We Passed!!!!

Day 9 in Ghana - Court Day!

We had a wonderful night sleeping with E - she fell asleep quickly and was a little angel having to get up early in the morning and get ready for our 6am pickup.  If there was any day that we wanted our driver to be on time for our pickup it was today because we had a 2.5 hour drive to the Eastern Accra Region where our case was to be heard.  The goal was to get there by 9am so that we'd see the judge in his chambers before he headed to the courtroom to hear the regular cases.  Well, true to fashion, the drive came at about 7:15.  He claimed we still had enough time to make it by 9:00 and the way this guy has driven all week I actually trusted that ... until we hit the traffic.  It was really bad today, as I guess every weekday is horrible here.  What was a 30 minute drive on Sunday to pick up our social worker on the way was almost 1 hour today.  You can say I freaking out on the inside.  We have no wiggle room and needed our case to be heard today!  When we picked up Naa, she said we would for sure be late but we will just wait for the judge to be done with his other cases and he'd hopefully see us before he went to lunch.  So, we arrived at the courthouse at about 10:30 and we waited outside the courtroom.  E did great - she was happy coloring, playing "hand jive" games with me and snacking.  The lawyer representing us showed up and introduced himself and said he would go in the courtroom and get us on the judges list to be heard. (so, we assumed we'd be heading into the courtroom instead of chambers ... cool, doesn't matter to us where this happens!)  I don't know how many of you were up at 6:15am Central time and said a prayer but it worked.  At 11:15, only 45 minutes of waiting, our lawyer came out and said it was done - the Full Adoption Order had been granted and they will forward the paperwork to Bethany.  That was it!  We didn't even go in front of the judge!  Our social worker said that the judge would have already reviewed our paperwork prior to today and must not have seen any reason to even see us.  (she also thought he may have been in a hurry to get out of there since there was no power and even the ceiling fans weren't working!)  The best part about it was E's reaction - she was jumping up and down and hugging us and was so happy.  So were we!!!  We kept saying "Emmanuella Dirkse, Emmanuella Dirkse - you are officially our daughter!"  That was so great to see after a few rough days in the middle of our trip when she was a bit quiet when she was around us.  The rest of the day was also fun.  We stopped at the mall on the way home to grab a late lunch and E was again just wonderful.  She claimed she wasn't hungry and didn't like Chinese food but when it came she ate off of all of our plates and I'm sure ate twice as much as I did.  :)  She was singing, dancing and coloring in the car the whole ride.

Then it was time to bring E back to her foster home.  While that was tough, she made it easier for us.  She kept her same lovely, upbeat spirit she had all day and she seems to understand well that we will be back as soon as we can for her.  There were many blown kisses as we pulled away but no tears for this was not a goodbye, just a "see you soon".  :)

We returned to the hotel to shower and pack and we are heading to the airport in a few minutes.  Ironically, the internet is back up for the first time in 8 days.  Funny Lord.  ;)

Can't wait to get home and start the next part of the process to get Emmanuella home.  Once we have a copy of the paperwork from today we can apply for her US Visa.  If/when our Visa application is approved E will need to have a checkup and be cleared by a doctor and they set up a "Visa Interview" at the US Embassy here in Ghana.  (all the while the Bethany workers here will be getting her a passport and bringing her to her appointments, etc.) We will most likely fly back for that Visa interview.  If we are approved at the interview they will print her Visa about 2 days later and we can bring her home.  If the Visa is not approved and the US Embassy wants to review her case more we will be put in what is called "Administrative Processing" and won't be able to bring her back until that is completed ... which can take weeks to months.  So, the next process is to pray for Visa application approval, then Visa interview approval.  We hope to have her home in early fall if all goes well.

I don't have a way to put any pics from my camera on my iPad so I will post a few pictures tomorrow when we get home.

Thanks everyone for all of your love and support during this process - it's not over yet!  :)

Robin