Where are we with the adoption process...

Many of you have asked, so here are the answers.

We are waiting for our court date. Our Adoption Specialist in Pella will call us when she has word of our court date (this is what we were waiting for when we heard the news about Jaren). We anticipate the date will be anytime between Nov 15th and December 15th. There is no way to know for sure, but that is my guess. After that, we have to wait and hear if we "pass" court. There are lots of reasons that people do not pass court the first time and the reasons almost never have anything to do with the prospective parents. Usually just weird stuff like people don't show up, the courts don't get to your case, or there is paperwork missing, etc. Sometimes it takes a couple of court dates, sometimes the first one works. After we pass, ESIAS will be offcially a GRIMES! He will legally be our son in Ethiopia. Then, the hardworking Bethany staff in Addis will work on getting an appointment for us to meet with the Embassy there to get his Visa so he can come to America! When we hear of that date, we will know our travel dates. Embassy appts. are on Tuesdays so we will most likely leave a couple of days in advance of that, and be there total about 7-10 days God willing. When we go, we will stay in a guest house, which is a bed-and-breakfast-ish thing run by a local family. We will visit Esias at the orphanage (or wherever he is at that point) each day until we have his Embassy appt. then we can take him with us to the house. We will not do a bunch of touristy things while there, just because we will want to spend as much time as possible with the kids in the orphanage and traveling around to see where Esias and Jaren lived, learning about them through the ladies who cared for them, and visiting Jaren's gravesite at the chapel. I would love to go to the market one day at least to get somethings for our home and for the kids. We might shop a little for the transition house if they need any supplies (if you are interested in donating to them, please let me know). We have a good idea of how things will go based on how things went with other Bethany families, but this process has been a bit of unchartered water for us, so we're not really counting on anything! God is in control, and He will reveal to us what needs to be known when it is time to know it!