Today Is A New Day

Dear Friends and Family,

First, thank you for showing us what it means to be overwhelmed by the love of God through people this past week. We received so many emails and phone calls that we were blown away by the amount of compassion shown by the people in our lives.

Well, last Thursday was a bad, bad, bad day for our family and for 10 other families with our agency as well. But, it's a new day and so we choose to keep on walking down this path that God has set before us, trusting in His sovereignty. The problem is that our agency's liscence to operate in Ethiopia has expired and though they have submitted all of the requested documents to the Ethiopian government for the renewal of their liscence, the renewal has just not come throuh yet. Evidently, many agencies have submitted their paperwork recently, which has created much for the government to sort through. Until our agency's liscence is renewed, the judge will not hear our case. Tigist, the woman handling our adoption in Ethiopia, was told to check back with the government later this coming week. Additionally, a portion of our US immigration paperwork is set to expire soon and given this recent delay, we will need to get it renewed. Normally, this process takes three months, but we are asking for God's favor that it be expedited as not to cause even more undue delay in bringing Yosef and Mihret home.

After we recovered from the inital blow of our adoption being put on hold last week, we both still firmly believe that this is a spiritual battle that we must fight with spiritual weapons. We are asking all who would like to, to join us to pray and fast this Wednesday. Just as the Israelites prayed and fasted before Queen Esther approached the King, we believe that Tigist needs us to pray and fast for her before she returns to the government officials on Thursday or Friday.

We are praying 1) that God grant Tigist favor, 2) for the quick renewal of our agency's liscence, 3) that we quickly be reassigned a courtdate, 4) and that our family's paperwork that is expiring will be expidited through our state immigration office.

To all who have sought God on behalf of these children, our heartfelt gratitude doesn't begin to explain how thankful we are that you have labored alongside us for our children.

With Grateful Hearts,

Avery and Heather