So if you haven't figured it out by now ... We passed court!

So here's the whole story...

On Tuesday we received a call from our adoption coordinator Duni telling us that there was a major snag in our adoption. We found out that it was Yabsira's step father who signed her relinquishment papers, and the courts said that they needed a blood relative to sign the papers. Meaning that they had to conduct a search. You can only imagine the worry and struggle that we went through. If they couldn't find a blood relative the court would give the orphanage guardianship of Yabsira. If we didn't pass court we would have to wait until the end of January and probably traveling in February. So, we were frustrated, worried, and just plain sad.

So we decided to fast and pray on Wednesday -- Why give up hope when our God is much bigger than all of this. We also were blessed to have a large group of friends and family fasting and praying with us. Rob was even prayed over by our intercessory prayer team, and the Holy Spirit was felt. How good it is to be supported by so many.

Early Thursday morning, I was awoken around 3AM and was let to pray. We have no idea what was going on across the world from us -- it would have been noon there. We found out that many people from our Travel group were awoken around the same time to pray. Two of them woke up with Yabsira's name in their heads and were praying for her -- though they didn't even know the full story.

My day was filled with time with my friends. Breakfast with Marlene,then helping Betsy with her business for the rest of the day. I'm not sure if they planned it, but my sweet friends were keeping me busy so that my mind wasn't continually worrying about what was happening with my precious Yabsira! So, we were completely surprised when we received a call from Kristen,the TRAVEL coordinator,saying that we PASSED COURT!

We don't know what exactly happened. We wouldn't be surprised to find out that all of this was happening in Ethiopia when I was up at 3AM. We hope to find out, but even it we don't all we know is that a miracle happened. Praise God for listening to the prayers of His people.

We were also reminded during all of this how loved we are by so many. Our daughter already has a big family -- None of us are her "blood" relatives in the eyes of the world, but in the eyes of God -- we have always been.