stress....

We are so very thankful that God is in control.

Yesterday, however, we got a little stress added to our plate. Our sweet case worker, Natalie is off in Ethiopia (hopefully she'll bring back some pictures to sustain us a little longer), so her partner-in-crime, Mary, called to inform us that for some reason our CIS approval never made it to the US embassy in Ethiopia. Mary was great and did all she could, contacting CIS and doing some legwork, but some things could only be done by us, as the adoptive parents. We discovered that, yes, CIS did send our approval on to the National Visa Center (NVC) on Sept. 19, 2007. Next step, contact NVC. Wish it was as easy as just typed. Calling or emailing NVC is not for the faint-hearted. After calling and emailing all day, finally this evening we got in touch with a sweet, very difficult to understand non-native English speaker. I attempted to spell and give our case number for several minutes. Then he reported he searched the records, and there is no record of ever receiving our approval. Huh? I asked him what could be done, and he said, if it is found they will send it on, but if not, there is nothing they can do. What?!? At least I think that is what he said....

Well, an hour later we were feeling lucky and thought we might attempt to call one more time and hopefully get a more understandable English speaker. Seriously, how do we know he truly understood a thing we said, or we, him? We got through, and this time the woman found our case quickly and said that, yes, the approval was sent on Sept. 26, 2007, to the embassy in Ethiopia. Uh, hem.... but it is not there, so something went wrong. So, she will check to see if it can be resent. Me -- "Check? Can't it just be resent?" No, she needs to check. Have you ever just wanted to smash the phone against the counter, - - - or klonk it over someone's head? Me, neither.

That brings me to another question. Why in the world would an agency employ someone who cannot speak the English language clearly, when their entire job is communicating in English over the phone. Bizarre.

How to end this post. Well, as I began it.

We are so very thankful that God is in control.

Have a great weekend!

Oh, another thanks, my blogger friend, Debbie, just sent some more pictures of our kiddos. And she leaves in just a few days to get her own little girl. Now that is awesome!