Update from DC

This morning we got up early to get all our documents federally authenticated. We were extremely nervous. They only process the documents the same day if you have less than 15 documents. We learned this last night and therefore decided to split up our documents- Isaac with 11 and myself with 12. By the grace of God, we, along with several other Rwandan adoption families, had no problems.

We then took a cab to the Rwanda embassy with our new Rwanda adoption friend, Jonathan Harper, who is from Dallas as well. We arrived right as the embassy was opening their doors. I wish you could have seen the face on the guy who opened the door. I said, "are you scared of us?" and he basically didn't reply. We just tried to be super nice and casual- we were being so careful to not overwhelm them. When we arrived we were the only two families there requesting help. Throughout the morning additional families or representatives of families showed up, probably 6 or 7 families total while we were there.

At first we were told we might get processed before tomorrow. That one word "might" was not good to hear. It was apparent they are super overwhelmed with the dossiers they need to process. The stack on the desk is a foot or two tall- and that was before the crew starting coming this morning.

I don't think they aren't processing these documents carefully- just checking through them to make sure they are legit. They won't fully process them until they are in Rwanda and it's our turn in line (which still can be 1-3 years, but who knows!).

There have been a few families that turned in their dossiers last Thursday and Friday and they are at the embassy today hoping to pick up their processed dossier.

All this to say that this is still unpredictable. But, we did just hear word from our friends who were waiting at the embassy while we grabbed lunch that the Rwanda Consular just announced to those waiting in the lobby that the dossiers that have been turned in by August 31st WILL be counted as received by the deadline and processed; however, they aren't sure when they will be able to give them back. Our hope is that we will get it back tomorrow so that we can make copies and mail it to Rwanda. But, we will come up with a plan B today.

It has been really neat meeting several other Rwanda adoption families on this journey with us. We can't thank our friends, family and strangers for praying over this situation. It's been really stressful but God has been showing up in amazing ways.

Please continue to pray- particularly for Carol, the lady at the embassy with the huge stack of dossiers to deal with. We aren't at the Embassy right now as we want to let them do their work in peace. We will continue to check in with them periodically to hear additional updates.