Leila Update

My lovely friend, Juanita, is coming all the way from Niger in 2 weeks, and we will get to have her to ourselves for 5 days! I always love to have time with her and her little ones. Yesterday she asked if there was anything I wanted her to bring me from Niger. "Of course!" I told her. "Leila!" 

Well, she won't be bringing Leila with her, but things are moving along. Especially good news for the three families adopting is that Emma's parents are on there way TODAY to go pick her up in Niger. They still don't have a birth certificate for her, so they need major prayer for a miracle there. They will be the first of the three families to get to this point, so they will be going through the embassy stuff, exit interview, etc. They have been very helpful in our journey so far in laying out what to expect and sharing what obstacles they encountered, so that we could hopefully avoid them. 

Here's the latest in our adoption world:

1. Niger is cracking down on adoptions because of people like this. Awful stuff. This means that the U.S. embassy (as well as the Niger courts and government) will be doing a more thorough exit interview and exit preparation/due diligence process (Jonathan and Ashley who are heading over to bring Emma home received an email from the U.S. Embassy explaining this). 
2. Because Leila has one living parent (that has consented to the adoption!), our Nigerien lawyer recommends we move forward with a simple adoption. He believes this will be better received by the judges, and the lawyer representing the state will likely not contest it if it is presented as a simple adoption. The end result is the same - she will be our daughter - but she comes to the U.S. with her African name and no passport. She will come here on a visa, and then when she arrives we take care of the paperwork to make her a U.S. citizen and change her name. We will have to hire an immigration lawyer to help us with this. This change has pushed our court date back, and we are supposed to hear this week what that date will be. 
3. If we can prove that we started the adoption process before July 13, 2013, we will be exempt from the new US law around adoption that went into effect on July 14, 2014. We are gathering evidence for that to send to USCIS. 

So, please pray for a quick court date to be assigned for us and the Woods, for favor over Emma's final journey to get home and favor for all of us and the decisions that others have to make in order to bring these three sweet children home. Our God is able!