The good and the bad

Good news! I won the give-away for the hand-carved art! That's so cool. This will be our first piece of African art to start our collection. I hope to pick up a few more in Ethiopia so our daughter can see how connected and proud we are of where she came from. I have been thinking a lot about this lately and I don't want her to forget her heritage. Our agency is starting a Ethiopian Culture Camp this summer for all the kids to learn a little Amharic, music, dance, and cooking lessons. I know it will be several years before our daughter is old enough to go, but it sounds like a lot of fun. Plus, it's located in Colorado during the summer. Great place to vacation and camp!

So, here's the bad news. Today the US government released a statement that all Ethiopian adoptions will be under review before we receive our embassy appointment. You can read about it here. It seems there has been some publicity lately about an agency that was not practicing ethical adoptions. So, the government wants to do additional research to prove the children are true orphans. We are not sure if this will delay our embassy appointment and when we travel to pick her up. The website says a few weeks or a few months. EEEK! Our agency is contacting everybody they know to try and get clarification on this.

I'm really happy that our government is doing the extra work to protect the children. I hope they find the ones that are corrupting the system and take away their license so they cannot hurt any more children and families. I hope this does not slow down the good agencies and the children that are waiting to be with their forever families. Some people believe this is the beginning of the end of Ethiopian adoptions and it will close just like Guatamala and Vietnam. I am trying to stay really positive about this and hoping they are just cleaning up the bad guys. Lots to hope and pray about and I will keep you posted as I hear anything.