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Our beloveds sent the following update this week and asked that it be posted for our church. Read on...

 

Hi friends,

After over 4 months away from you all, we're starting to plan our return to Vancouver (with excitement) and we wanted to give you an update on what's happening. November 5 marked 3 months that we've had Agnes in our family. Woohoo! After Megan's dad left at the beginning of October, we were all a bit depressed as we wanted to be heading back too! However, October has flown by. We've been able to make some good connections with Zambian and ex-pat families and it seems like we've been busy every weekend. Even weekdays have gone quickly. We've been to a swim meet up at the mining town 1.5 hrs away, celebrated birthdays of friends, and enjoyed a lot of meals with our new friends here. Isaac and Agnes have been going out to school at the orphanage on a semi-regular basis and that's been much better for allowing Evan to get home-schooled by Megan. Megan found a running partner who lives on a farm outside of town and she's heading out there 2-3 times per week. And as I confessed to Andy, there's a ridiculously cheap golf course here, so I've been golfing 2x per week (I even get a caddy!).

Despite all this, we're really excited (and a bit anxious) to get home. On that front, since we passed the 3 month mark, we're now able to get back to court to finalize the adoption. We had received a letter from Social Welfare saying that we couldn't get into court until Nov. 26 but our lawyer pushed the judge to get us in on Nov. 13. Never thought I'd say praise God for lawyers! She has been God-send for sure. After the court date, we still need to get some documentation from Social Welfare, so we're praying that this goes smoothly. Once we get all that documentation, including Agnes's Zambian passport, we're heading to South Africa to get the Canadian immigration work completed. Checking flight costs, we decided to buy tickets home from South Africa for Dec. 9, as there was a seat sale that ended on that day. We'll be flying home via Hong Kong, so at the end of the day, this will be an around the world tour!

You can pray that everything goes smoothly over the next few weeks. We're praying that the judge doesn't require any additional paperwork, that Social Welfare provides the necessary documentation on time for court, and then that they get the adoption certificate put together quickly for us. We've left some buffer, but we need the Lord to light a fire under some of these people! We've definitely had some challenges with Social Welfare but the person who gave us the most trouble at the beginning as moved out, so we're praying that they help us finalize everything without delay.

Thanks for your prayers so far. I know that we've been buoyed by them, especially as we felt like sinking on numerous occasions. Love all you and can't wait to see you soon!

Jonathan, Megan, Evan, Isaac & Agnes