Still no embassy date

So, it turns out that Monday was NOT the day to find out our embassy date. 

The embassy office did not accept our paperwork on Monday.  The fact that our paperwork was even in had to submit is a huge praise!  It's still ahead of the typical time frame!

Apparently, there is something that needs to observed or celebrated on Tuesday, Nov. 16th, because the offices will be closed.  They will try again on Wednesday to submit our file.  If the embassy office accepts it and chooses to give us an appointment within the very next week, it will truly be the hand of God at work, as this Wednesday would be the typical date to submit for appointments two weeks out...our next date option being Dec. 8th.

So, we'll wait and see.  I haven't heard any other news regarding Karis Lemlem's health, and usually they send updates on Mondays.  So, I'll have some checking in to do tomorrow!  Please keep praying for God's perfect timing!

Hard Stuff, Part I

I know it may seem that once Karis is finally home, the hard part will be over.  That couldn't be further from the truth!  There will be many more hard things that come with the territory of parenting an adopted child.  Worth it?  Oh, yes.  Challenging?  Yes.  Bad?  No.  Just hard.

One challenge for us is how to handle comments others may make once Karis Lemlem becomes part of our family.  I know it's inevitable, and I want to help people understand the realities.
But it will be a challenge if someone says:

• "She's so lucky to be part of your family."  No, actually.  If luck had anything to do with it, she wouldn't have been an orphan in the first place.  We're blessed to have her in our family.
• "What happened to her?  Why was she up for adoption?"  Thank you for your interest, but that's her story to tell to whomever she chooses when she's older.  Please don't be offended...and put yourself in her eighteen-year-old shoes.  You wouldn't want everyone knowing all the hard places of your life, either.  We're holding those hard parts of her life carefully.  We're new at this (obviously!), and as we figure out what we're doing, we want to err on the side of caution. Information can always be shared later...you can't take it back once it's out!
• "She was meant to be part of your family!"  Um, I beg to differ.  I don't think God sets upon a plan to destroy families.  Her adoption into our family is making the best of a really tough situation...He does work all things out for good, but she was meant to be part of her first family.  We're the "Plan B."  Yes, I know God knew about it from the beginning.  But it doesn't mean the injustice of the tragedy that brought her to us in the process is pleasing to Him. If we could, we would give her back her first family, and give her the opportunity to be nurtured by her own parents.  It's not possible, and we're grateful that we're allowed to parent her, but I am so sad for what she has had to endure in her short life.

While we're on this topic of "hard stuff," a few things to share about her name...

We plan on calling her Lemlem for a while, until we are at least familiar to her.  Then we'll call her Karis Lemlem...until she becomes used to hearing both names. And then?  We'll just see what happens.  If she were older, I'd ask her which name she prefers.  For now, I want both to be familiar to her.

This isn't what we originally planned.  But when I think about this transition for her, it makes me cry...by the time she gets carried off the plane in D.C., there will be not one shred of anything familiar to her remaining.  A sea of white faces. Unfamiliar voices, sounds; language rhythms.  New smells, new formula (never mind the fact that it will hopefully help the spit up trouble!).  Love, yes...but love expressed in different form and language than she's used to. 

The very least we can do is call her by the only name she knows.  It means nothing to her, nor should it, that we've had the name "Karis" chosen for a daughter for forever.  The significance of its meaning is lost on a tiny baby who is feeling set adrift.  It's the opposite connotation of what we hold for adoption.  We perceive love and safety and a family to cherish her.  And it is all that and more...but not from her perspective-not yet, anyway.  Will she come to feel loved and safe and that she belongs?  That's the goal.  But for now, I imagine she'll feel pretty lost.

And the name Lemlem?  It was chosen for her specifically because of its meaning, which given the circumstances of her life, is profound.  It was a name chosen with love. It means "to flourish and grow."  We love all the more the family member who gave it to her for choosing life for her, both literally and symbolically.  And yes, it's undeniably beautiful with "Karis," which is the Greek word used for "grace."  Think about that...for grace to flourish and grow in her life, to grow and flourish in the grace bestowed upon her.  Amazing.

Speaking of helping her to not feel adrift...
For a while, Mark and I (and the kids, too) will do most of the holding of her.  We know you love her.  We know you've waited just as long as we have to love on her-and we appreciate that so much!  And maybe we can just sit down on the couch, you-me-and Karis Lemlem, and you can sorta hold her. :)  (The jury is still out on initial airport greetings)! :)  See, for the whole of her short life, she has been cared for by a rotating staff.  We want her to realize that this isn't just another orphanage with a different staff.  It's her family.  She needs something?  Moms and dads take care of needs.  If we don't do everything for her, it will make it that much harder for her to realize that "home" is something different.  Hard to do?  Yes.  But that's our job.

More posts to come on hard stuff that may be helpful for you to understand...

SUSPENSE

I hate strongly dislike suspense.

But we have lots of it right now, because MONDAY IS THE DAY...the day that our process coordinator in Ethiopia will take our paperwork to the embassy, and ask them to handle our case in just one week.

Typically, the embassy won't make appointment for less than two weeks out from when the receive files.  BUT, we didn't have court until the 29th, and there was no way that all the pieces would have been received in time to submit them.  While it looks like that our paperwork was "submitted too late" to have the embassy date right before Thanksgiving, it actually means that our paperwork has been submitted on a much earlier time frame than otherwise thought possible, and it's a wing and a prayer that they'll take it "later" than two weeks out.  Make sense? 

That said...PLEASE PRAY WITH US that we are graced with an embassy appointment NEXT WEEK.  Embassy handles cases from our agency on Wednesdays, but since it takes about two days to get the printed visa after the appointment, they would likely push us up to Monday of next week.  One. week.

If we don't receive an embassy appt. for the week of Thanksgiving, then our date will be Dec. 8th.  That's not entirely bad, either...it gives more time to prepare to leave, and to raise money, as we're about $4500 shy of being able to pay our travel expenses.  Logistically, we'd prefer Dec. 8th.  Emotionally, I want Nov. 22.  *sigh* :)  Either way, it's SOON, and our baby is home for Christmas!

Grace. (aka "Court")

I just realized that I never shared the story of our court appointment to become Karis' parents.

In order to "pass court," a family must go before the judge.  She asks a few questions (thankfully they were all "yes" or "no" questions!) to help ascertain that we are prepared to parent one of her country's beautiful children.  Most of the approval comes from the Ministry of Women and Child Affairs (MOWA).  It is MOWA who takes the time to look over all of the dossiers that enter the country, after which they process a letter indicating to the judge their approval.

Typically, when a family does not pass court, it is generally because the letter that MOWA has written has become lost, or because despite their intention to write the letter, it hasn't gotten done yet.

We were told by our coordinator that some of us did not have letters in our files yet, and that hopefully they would be delivered by our 1:30 court appointments.

We waited for about an hour in the waiting room with many other couples from other agencies in addition to the four other family "traveling buddies" we had.  The first couple went in, and came out all grins with "thumbs up!"  They had passed!  Now I honestly cannot anymore remember the exact order we went in after that.  But when our friends Scott and Rachel came out, they were unsure as to whether they passed or not...and we also emerged from our 5-question appointment unclear as to whether we had passed or not. By this point, I was so nervous I was ready.to.throw.up. 

The final family went in, and came out all smiles as proud new parents of a 5 yr. old and 2 yr old sibling pair.  And then our coordinator spoke to all of us, and told us that there was another issue besides missing letters from MOWA.  Several of us had children that come from Shalom orphanage...and Shalom's license had lapsed.  It was nothing uncommon...just a delay in their part on getting their license renewed.  However, the judge was not going to pass any cases with children from Shalom until they had demonstrated their compliance through re-licensing.  After sharing that our letter was there, but that we hadn't passed because of the orphanage licensing issue, she went back in to to speak to the judge.

Our letter from MOWA was there.  Do you know long and how often we prayed for all of our paperwork to be in the file?  Specifically to be in the file?  A long time and annoyingly often.  It was there.

However, Karis came through the Shalom orphanage.  The judge had NOT passed our case.  But the family with two children?  Their children were also from Shalom.  And they passed.  No explanation as to why.  And so our coordinator went back in to speak with her, and urged the judge to "be consistent."  She had passed them, so she should pass us. 

And she did.

By the grace of God, she did.

We were so close, so ridiculously close, to not passing.  There was nothing about us that she should have singled us out for favor.  I don't know that we had any more people praying for us than had been praying for others.  But we were graced with passing...the most tangible expression of grace I've seen this side of Judgment Day. 

I cried.  I still do.  Every.single.time I tell this story, and as I type it out...I cry out of gratefulness for His grace and favor.

Did I ever tell you the story of how we named Karis?  It's the Greek word used in the New Testament...for "grace."  It's already proving true in her life.

Looking Up

I'm sorry I neglected to post this on here after I posted on facebook...

On Wednesday, after receiving a plethora of tough news, I emailed our coordinator at our agency. This is what I sent:

I am wondering how regularly the embassy allows paperwork to be submitted late.  Is this something that you feel is likely to happen, or is that completely out on a limb?  Will we know for certain by Friday, or will our appointment day still be in question after that point?

Our daughter Lemlem has pneumonia…she was sick while we were there two weeks ago and has just gotten progressively worse.  I am considering traveling early to be with her, but will need to know a concrete embassy date before making plans, as I have three other children at home.  Any advice you can give regarding this would be appreciated.  Also, does the health status of the children involved ever influence the embassy in their scheduling?  

Within ten minutes of me sending this email, she called me back...and she had already been in communication with both our process coordinator and the Transition Home staff.  She let me know that they were certainly going to be advocating for our case to go before the embassy next week, and that they would also keep in close contact regarding Lemlem's health.  She also let me know that the TH doctor did not view her pneumonia as serious, and that she was responding well to treatment.

I have been impressed by our agency before (to be realistic, there have been a few UNimpressive moments, too), but this was truly remarkable to me.  

AND, a friend called us, completely out of the blue, and let us know that they were sending us a check fro $1000.  Yes, you read that correctly.  And then another friend from college contacted me the next day to ask for my address, because the annual Christmas check she and her husband give each year to a ministry or missionary they wanted to send to us.  Humbling.  We're so grateful.

God indeed hears the cries of His people...

Rough Day for News

Before 9 a.m. this morning, I received three hard pieces of news:

1.  Karis now has pneumonia.  I'm not really surprised, as she was so sick while we were there, worsening to the point of running a fever the day we left.  A friend who was there the next week let me know that she was still coughing and congested.  That baby just needs to come home, and I ask that you pray for her strength and healing!

2.  Our paperwork needed for an embassy appointment did not get submitted in time...though the AWAA staff sounds hopeful that the embassy will accept it late so that we can still have an appointment the week of Thanksgiving.  So, it's not a complete loss yet, but would have been encouraging to know it was all wrapped up.

3.  One source to which we had applied for a grant is out of funds, and we were extremely hopeful that this would come through for our travel expenses for the second trip.  We need about $6000 for our tickets, Karis' ticket, her visa, and our in-country expenses.  And while we're incredibly excited that we might be able to bring Karis Lemlem home the week of Thanksgiving-that's not very long from now given the funds that are needed!  I just keep reminding myself that the timeline and amount do not serve as an obstacle to God whatsoever-we're just in a very hard place right now.  

Donations to Go!

Here's our pile-o-goodies that we took to Ethiopia with us to donate to the orphanages! One full suitcase!