How We Arrived Here - Finding Mimu

We made the decision back in April of 2008 to start the process for our second adoption.  We then were delayed due to an adoption possiblity that ended up not working out.  Then we postponed our process again because we were moving during the summer of 2008.  We started up again in Autumn after our move, only to find out the country we had chosen just didn’t feel “right.” 

I started researching other countries around the middle to end of November 2008.   I forget the exact day I KNEW Ethiopia was the country, but I remember waking up in the morning of Nov 30 and just being so joy filled, and my first thought was, “We’re going to Ethiopia!!”  I had a bounce in my step.  Jim and I never in a million years thought we’d be going to Africa for our child(ren).  God really softened our hearts a lot and changed our minds bit by bit, and made it clear that this is where He wants us to go. 

We will be open to two children, but we are not specifically requesting two children.  One child will be an infant as young as possible, and we are open to either gender.  Our agency (IAG/WPA) is well known for placing older children, and we are keeping our hearts and minds open to that possibility if God so lays it upon our hearts.

We delayed again this winter 2009 when we realized how quick the process is for our smaller agency.  We are in the process of building a home, and felt we needed to be able to provide for our new child(ren) in terms of our time and attention.  We not only wanted to have a place for our child(ren) in which to come home, but also we wanted to ensure we could make the transition as smooth and healthy as possible with no distractions.

Our goal is to bring home our child in the fall/winter of 2009/early 2010.

The high level process for Ethiopia is as follows:

-  Paperchase all documents for the homestudy and dossier

- Submit the dossier to our agency

     - The dossier will then be authenticated and translated and sent to Ethiopia

- After we submit the dossier, we will wait for a referral

- Once we have a referral, we can petition the Ethiopian courts for custody

- An agency member will represent us at our court hearing in Ethiopia

- After passing court, we will travel to bring home our child(ren)