Stressful Tiring Day

Received this message from Tisha at 3:43am Colorado Time...

Extremely stressful tiring day. Much difficulty with Tamene's visa - not our fault, not our paperwork, but definitely our problem if we can not make it back to the US with him! After many challenging phone calls and several paperwork shuffles back and forth from the agency to the US Embassy, things may be clearing up. We will know within a couple of hours.

If the issues are not resolved, we will not be able to come home on our flights tonight, or I will have to fly alone with Masso and Bob would bring Tamene back when he gets his visa. It was an Ethiopian court/adoption agency discrepancy that was not our responsibility, but fell in our laps. I sincerely hope there was much learning from this situation with the agency to prevent any other families from going through this.

It will be so sweet to step on US soil. The Ethiopian people we have met are hospitable, warm, generous, kind hearted, God fearing, and friendly. We can learn so much from them. If we were here for a vacation, it would have been a wonderful experience. Conducting business here is difficult though. The expectation for efficiency and effectiveness and accuracy are quite different than ours in the US. $670 additional dollars, plus our blood sweat and tears to get this resolved may equal a happy ending with the 4 of us boarding a plane at 2:00 am Ethiopian time, as scheduled. If so, I will sing praises to God on the plane which will be an enormous treat for those traveling along with us ;-)

The children are still doing extremely well, much better than we expected. What a blessing that is! If you don't hear from me again, we are on the plane tonight and will return to Denver at 10:00pm Friday night. If we have to reschedule, I will let you know. Thank you for your prayers and thoughtful sentiments.

Masso got her hair braided and she looks lovely. :)
Tamene is super cute too. :)