Oh Man ... The Hits Just Keep on Comin' ....

Below is a VERY discouraging update from our Agency Director -- many things to pray for here:

We are finding that the court procedure is taking longer. A year ago we projected that families would travel 3 to 4 weeks from court date, we are now projecting travel in 5 to 8 weeks. This is partly due to power shortages described in my earlier message today, and partly due to the fact that all of the offices are stressed due to increase in numbers of adoptions, with so many agencies working in Ethiopia now. This means longer processing in the court itself, the Children's Commission, the office that does birth certificates the passport office AND the Embassy.

There has been a great deal of stress since the National Visa Center opened last August and all visa approvals must go through this office. Before approvals could be sent by the local USCIS office directly to the Embassybut now they must go through the NVC. Gail has had trouble getting information from the Embassy with regard to which approvals they have received. The Embassy is asking us not to allow families to travel until we know that the approval has been received, but even when we ask repeatedly we are not always able to get the information as whether approval has been received. In a number of cases we have had to ask families to contact their Senators. We have also found a number of errors where the National Visa Center has sent the Embassy incorrect information with regard to the type of child the family was approved for. We are trying to double check everything before families travel.

For families who will be traveling in the coming months, we are going to offer two options in terms of travel dates. The earlier option would be to travel when we think all paper work should be ready to go, but there will be some risk of delay. The second will be to travel after we has been assured by the Embassy that everything is in order. Susan will be notifying families about their options when the time for travel is near.