Answered prayers

Today we received our monthly update on Joseph. We were happy to hear that he has remained healthy throughout the month and has gained almost a pound putting him just over 20 pounds. Praise God for these answered prayers! This was something we had been specifically praying for over the last month - ALL glory to God! We were also excited that one of the pictures that was sent was of him holding the photo book that we had made for him. It has pictures of us, our family, and his room in it. The social worker said that he smiled when he saw the picture of himself on the front page. As for other development he seems to be doing well - his gross and fine motor skills are certainly on track. His language development seems to be a bit behind, but we are not really concerned right now about that because Amharic is actually his second language. The language that was spoken with his birth parents was a different language. This means that English will be his third language in 2 years - so we know it will take time.

We also received news this week that his birth certificate and Ethiopian passport have been secured. Now we are just waiting for our agency to submit our information to the US Embassy so they can assign us a date to pick up our visa to bring him home. For multiple complicated reasons there is a SEVERE backlog at the embassy right now and it looks like it may be several more months before we travel to pick him up. We are completely heartbroken right now about this. We know that God does answer prayers so we ask for your prayers for our situation in the weeks to come.

1 John 5:14-15
And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.