that everything can be authenticated again. I guess that can take a couple of days, depending on how backed up things are at the Embassy. Once all of that is done, they will send the dossier to our agency, and from there it will be sent off to Ethiopia.

Having the dossier submitted means that we will officially be on the waiting list to receive our referral. Right now, it looks like we will be at #11 for our agency. Several of the families ahead of us on the list want a child of a specific gender (we are open to either gender) and some of them are requesting children in a different age range (ours is 0-3). Most are only adopting one child, but at least three families are adopting two. Because of all these factors, it is hard to guess when we can expect a referral. We are just glad to have all of the paperwork behind us. And now we wait.