Ups and Downs

I'm always using the "adoption is a roller coaster" analogy... Well, today it has been more like the human sling-shot ride you see at the fair. You know the one, right? Where you are catapulted into the sky in a reverse-bungee type fashion, only to free-fall back down once you reach the peak? Ah, yes. That describes my morning perfectly! ;0)

We found out early this morning that Micah's passport has been promised by the end of this week! And we also learned that the Guest House was already full next week, and all the Embassy Appointments were taken. So, we were slated to go on November 21st. (This blog post was supposed to be titled, "Thanksgiving in Liberia: It's Official!") After I had made half a dozen or so phone calls making plans and arrangements, a Voice Mail came in from our adoption agency, asking me to call right away. I did, and it was bad news...

They said Alma, the Visa Lady, has now decided that she will only process the equivalent of one Adoptive Family per week, whereas two-three were going through per week before. So, Micah's Birth Family Interview has been bumped for the third time, and we don't know when it will take place. Basic math tells me that we will be looking at December travel. (If they're processing 1/2 to 1/3 the number of families per week, I'm assuming it will take two to three times as long as expected until we can travel. Since we were about two weeks out, I'm guessing we're now four to six weeks out.) We were told to start applying for extensions, re-doing our fingerprints, etc., since our paperwork starts expiring in December. Yuck! We are so close; it's very frustrating.

As soon as we hear that Micah's passport has been issued, we will be calling Senator Gordon Smith's office, who previously offered to contact Alma's boss (Ambassador Donald Booth) on our/Micah's behalf as soon as his passport had been issued. In the meantime, I will be clinging to God's Word and resting in all of your prayers! A perfect, pertinent scripture was posted on my Adoption Agency's Yahoo Group today: "What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all-how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?" Romans 8:31-32