The Good News and the Bad News

The Good News:

We received our I-171h form in the mail today! That was only 8 days from when it was mailed to USCIS. I was sooo excited! This means that Friday we will take all our paperwork to Raleigh and spend the day there waiting for it to be authenticated. We have to make 3 copies of everything and then Monday we will overnight our paperwork baby to AWAA in Virginia. Less than a week after that we should be DTE!!

The Bad News:

No less than 5 min after I had checked the mail and did the " received our I-171h form" dance, I checked my email and there was an email from AWAA to all parents adopting from Ethiopia. Apparently the government in Ethiopia is now requiring parents to be present at their first court date. As in be in Ethiopia about 4 weeks after your referral and then You will have to fly back to Ethiopia to pick up your child 10-12 weeks later.

What??!!

Ok..the bright side is we will get to meet Isaac about 4 weeks after we see his baby face. We will spend around 5 days loving on him and documenting him as an infant. The not so great thing is we will have to leave him there for 3 months. Gulp. This is why I would never even consider adopting from Russia or any country that you have to travel twice.

There are alot of questions swirling around with my awaa yahoo group pals and I have and we are trying to see the bright side of this. Maybe referrals will come quicker now? Maybe the possibility of passing court on the first try is higher? There is also talk of the possibility of escorting the babies to the US the second time.

I keep quoting Romans 8:28 to myself and know it will all work out in His perfect time and His perfect will.

We have an AWAA conference call tomorrow at 3:00. I am guessing they will break records for the most families listening in to find out the specifics and where to go from here.

Please pray for us and all the other families that are trying to understand this and are worried about the extra amount of money two trips will cost.

Charitable giving

Dear Friends and Family,

As many of your know we are in the process of adopting a baby boy from Ethiopia. We are excitedly working through the mounds of paperwork to bring our son home!

The cost of adoption is overwhelming, around $25,000 to bring Isaac home. We know that providing love and a family of faith for a child that would otherwise be left in an institution is worth the financial sacrifice that is involved.

Our adoption agency, America World has a program called the Eternal Family program. It allows friends and family to to participate in charitable giving towards the adoption of our child. Of course, we present this to you as an opportunity and not an obligation.

Checks are made out to America World Adoption and sent directly to the office at 6723 Whittier Ave. Suite 202, McLean, VA 22101. On the memo line, please indicate "Eternal Family". We also have another form for you to fill out and if you are interested we will mail or email this form to you. That way America World can send you a receipt for tax purposes at the end of the fiscal year.

Our adoption is one of faith. We humbly ask you to join our hearts and hands with us in that journey and pray for this little one as he joins our family.

In Christ,

Greg and Jackie Mullis

Program acceptance form and program fee

Program acceptance form and fee...sent in!!! Yay!! Now we will get to start our online 8 hour Hague adoption course and begin our homestudy!

Step one

We signed and mailed our application today! AWAA has ten days to let us know if we are approved or not. If we are, then we start our "paper pregnancy". We have been holding on to the application for about 3 weeks since we filled it all out and prayed over it and now it's in the mail!!