Update

I went to the USCIS website and saw that they are now (as of December 30) processing September applications.  We applied in October so now that it is almost March I pray they are doing our paperwork soon if not maybe it was done yesterday.  We are just about ready to send our paperwork to the next step.  I took our pile to our women's Bible study this morning and asked if they could pray over it before we send it off.  

Homeschool news:

Elijah has successfully written each letter and number (now to learn the sounds for each)

He is doing simple addition and subtraction as well as counting by 10's, 2's and 5's.

Ashleigh is preparing her final speech for her speech and debate class on Ruby Bridges if you do not know about Ruby please ask Ashleigh to tell you sometime.  After her speech on orphans she raised over $5 from her class.  We raised about $25 for Change for Orphans.

Ashleigh is zooming through her math curriculum, instead of jumping ahead to the next book we will spend some time in workbooks building on her skills, maybe even some logic problems.

We are reading Misty of Chincoteague.  

Bump in Road

As with any international adoption there may come bumps in the road.  I was hoping at this point to have our paperwork complete and on its way to Ethiopia.  Well the USCIS office in NC is still processing applications from last summer.  We applied in October.  They need to send us an important document which states we can bring our child home to the United States.  Please, please pray for our file to be on the top of the stack very soon.  Ashleigh and Elijah pray every day for their brother to be home soon, please join them in that prayer.  As it says in James 5:16 "the prayer of a righteous man is POWERFUL and EFFECTIVE." 

Our agency has also extended the wait time for a referral to 6 1/2 months from the previous 4-6 months.  As soon as all our paperwork has been authenticated by the secretary of state offices in several states, then we are placed on the wait list for a referral.