Hale Family Tales

Cross-posted from Ryan’s blog.

The last few days have been interesting, like a civics lesson in Ethiopian government and adoption process. As mentioned in my last post, we met the birth parents and then they went back to Awasa. On Tuesday night, we decided that we really needed to try to head home and with some skyrocketing airline prices, we decided to give it a shot while the gettin’ was good. Without the court decision finalized, we went ahead and booked the tickets, and almost didn’t make it. Thankfully it all came together.

The Shalom orphanage had to write a new history for Julia based on the new facts with the birth father in the picture, so they did that on Tuesday afternoon and then drove it to Addis early on Wednesday morning. Mekonnen received that and brought it to the court where we immediately took it to the judge. She accepted the documents but told us to come back at 2pm for the final decision. Mekonnen explained that the embassy was waiting on us with this decision, so she was willing to do it a little quicker for us and asked that we return at noon. Firew, Sisay’s assistant went and retrieved the paperwork at that time but then several additional administrative steps needed to be completed before we were able to get the final stamp. They needed to receive the documents, send them to the secretarial department where it was typed up and then reviewed for accuracy, re-typed to fix the errors, and then certified and stamped for the archives. Firew was like a streak, going from one department to the next and begging them to complete the work in each office quickly.

Finally, about 2:30, we finished all of the court process and then we headed to translation office to get that done. While there, around 2:45, I called the embassy where they told me we would have to be there by 4:00 with everything in-hand to be able to get the visa. We felt fortunate that they would do that because that process typically takes a couple of days, but they were well-aware of our situation and were very helpful! Thankfully, the translation office finished their part in a half-hour and then the biggest part of the coordination had to take place. Gina and Julia were at the guest house, Sisay had Julia’s passport at the Bethany offices, and, in all of the hubbub with our problem, we realized that our family had never filled out the I-600 form. In addition, we started leafing through the translation and noticed that my name was spelled R-i-a-n instead of R-y-a-n, so Firew had to jump out, run back to the translation office, and get that changed in the documentation while Mekonnen and I flew to the embassy so we were there and reserving a place in line. Gina’s driver, Efram, picked up Firew on the way and then she arrived, followed immediately by Sisay in the car directly behind at 3:55. Gina and Sisay were able to make it through security and up to the visa portion of the embassy by 3:58, so we made it! We worked our way through the interview and then they printed the visa on the spot and we were on our way.

Congratulations all around ensued after we were out of the embassy and then we gathered for dinner, along with Birtukan and Nesibu, our guest house hosts, to celebrate before we made our way to the airport for our flight that night. Now, we’re in Frankfurt, Germany, and waiting for a few more hours before our flight on to Denver to arrive this afternoon.

I think Gina and I will send something more formal along to the Bethany offices, but I want to take a moment to just say how thankful we were for everyone in Ethiopia for working with us to solve the problems we had. Yes, there were mistakes made, and while in the middle of the situation there were times when we were pretty frustrated about the whole thing, but everyone worked so hard to put everything back on track and to move things forward as quickly as possible. Mekonnen, himself, dedicated over a week and a half of time to personally see things through. Sisay and Firew both played critical roles in getting everything accomplished, and they all did it seemingly without complaint. At the same time, Nesibu and Birtukan took us in and treated us, literally, as part of their family, caring for us, feeding us, and praying with us throughout the process of resolving the problems. They were on our side the entire way!

So, we’re done and on our way. We realized that we had posted a premature blog picture of Julia a couple of days ago, but now, since we’re official and on our way home, we thought it might be fun to post a few more! You can see our public albums online, but here are a few highlights. Enjoy!

« And Again…Another Night Julia Joy Hale »