Submitted to Court!

Our documents were submitted and accepted by the court on November 15th.  Yay!!  This is a very big step forward.

What does this mean?  It means that we now will wait for be assigned a court date, which may take 2 - 3 weeks (hopefully not any longer).  Once we know our date, we can begin making travel arrangements.  There are actually 2 court hearings on our case. One will take place without us; we must appear for the second one.  We are still praying that we could squeeze in the last week of December.  If not, it will most likely be January, unless there has been a large number of cases submitted this week.  Once we have a court date assigned, they will move Baby E from her orphanage to Acacia Village, where we will meet her for the first time.  This is going to be very scary for her, I am sure.  Right now, believe it or not, her orphanage is a very safe place for her.  She's going to be taken away from that safe place of sounds, smells and faces.

We also received 6 new photos this week for our November update. She is more and more beautiful every time we see her.  Those lips and big brown eyes!  It also looks like they are letting her hair grow a bit.  I cannot wait to put a big bow in it!!  She looks very healthy, but please pray for her little heart.  She is looking very sad lately.   I am hoping her December pictures will show her smiling.

We've also sent her October and November updates and pictures to her adoption specialist doctors.  They are very pleased with her overall growth and motor skills!  She still looks petite to me... so I'm thinking her and Baby Faith are going to be pretty close in height and weight.  We cannot wait to actually see her in person!

A few prayer requests:

* that we can get a speedy court date assigned -- hopefully in 2011.
* that Baby E's heart is comforted and that she hears a whisper that "I will not leave you as Orphans.. I will come to you... " 
* that Baby E will do well in her transition to Acacia Village.
* that our 3 children at home will do well with us going away and the transition to come!

As soon as I hear anything, I will let everyone know!