Ethiopia Cutting Adoptions by 90%

Well in the midst of our season of REJOICING with several friends who get to finally bring their children home from Ethiopia, we received some very sad news this weekend via this news article.

God's word instructs us to"Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep." Romans 12:15

So now, we are rejoicing with Ryan and Lesli and Dave and Stacey and so many other families who passed the US Embassy and got their travel dates! We cannot wait to welcome their children home! (I'm super excited to meet them at the airport and rejoice with them and probably  get a little teary-eyed at seeing God's goodness in working out the details of their adoptions and seeing their precious faces for the first time!)
But we are also weeping.

We are weeping over the 90% cut in Ethiopian adoptions.
We are weeping for the 4.7 million orphans in Ethiopia right now just waiting and hoping for a family.We are weeping with our friends further along in the adoption process. The result of MOWA processing just 5 cases a day instead of the 50 cases per day they have been doing is that our friends, like Justin and Bonnie from our church, will be waiting much longer than anticipated to bring their children home. Basically, it will take MOWA 9 months to process the same number of cases they used to do in 1 month. So our friends are looking at major delays. I know their hearts are breaking as they look at the pictures of their children and yearn to have them HOME. So our hearts are broken for them and the approximately 1,000 families like them, who are caught in the middle of this.

This cut-back also causes us to weep for the orphans. They are saying that only about 500 children will be able to be adopted in a year, as opposed to the 2,500 that were rescued from Ethiopia last year by U.S. families. It saddens us that millions of legitimate orphans will be kept from loving families because of a couple of dishonest cases! We are all for a system of checks and balances, but like we've heard other adoptive families saying, let's PRAY that instead of cutting back to only 5 cases per day, they add adequate staff to be able to still process 50 cases per day thoroughly!!!!!

Obviously, this has major implications for our adoption plans as well. We had just approved our t-shirt design to be printed last Friday, but I called first thing this morning to tell them to put our order on hold while we pray! So here's where we need your help:

"Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute.
Defend the rights of the poor and needy." -Proverbs 31: 8-9

Please join us in PRAYER!
1. PRAY that Ethiopia would remain open for Adoption for generations to come, so that millions of the 4.7 million orphans there would come to know the love of Christ through being adopted by loving, Christ-centered families!
2. PRAY for Bonnie & Justin and the thousands of other families like them, who have a referral and have seen the precious faces of their children, but have no idea when they will be able to bring them home! Pray for them to have patience, perserverance, and PEACE that transcends all understanding! Pray for them to TRUST in the Lord's plans for their family and WAIT on His timing.
3. PRAY with us that Bonnie & Justin would be able to bring their son and daughter home SOON, like nothing-short-of-a-miracle soon!!
4. PRAY for us, and all the other families like us, who are in the adoption process, gathering documents for our dossier, but don't even have a referral yet and have been hit with this news.  Our agency has informed us of the possibility of being able to adopt from a different African country. Please pray for Jon and I, that the Lord would give us wisdom to make a decision quickly about which direction He wants us to go with our adoption.

Thanks friends for walking this journey with us that the Lord has called us to. We really appreciate the encouragement and support that we've received from so many of you. We are so thankful that even as we WEEP, we are believers, and therefore do not weep as those who have no hope. For our hope is in Christ in every circumstance. We know that He is sovereign over all things.

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication, present your requests to God. And the peace of Christ, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." -Phillipians 4: 6-7