Hoping for an August return date

We are really hoping Dustin and Moses will return in August. Can you believe August is just a few days away? We could really use your prayer energy about this adoption being finalized soon. I don't think I can last much longer than August 14th without our little family being together. Of course, I can... So far, I've been pretty amazed at my (and Dustin's) strength reserves. I think we're going to collapse when this is all over. Collapse and then sleep for a month. Oh wait. We'll have a little baby keeping us up at night.

The reason I started out with the bit about August is that Dustin's not thinking it's likely he'll be home on the 14th. Things aren't moving very quickly in the legal department. Our lawyer (this is the second one - we fired the first guy) is a very wealthy, important man and we've learned that it's best not to push powerful people in Malawi. We want him our side. We have a friend named Sister Mary who is an Italian Catholic nun. She is the founder of the orphanage where Moses lives and she has helped coordinate several adoptions for Italian families. She's the one who recommended we change lawyers. Sister Mary is our liason to the new lawyer. The two have great rapport and are quite jovial together. Sister Mary has been in Malawi for 22 years and she can joke and laugh and sit and speak and be just the way the Malawians joke and laugh and sit and speak and be. She is amazing and she will undoubtedly be an invaluable resource throughout the rest of this process. Sister Mary met with our lawyer last week and followed up with him on Friday. He said that he'll call her with an update on Tuesday. We're all hopeful that the "update" will contain a court date. A court date for later that week.

As for Moses, he's doing well. Dustin says he 100% better. If not 100%, over 100%! Moses spends his days singing now. Dustin seems hopeful for another musician in the family. Moses has been gaining a lot of strength and is able to put weight on his legs and dance around a bit. He's gained some weight back and is at least the size he was before he became sick. Moses is even crying some more: when he's hungry, when he's wet. We're probably the only parents who rejoice when their child cries.

While Dustin endures the long days of waiting, I've been getting the "nest" ready. My parents came up this week and did some work on our house. We installed carpet over some rather funky linoleum and made the space into a play area for Moses. In the process we had to remove the baseboards, which led to sanding, painting, and reinstalling them. This made the rest of the baseboards in the house look terrible... so I spent today painting the rest of them, along with the door and window trim (they all needed to match). I figure I might as well get these projects out of the way now while I still have a few hands free.

Well, I wish I had more exciting stuff to report. Well, there is one exciting thing, I guess. The local SWO who refused to finish our report (and who accused us of possibly not being good parents) is being taken to court by his ex-girlfriend. Apparently she has a new man in her life which made the SWO extremely jealous. Now (according to our sources) whenever he sees her coming back from the market he steals her groceries and physically assaults her. This is the man who is in charge of Moses' "welfare." This is the man who snickered when he said he didn't know if we were "fit parents" because we're sometimes prone to frustration with ridiculous Social Welfare Officers.

All in a day in Malawi.