A Stressful Week....

This week has been a tough one for our Ethiopia families, but we did have some good news...good news first :)

The West family had a successful court date this week! They are now waiting for their travel plans to be scheduled. Also, the Vanwetten family received "half" of their referral this week for a ten year old girl. They are now waiting for the referral of their other child, an infant.

The not so good news....

The Kidd family has not had a successful court date, and they are now are awaiting their fourth attempt at a successful court appointment- the date is set for May 19th. Please keep them in your prayers.

There are many factors that are contributing to the unsuccessful court date for the Kidd family. This is part of the bad news.

First and foremost, Ethiopia is currently experiencing electricity "rationing" which means that the electricity is being turned off in Ethiopia for several hours each day in an attempt to save power. Why? There was a drought last fall during the rainy season which has resulted in the levels of water in the electric hydro plants being low. For more info, see this article: http://nazret.com/blog/index.php?title=power_outages_slated_for_ethiopia_capita&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

These outages are expected to last through the summer. As you can imagine, having no power means some tasks do not get done, or at least not done in a timely fashion. No faxing, emailing, printing, copying, etc. equals a slowdown in all aspects of the adoption process, unfortunately.

The power outages have also disrupted communication between adoptive families and adoption agencies and officials, which is really taking a toll on the families, no matter where they are in the adoption process. Families who have passed court have not heard about their travel plans, families who are waiting on court dates have no idea when they may be scheduled, families at the top of the list waiting for referrals have not heard any news about how long their wait might continue. And of course, families in our position can only watch with high levels of anxiety as we see what is unfolding in the journeys of the families before us. It has been a stressful week.

Also, the wait times for referrals have now exceeded the most recent estimates (5-7 months). The Redfern family has been waiting for a referral of an infant boy for 7 months and almost two weeks, and as far as I know, have no word on when to expect a referral. At this time, we are unsure if this means that the wait times for our agency have officially increased, or if this is just an unusual circumstance, given the current situation in Ethiopia. No one really knows, but hopefully this question will be addressed soon.

At any rate, we obviously would appreciate your prayers for our family, and for all the families involved in the adoption process, for our agency staff both here in the US, and in Ethiopia, and for the children who must continue to be without their forever families.

We are hopeful that next week will bring some answers, as our program director will be returning to the US from Ethiopia.

We trust in Christ through this unsure time, and rely on him to be our peace and strength.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3:5-6