Court Hearing Rescheduled

Unfortunately, our court hearing, which took place this morning in Addis Ababa, was adjourned until April 13th.

The orphanage director from Ana Luisa's orphanage did not have everything in place that was needed for the case to be finalized. We hope that this will all be taken care of over the next couple weeks, before the rescheduled hearing date. However, our adoption agency has cautioned us that this situation may take a while to resolve. This is the first adoption that our agency has facilitated from this orphanage. It is unclear at this point why the orphanage director has caused to many unnecessary delays in the adoption process. With the way the legal system and contracts between orphanages and adoption agencies are set up in Ethiopia, there are things that are solely the responsibility of the orphanage director, and our agency has no leverage or way to intervene or expedite the process. Please pray that this orphanage director would be motivated to get everything in place so that we pass court on the 13th. We continue to be very concerned about Ana Luisa's health. We have not received any pictures or updates on her weight recently, but our adoption agency is working on that, so hopefully we will know soon whether or not she has gained weight in the last couple months.

We were very upset to receive this news this morning. We continue to entrust Ana Luisa to the maternal care of our Blessed Mother, and pray that she will be in our arms very soon.