Embassy Date

As we have been planning we were given an Embassy date of December 31st. That would be today. We were wondering about this date and it been associated with a holiday. We did some research, asked some questions and were satisfied that all should be just fine. On December 30th we were getting ready to take a nap around 3pm. The night before had been the most challenging and we all needed a nap. Just as we were getting settled my cousin came knocking on our door entered in a bit of a panic. He said,” This is totally an Ethiopian thing...it just happened...your representative called and he's sending a taxi for you to get to the Embassy today." Apparently they wanted to close or take December 31st off or something like that. All the details were a bit blurry, all we knew was we needed to hustle. We all ran around and pulled everything together and were waiting by the gate in 15 minutes. And we waited...and waited...and waited. About 45 minutes later our cousin received a call and then another and another explaining what was happening. Still all the details were a bit unclear but we had the jist of them. Now our Embassy date was back to the original date. We were a bit worked up and concerned between the sudden switch of thing, the holiday, the fuzzy details, and this mad dash to the Embassy at the end of the work day and then not having to. We took a deep breath, had a cup of rum tea (very yummy) and took a nap. Ahhh. We continued on believing and praying that all these details would work out. God has not gotten us this far to leave us in crisis situation. Later in the day we learned that a local friend would be here at 8am to take us to the Embassy. The rest of the evening was relaxing and we enjoyed Micah, the family and all the others who are around the house at any given time.

Today is December 31st here in Ethiopia...our original Embassy date. We had the best night yet. Micah was on schedule and we all got lots of rest. We were up early tending to Micah and once he was back to sleep we got ourselves ready. By 8am we were prepped and ready for our adventure to the Embassy. The Embassy is usually 30 minutes away. We are on the opposite side of Addis. Once our driver arrived we loaded in and were off to our very important appointment. Now one thing that I think is just universal is rush hour. The whole world goes to work when the sun rises. In Ethiopia it is no different. Our driver is very knowledgeable about the main road and short cuts as well. As we started off everything was fine and going as smooth as can be in Ethiopia. Now if any of you have ever been to Mexico imagine driving there. Now as you are driving throw out all concern for pedestrians, any amount of safe driving distance between cars and those lines in the road (if they are there) what are those for? Bumper to bumper is taken literally and is a means of survival.

So back to our ride. We hit traffic...rush hour traffic...lots of stopped traffic. Our driver was irritated and on a mission. We proceeded to see all of the back roads (more on these another time) and the road blocks in Addis. Yes, road blocks. Our driver was quite irritated and working his best to get us to the Embassy. So an hour later we arrived at our destination. All thankful to be in one piece. By the way, Micah did wonderfully the entire time. If he was not watching everything he was sleeping and did not fuss or squawk a bit, which is amazing.

As we entered the Embassy we passed through two security points and then on to our destination. We met the person we needed to and another adopting family. Before we knew it our name was called and we proceeded up a long stair case to answer some questions. It was very simple and not stressful and took about 5 minutes. Before we knew it we were heading back to our driver, 30 minutes later. As we got to our meeting point we were met by some local youth who reassured us our driver would be back soon. Um..ya…let’s stand on a corner in a foreign country with no real phone wondering when he would come back…um…no. We found our agencies representative and he made some calls and found our driver. He returned within 5 minutes from his coffee run and collected us safely. We then braced ourselves for our return trip. This time we were able to take all main roads and see more of Addis. We were also able to chat with our driver. Before we knew it we were home again…30 minutes later. It went amazingly smooth all the way around. God’s fingerprints on every aspect. We are excited to now have all the business out of the way.

-Mo