Tonight is the night!!!!!!

Well, tomorrow is November 25th and the time has come for our court date!!!!!  However, because Ethiopia is 11 hours AHEAD of our time, our Ethiopian court hearing will be held TONIGHT while all of us are sleeping.  As I type this, it's almost 6:00am in Addis Ababa.  I assume we are just a few short hours away from the courts opening up.


From what we understand, this court hearing serves two purposes: 
1 - it is the time when the birth parents (in our case, the birth father) officially relinquishes his parental rights to the girls, and
2 - Michael and I are named the legal parents of the girls. 


So, during this hearing, we have been told that they review all the documents from our dossier as well as other documentation from various entities and accept the relinquishment of the birth father, thereby making us the legal parents of Zinea and Zuri!!!  This is sort of the last major hoop we need to jump through before we are scheduled to travel and bring them home!


There are however, some possible complications that could result in us not passing this court hearing and requiring that a 2nd hearing be scheduled.  First, if the birth father doesn't show up to court, or if he shows up but doesn't bring proper identification, they will have to schedule a new court hearing.  Or, if all the documentation from the various entities doesn't show up at the courts on time, they will have to schedule a new court hearing.  According to our case manager, about 1/2 of the families pass court successfully the first time - so we have an equal chance of passing as we do of not passing.


Michael and I have total peace about the outcome, whatever it may be!  God's timing is perfect.  But I would be lying if I didn't say we are HOPING God's perfect timing is to pass the first time!!!! 


Please pray with us tonight and tomorrow that all our paperwork is there and in order.  Pray that the girls' father is able to come to court tonight as he lives a long distance away from Addis so not only will he have to spend a good deal of time just getting there and back, but he also has his 7 other children he will need to leave in order to come.  Please pray too for their father and his heart in all this!  I cannot imagine how difficult it would be do what he has to do at this hearing.  Unfathomable, really.  And should the court hearing end successfully, he will also likely being visiting the girls afterward for the last time - saying his goodbyes to them and recieving our letter and photo book.  A successful day for us will ultimately be bittersweet because of what the girls' father will be going through.


We will post as soon as we hear from our case manager about the outcome!  Maybe we'll know on Wednesday, but we're expecting it could be Friday or Monday.  Thanks so much to all of you for praying for us and the girls.  We have been blessed with such amazing family and friends.  Good night.