Pack Your Bags... You're Going to Ethiopia!

I woke early this morning and immediately remembered it was Monday morning. Monday morning is the day we can hope to hear if our agency has received our Visas from the High Commission in Nairobi.

I immediately though, "Ohhh, if the phone doesn't ring this morning, then I shall have butterflies for the next week every time the phone rings!!" I have been super relaxed about each and every step of this adoption, but a week ago I made a decision, which was the cause of my butterflies.

I was contemplating how long our Visa might take. We have seen Visas take from 3 - 7.5 weeks. I knew that our son was home from Cadet camp on August 17, at 2:00 am. If I booked our flight for August 18th, we would have time for him to get in the door, get some sleep, do some laundry, pack his bags and catch the plane to Vancouver.

August 18th was also the 8.5 week mark - a good chance that it would be a safe bet for booking flights. So I did it. I knew I was taking a chance, but my friend, Denise said to me, "You've walked by faith this whole way, why not continue." (paraphrased *grin*)

Good point!!! God certainly honours faith! So I did it. I knew that if the worst came to the worst and the visas did not come in before we left, then we would be in Ethiopia for two weeks and would be there for the 9.5 week Monday, and the 10.5 week Monday. So we were pretty safe.

But the butterflies were getting me, knowing I had booked and knowing I took a risk! Last night at our Couples group we prayed that the Visas would be in today.

Back to my story *smile* - (gotta keep it interesting!) I drifted back to sleep and about 15 minutes later I was awoken by the phone. It was now 7:14 am. As I *scrambled* blindly across my bed to find my glasses and the phone, Ray yelled upstairs to me. I knew it was either a contractor or Imagine. Noone else calls at 7:00 in the morning!! And with Ray yelling, I knew it had to be the agency.

I grabbed the phone - the useless, can't hear the person, the person can't hear me - phone- and said, "Hello." And of course, we couldn't hear each other so I had to tell her to hang on while I stumbled down the stairs barely awake, looking for the decent phone.

Finally, I hear a lady's voice and I knew it was Levina. She said, "Can I speak to Justine?" When I identified myself, she said, "Guess what?" I knew right away. I had been *waiting* for this call for 5.5 weeks!

She said, "You can go get your girls. Their visas are in!" She was so sweet and so excited for us. I asked her if there were any other visas and she said that yes, other caseworkers were making their calls this morning too. I could hear a hubbub of voices in the background and I have never heard any sounds when I have talked to her in the past. Must have been an exciting morning in the office!

As it turned out, I think about 6 visas came in today!! YEAH!!! Lots of babies and children going to their forever families!!

This was the email I received a few minutes later from Levina:

Hi Ray & Justine,

CONGRATULATIONS!! The visas have finally arrived for Gadise & Mesay!

I’m so happy for both of you! You can travel anytime now, so when you’ve made your travel arrangements and finalized everything, please send me your travel itinerary. We can then book your accommodations for you once we receive that. Please confirm for me how many people will be travelling with you as well.

I am absolutely THRILLED that you will finally be able to meet your beautiful girls!

Congratulations, once again – and please call or email me if you have ANY questions at all.

Have a super day!! ~ Levina

I can only say again and again, how happy I am with our agency!! I love the enthusiasm that our caseworker has for our situation!

Tonight, as I was working here, I just punched in my travel dates of August 19 departure and return September 1 - and the exact flight we are on is now at $4500!!! And we were blessed to pay $2775 per flight, a mere week ago!

I am SO thankful I stepped out in faith. Sadly, I have heard families that are trying to book flights, and so far I am hearing August 30 and early September for flights because of full planes and high August fares. I am so happy to know that we are booked for 3 weeks from today! Praise God!!!

Mesai Raine Ayana and Gadisae Song Savannah - your mummy and daddy and big brothers are coming to get you!