15 months

This past week has been a whirlwind. So I did get the email from the Embassy on Monday morning saying I was successfully submitted and I did sell my car Monday afternoon. I was beyond thrilled about the embassy and selling the car was bittersweet - you know why if you read my last post. But God is in the details - get this: the people who bought the car were buying it for their adopted daughter who is about to go to college. And if that alone wasn't cool enough - I bought the car the year they adopted her. And as I was signing over the title and said the date aloud - the mom said "it's October 15th today?" to which I said "yup" and she said "that's the date we adopted our daughter". Well there ya have it - total awesome God thing!!!! I'm not gonna lie I teared up as the dad drove away in what had been my reliable car for the past 11 years. But at the same time, I was excited about who would be driving it and really excited that selling it signified me moving into a new season. A season of mommy-hood.

So this week was very active in my adoption process. Here's what it looked like:

Monday morning when I woke up at 2:40 am to check my email I saw that the long awaited Embassy Submission email had arrived at 12:33 am. It read: Dear Kerr Family, Congratulations! Your adoption case has been submitted to the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia....   Praise the Lord!!!! Hard to go back to sleep after reading this good news.

Tuesday morning when I woke up at 5 am, I saw that an email my agency said could take a week was there telling me my portion of the approval process was done and approved and that they would next move on to my son's paperwork, checking for inconsistencies, interviewing guardians or birth family or anyone involved in the case.

Wednesday morning at 8:09 am, I got an email from the Embassy requesting my agency bring in a birth relative to interview. My agency wrote me shortly after and told me they reply to that email with a date and usually the embassy responds saying they are booked that day and then they set a date for 2-3 weeks out. I replied to that email with this "well, I'm going to pray that they miraculously have an opening next week to do the interview". My agency suggested Monday morning and...

Thursday morning, I woke up to an email saying:  the embassy came back with "we're full Monday. Your appointment is at 7:30 am on Tuesday". Not 2-3 weeks later - the very next day from the requested appointment - next week!!! Praise the Lord - this is huge. I am hoping and praying that this will be the final step needed to get the most glorious email of ALL - the one that says Ms. Kerr - you are cleared and may come get your child!!!!!!! Praying that it will happen next week.

If it does - I will be on a plane probably as early as next weekend. Once I get word - the travel is going to happen fast. So I'm in logistics and preparation think-of-anything-at-all-you-should-get-done-beforehand mode right now. And I'm stinkin excited. Like I can't even describe how excited!!!

I just realized tonight that Tuesday, October 23rd - the day of the relative interview is EXACTLY 15 months from the day I met Mihretu. Praying it's a day of favor and blessing and movement!!! Please pray with me that the interview would indeed happen as scheduled with no delay or problems whatsoever and that it will be sufficient to satisfy what the Embassy needs in order to clear my case and that after that interview is finished, I would be cleared to go get my son.

Thank you for praying. I hope my next post is the one we've all been waiting 15 months for:)