Pray For Tomorrow's Court Date!

As I write this post, it is almost midnight in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and our children have been asleep for several hours (while we are just finishing lunch here). Tomorrow is a very significant day for all of us. And for our children, they will wake up in a few hours to the day when we hope they will officially, legally become 'Browns'.

As you have time and are able, please pray for them. First, that the judge in Ethiopia will be convinced that our case is good and clear. There are many adoption petitions that are being denied in Ethiopia recently. We are hopeful that our children's case is compelling in that there are four of them, one parent is deceased and their mother's circumstance is unquestionably dire. For these reasons, we hope that the Ethiopian government will not delay this adoption and will approve it tomorrow.

Second, please pray for the children and their mother. We are assuming that she has been found in the region where they lived (Soddo) and has made the trip to Addis Ababa sometime within the last day or so. She will stay there, appear in court with our agency's attorney (to testify that she is indeed unable to care for her children) and then will have the opportunity to visit her children in the orphanage for one last time before she returns to Soddo. Please pray for her-- that God will strengthen her to take on these tasks and will help her to love and encourage her children in all of this, as best as she can. I honestly don't know how/what to pray for her other than that. If I were in her shoes, I don't know how I would hold it together. I can't imagine something harder than handing my children over to someone else. But I also have no concept of what she endures daily, what she has already lost and what she fears would happen if she attempted to keep her children. So.... just pray.

And lastly, for our children, that God would surround them with His grace to endure seeing her again. That the memories they have of this day would serve to later ground them in their identity and sense of who they really are. My prayer is that they would not hate her and would have some sense of understanding of the love she still has for them. That they would trust her in what she has had to do and would more importantly, trust GOD, and sense His hands carrying them through this tragic time of loss.

Watch this blog tomorrow for, Lord willing, great news of four new Browns!