Embassy?????

Life has been extremely busy since we returned from our court trip. We quickly jumped into the Christmas festivites including several programs, parties, snow days, decorations, family, etc., etc. It almost seems like a blur. Christmas morning was so fun. The kids could hardly sleep on Christmas Eve and Noah was up at 5am. I repeat... 5am. We didn't get to bed until nearly 2am so we were pretty sleepy on Christmas day. We then headed to my parents for our annual family Christmas brunch. We spent the rest of the day enjoying the kids, playing games, and resting. The next day we celebrated at our house with the Cottongim side of the family and had another great time together. Once all of the Christmas festivites calmed down, we soon found out that our case had been submitted to the Embassy and we were given an "unofficial" invitation to travel for the Jan. 4 Embassy date. We were somewhat in limbo because we didn't know if we should purchase tickets. A few days went by and we still were not given any indication if we were suppose to travel. By Thursday we went ahead and purchased tickets because they kept going up in price so we didn't want to risk them going up any more. The worst that could happen is that we could have to pay a rescheduling fee. Unfortunately our agency was extremely slow in getting us information so we contacted someone in country ourselves to hear what was going on. By Tuesday (24 hours before we were suppose to travel) we got ahold of someone in country and found out that we were not invited to travel at this time and we would not know when we would be. My heart just broke. I was soooo looking forward to bringing home our lovely little girl for the New Year. We know that God has His perfect timing, but it is difficult to see why the delay is now necessary. She is legally our daughter in Ethiopia. We are just waiting on the US Embassy to issue her a visa and invite us to travel. The disappointing part is that they only have appointments every 2 weeks, so if we don't get the next upcoming date we are pushed out another 2 weeks. If you could remember to (particularly this upcoming week) please pray daily for our case to be completed. I can't imagine waiting much longer to bring home little Miss O. After holding her and getting to know her preciousness, I long for her more than I can describe. The bags sit in our foyer ready to go (well... almost ready to go, I am re-evaluating how to pack and what I want to take). I need to focus on the upcoming week since school begins. Hopefully we will hear something this week.