Moses is almost 9 months old now

I can't believe over two weeks have gone by without a post. Perhaps my subconscious mind has been trying to deny the fact that these last few weeks have revealed little news. We've been waiting for the Social Welfare Officer (SWO) to create his report for the judge. Our lawyer is often hard to understand and always vague. It's been hard to know if our lawyer had even contacted the SWO to get this report. They've at least talked once because the news on Friday was that the two would meet to discuss whether the SWO would even create the report. Please don't ask why. The answer is always the same: It's Malawi.

We haven't heard yet if this meeting actually happened. It's unlikely that a meeting would have occurred on a Friday afternoon in Malawi. It seems that most things shut down after lunch.

Meanwhile, Moses is crawling all over the place and growing like crazy. He'll be 9 months old on the first of October. He has teeth on the top and bottom now. And he's really attached to Dustin. No one else will do.

I will write when we know more. Thanks for your continued prayers.

No, it hasn't happened yet

The adoption is still not final my friends. Dustin went to the court along with the whole gang, including Moses. They met in the judge's private chambers. Moses was very rambunctious, filling the very stoic room with interesting sounds, and would only be held by Dustin. The judge wrote a bunch of things down as the lawyer spoke. Dustin never once said a thing. The judge seemed favorable toward the adoption but said he couldn't make a ruling because, apparently, there is still no Social Welfare report! This makes me so angry I can barely even write. That report that was started back in June - the report that would only take 10 minutes to type up - is still not finished three months later? We were under the impression that it was done (in some form), that it was in our lawyer's possession. It was not.

The good news: it seems likely that the adoption could go off without a hitch once that report is received at the court. Note I say, "seems." The bad news: the Social Welfare Officer has no incentive to finish his report in a timely manner. It's been three months already! Our lawyer is on his way to the Social Welfare office to request they finish the report by next Monday or Tuesday, so we can return to court mid to late next week. The problem rests equally with our lawyer, as he didn't try very hard to make sure this document was present - as our nun friend urged him to do.

I can't imagine having to go through one more night like this one. And yet, that's the way it's going to be folks. If anyone ever tries to tell me adoption is the "easy way" to have children, I will lose it. And probably poke someone's eye out!

We likely won't have any more news until next Tuesday or Wednesday.

Getting ready for the big day...

Dustin went to the city yesterday to meet with our lawyer. He showed Dustin the paperwork that he created for the judge. It was surprisingly good! He made an excellent case for how Moses needed to live with a family, not in an institution. I feel a lot more confident about the big day now. There were a few errors of course - one saying that our nonprofit has sponsored projects at the orphanage? Not sure where that came from? Also, the letter sent to the head Social Welfare Officer asked him to report to court on February 12th and not September 12th... Dustin's going to make a phone call just to make sure there isn't any confusion on this point.

Dustin, Moses, and a Malawian nun from the orphanage will be driving to Blantyre very early on Friday morning for the case. Pray that they don't have any travel issues. A tire on our car blew out yesterday! Not something we want to happen on route to the court! Fortunately Dustin was slowing down to go through a checkpoint, so he wasn't in danger of running off the road. (Did I mention there was a minor accident some weeks back when a bicyclist hit our car while Dustin was driving at highway speeds?) Supposedly Malawi has the most car accidents per capita of any African country. That's at least a highly circulated myth. And quite likely true from our vantage point on the roads. Enough talk of transport.

As I write, it is exactly 24 hours before our court case is to begin. It's time for me to head to bed! I'll let you now how tomorrow goes. Remember, the case is to start at 11:30 pm our time (Thursday).

It aint over til it's over

I'm on a break from work, so here is the quick recap. I finally heard from Dustin this morning around 9 am (though I had expected a call in the middle of the night). Our lawyer hadn't called him with any news, but finally returned one of Dustin's many phone calls at the end of his day. Apparently our lawyer went before the judge who wanted more time to look over our paperwork. We now have a follow-up court date for Friday morning at 8:30 am (11:30 pm on Thursday night for us West Coasters). Dustin and Moses will both be present for this hearing. It sounds like our lawyer knew all along that this would be a 2-part thing. He just hadn't communicated this with us.

Our lawyer seems to think the outcome will be favorable and without conditions (meaning no foster period). But please continue to pray for this and the other requests posted below.

Thanks and I'll post more soon!

Some things to consider in your prayers:

This is a list of prayer requests related to our court date. You likely received this over email too. I left out a very important one! Which is that the judge will allow us to bypass a foster period and move straight to adoption. Dustin will not be present at the court. The lawyer felt our case would be smoother without him there.

Here are the rest of the prayer requests:

-For everyone to show up to the court - on time! (judge, lawyer, social workers also known as SWOs, orphanage staff)
-For the court date to not be shifted for any reason
-For all proper/necessary documentation to be present and accurate
-For the witnesses to be truthful - especially important in the case of the social worker (not known for his honesty)
-For the Regional SWO to keep his promise to us - that he will recommend a "final adoption order" to the judge
-For our lawyer to be competent, charismatic, and willing to fight for us
-For the judge to be kind-hearted and truly hear Moses' story
-For the judge to uphold the law and not be prejudiced against foreigners
-For the judge to make a positive ruling, even in my absence (he has the power to refuse a ruling if all parties aren't present)
-For Dustin's and my peace of mind while we anxiously await the results

Our hearing is schedule for 8:30 am (meaning 11:30 pm our time TONIGHT) though the lawyer doesn't expect the judge to show up until at least 9. Dustin thinks it's more likely that our case will be heard in the afternoon.

I'll keep you posted.

Extortion and other niceties

We are still on for September 9th. That's the good news. We know we are in the court register. The way we know... well that's the issue. You see, our first lawyer (also known as the lawyer we fired - or rather the lawyer with whom we "closed the case until further notice") sent a letter to the orphanage saying he knew about our September 9th court date from looking at the court registers. He also said we owed him $550 (his full fee) for not doing any work. He claimed that he had organized a court date for us but that we never returned his calls. Funny, considering he never returned our calls... and when he did it was with a text message asking us to use our hard-earned phone units to call him back. I got the impression from Dustin that the lawyer was hinting in his letter that he might find a way to interfere with our current court date if we didn't pay him in full...

Dustin, my good husband, has been hiding this information from me for the past week or so as he didn't want to cause me undue stress. Our current lawyer said he would try to take care of this issue, but finally said we'd just have to pay. He advised talking the fee down by half. That's exactly what Dustin did. Goodbye two hundred and fifty dollars.

Dustin had a meeting with our current lawyer this week - to go over any issues and paperwork related to our court date. They haven't yet secured an affidavit from the Social Welfare Officer, though we're hoping this will be done by the end of the week. That affidavit would take the place of the SWO should he fail to appear at court that day - a strong possibility from what we know and understand. Our lawyer doesn't appear too concerned. He seems to think that our approved home study from an American adoption agency will be credible enough to wow any judge. We can hope!

Please remember that our court date is on Tuesday morning - in Malawi. Here, it will be Monday night. I'll let you know what time it will take place as soon as I hear from Dustin. (The phone lines have been giving us a lot of trouble lately.)

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Here are two new photos of my boys: