November 12th: Court Day!

The day the whole trip was about was finally here. We were up early and ready to head down to our second floor room for a shower. We were about to put the key in a door when a housekeeper stopped us and informed us that someone was now staying in the room. That was a close call! She then brought us to a 3rd floor room and turned on the shower for us. Nothing came out of the shower so she led us to another room on the second floor. Note: Most showers on the 3rd floor have very little pressure, or very little warm water, or both. The room we were led to shower in today had a bathtub and a shower head (the removable kind) but no curtain. Already we knew this would be an adventure. I showered first and learned that there wasn’t enough pressure to get the water up the hose out the shower head so I was forced to kneel and take a pretty cold shower out of the bath tub faucet. Showering is made even harder when you are trying to make sure no water gets into your mouth. I was not sure if I was cleaner after this shower.

We were told we would have our court appointment in the afternoon. We got a ride to see M today along with another family and all of our donations. During the ride we asked the ET director many questions about court and other things. Once with M we began playing and Brandon was about to feed him some bananas when someone came to the room to say, “court is now.” The director was willing to drive us back to the hotel so we could change clothes and not have to appear at court in jeans and T-shirts. We quickly changed and then headed back to the center to meet other families. We all traveled together and we were all nervous.

Once at the courthouse we learned the sad news that because none of us had letters written that were needed (basically a 5 lined cover letter) we would not be passing court. This news was so sad, yet because we were all in this together and because we all knew ahead of time, the blow wasn’t as bad. Honestly, I didn’t even cry. We did get a chance to meet with the judge. She is a very soft spoken women who asked us several questions. We were with her about 2 minutes. She was very nice. I answered most of the questions, mainly because Brandon could not even really hear her.

We learned that we will have a new court date next week on November 24th. PLEASE pray that we pass court. Please pray that the letter from MOWA will be submitted. Also, we learned that the orphanage that M was first brought to (not affiliated with our agency) did not follow through on what they need to do as far as relinquishment. PLEASE PRAY that they will do what needs to be done also so that M will officially become ours on Wednesday. This would be the best Thanksgiving present we could ever imagine!

We also learned that our case is not embassy ready. I will be calling the NBC soon to try to hurry things along. It turns out our new homestudy/171-H which was done in July has not been forwarded to the embassy in Ethiopia. I hope to nag until it does!

After court we headed back to the care facility to see M. After a very short time we had to leave so he could nap. We then went to Kaldi’s for lunch (keep in mind that unless otherwise noted, only Brandon ate and I ate Larabars, fruit leather, and other Shelly safe foods). After lunch we were able to email some people and then even hear back from some people before we left the internet station.

We then went back to L to spend time with Baby M. He continues to show us all his cuteness until we get out a camera and he stares! Trust me, he is CUTE!

After leaving L for the day we headed back to Kaldi’s for dinner (yes you are noticing a pattern). We enjoyed time there as a large group and even met the Sr. Pastor of the International Evangelical Church which we were planning to visit. We were so blessed to be traveling with so many amazing Believers! Truly a gift! This was also the night that the ice cream creations began. We were drowning our court failure sorrows in dairy:)