leaving on a jet plane

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go...

The day we've been waiting for for over a year is almost here! We are on our way to Ethiopia people!!! Things have been progressing pretty quickly and I haven't had time to post an update before now!

Since the last post, I'm thrilled to say a lot has happened! The first step in the process was receiving our MOWCYA date. This was the first step that needed to happen in order for us to get a court date for us to appear in Ethiopia. On July 3rd, we got an e-mail letting us know our MOWCYA date was July 8th, the following Monday! This is a meeting of the "Ministry of Women's, Children, & Youth Affairs" (sort of like social services) where they review all of our paperwork to determine if they will write us a favorable letter or not. We were hoping we would hear something on Monday, but we had heard from other families that they were behind... so we waited anxiously. You would think throughout this process I would be getting better at this...but I can't say I have. We kept stalking our e-mail every morning, as that is when news usually comes, and praying and hoping for the next message to be the one! Friday, July 12th, we got a glorious e-mail letting us know a positive letter had been written! Hallelujah!!! Then we had to wait again to hear news of a court date. We were told it could come in the next couple of business days and to be ready to travel shortly after. So the e-mail stalking continued, and finally on Thursday, July 18th, we got the best news yet! We had a court date in Ethiopia scheduled for Friday, July 26th!! Praise the Lord!!!

So over the next couple of days I ran around like a mad woman trying to get ready to leave the country TO MEET OUR SON Y'ALL!!!!!!! I still don't think I've quite processed this... our precious son that we have talked about, dreamed about, prayed about, studied pictures of... he will be in our arms in less than 48 hours. WOW. We flew out of Austin this afternoon and arrived at Washington Dulles this evening. The airline provides a hotel room at a nearby Hilton Garden Inn, so we're here currently debating what to do about sleeping as to try to sleep as much as we can on the plane tomorrow and wake up ready to go in Ethiopia! We leave the US at 10AM Monday and land at 6:45 AM Tuesday morning... we should be going to meet E soon after!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our last picture as a family of 4!!! :)

We would appreciate your prayers over the coming week for safe travels, for E's heart- for understanding, openness to the life change he is about to experience, and for a peace that passes all understanding- for all of us. We pray our time in Ethiopia is full of meaningful memories that none of us will ever forget, that bonding and attachment starts this week, and that the wait in between this trip & Embassy, where we get to bring him home, flies by. We are excited to meet other families from our agency who are going to either meet their kids for the first time too, or are going to bring their kids home! We are so blessed that we are able to take some care packages and photo releases for other families who are still waiting to bring their kids home. This has been such a blessing for other families to do for us, we are thrilled to return the favor.

Our court date is Friday, July 26th. (Might I add...this is the date we needed to happen by August 6th. God is so good!!!) Assuming all goes well, E will officially be a Kerlin then!!! This means we can then share photos and the name of our handsome boy!!! So if you're friends with me on Facebook... get ready. You're about to be overloaded!! (Assuming we can get WiFi somewhere in ET...)

I will try to keep the blog updated throughout the week if we have access to internet! We can't thank you all enough for your love, support, and prayers. We are feeling them!!!