Praise the Lord!

We'd been praying that we would hear from our adoption agency with the children's blood work results before Sue left Ethiopia.  We knew her plane was scheduled to leave today or tomorrow, so we really hoped to get an email from her today.  And the Lord answered our prayers!

This afternoon we received an official referral for the newborn baby boy and girl whose pictures we were emailed less than a week ago.  Both of them had successful medical reports, so we are able to turn in paperwork to apply to be their mommy and daddy.  We are so grateful to the Lord for His goodness to us.

Here's some of what happens next, as far as we understand:

1. We mail in forms and payment to our adoption agency to accept the referrals for these two children.
2. Our paperwork, which is already in Ethiopia and has been translated, is submitted for an Ethiopian court date.  We found out that the childrens' paperwork isn't ready yet, and we'll have to wait so that their paperwork can be submitted with ours.  We don't know what's missing or how long it will take.  But once their paperwork is ready and we submit for a court date, it will be about 4 weeks until one is assigned to us.
3. The court date itself will probably be about 4 weeks later.  On court day, an Ethiopian judge looks at our paperwork and decides whether to approve us legally as these babies' parents.  Many things could happen to create problems or delays here, in which case a second court date would have to be scheduled for about 4 weeks later.
4. When we pass court, we will be able to travel to pick up the kids about 6 weeks later.

We're praying that we might be able to go get them as soon as April, Lord willing.  We know many people have unexpected bumps in the road, and we're praying the Lord would prevent that from happening for us.  He has been so good and we're so thankful!!