Sept. 17, 2008

YAHOO, YAHOO!!!! WE have officially been approved! We found out yesterday and got a copy of the approval e-mailed to us. We also found out we were actually approved on Sept. 3rd and there was some sort of glitch in the e-mailing process where the Rwandan Gov. thought we received it and we did not and had no idea so I kept calling every chance I had attempting to get a hold of someone and get some answers. It had been 6 weeks since any communication when I got a hold of our contact last Fri. the 12th. She seemed confused about my phonecall and explained that we had been e-mailed a letter a while ago. They attempted several more times to send it and then left for the weekend. She never was able to confirm if the letter was indeed an approval. Mon. came and went with no communication though I called and e-mailed several times. Mon. night I wrote an e-mail to both offices I have been attempting to communicate with to explain I still had not received any e-mail with a letter attached concerning our adoption and begged and pleaded with them to try it another way. Upon arising Tues. AM I checked e-mail just before showering to find a couple e-mails and one had the actual approval letter attached! It was truly a miracle! I wrote back thanking them for their perserverance! Then the next miracle came when my cell phone rang its restricted ring about 4:20 pm the same day. I assumed it was someone from DCYF since Jakee is no longer with us and I thought the case worker may have a follow up question for me or news about him and how he was doing. NO, the call was from RWANDA!!!!!!!! One of the women, the one who wrote the approval letter, was calling to make sure I had indeed received it!!! HOLY COW!!! Not only was it a miracle that THEY were calling ME, but that they were doing it at 10:20 PM their time! So much unlike all our lack of communication over the past couple of months. We are truly thankful and feel that this is so meant to be, we just keep having answers to impossible questions fall into our laps!

We hope to know who our new sons are in a week or two. We will find out their ages, current names, height and weight. We have a few names we have been throwing around as a family, but will wait and see their ages and their names and decide then if we feel it is appropriate to change their names completely.

It looks like we may travel as soon as the begining of Nov. or as late as mid Nov. Either way, it looks like we should all be home as a family by Christmas!!! The girls are quite excited as well at this point.

Asia Grace was asking last week if she could have 10 girls sleep over for her birthday in Nov. and of course we said NO!!! Then she said maybe just 6 or 7? and we said NO. Then she heard about our approval and was asking details about when we would be going. I mentioned to her that we may very well be gone over her birthday and she squealed with excitement! She said, "Does this mean if I have an Auntie or an Uncle watching me that THEY get to decide how many girls I can have for my sleep over and I replied, "SURE!" She is so thrilled to think we will be gone over her birthday, a response, I must admit, I would have never thought of , but am quite pleased by her perception of the situation. Macie on the other hand is going to miss her "Mama". Since Asia Grace left us for 2nd grade and Jakee left us about the same time, Macie and I have had a lot of one on one time doing projects, household chores together and even a little "Homeschooling" which she loves.

Well we are making our final plans to head on out to get our boys across the world very soon and hope to keep you posted along our journey!

Thanks to all who are following our story and thank you even more for any prayers said on our behalf!

Good night for now.

Heidi