Adoption Update!

As you all know, we are in the last stages of our paperwork chase. We have just been given a list of documents that we need to complete before we can get a court date, otherwise known as "regional documents".
I started working on them this morning and had several questions for my family coordinator. She called me back and answered them and also let me know a few more things. First, I can calm down and not race so hard to get these documents done because we are currently waiting on an important document from our facilitator that will take some time in coming. Evidently families that traveled way before us are still waiting for theirs. Basically this all means that there is no chance of us getting a court date before Christmas. The reason being is that once all of our regional paperwork is submitted, it takes no less than 1 month before court dates are issued. Since the families that traveled before us are still waiting for their Petition to Court document, they might be able to get a court date before Christmas if they get that document asap, but we won't.=( Also, I found out that Krasnoyarsk only gives court dates on Tuesdays. We are not sure if they give them for one family or allow more than one family to have their court hearing in that one day. If it's one family, it'll take longer for a court date. Russia also takes about 3 weeks off for the holidays. So, my Family Cordinator is pretty sure that the earliest we could get a court date would be at the end of January but probably February. Again, it depends on when we get our petition to court and how fast they process our docs in Russia. I also know that our God is a God of miracles and He can do anything, including giving us an early court date but I'm not going to expect anything. If you all could pray that we can at least have our boys home before our oldest's birthday on Feb. 23rd, I'd appreciate it so much. We have a better chance of that happening.
The next (not so happy) news is that I found out about a fee we weren't aware of. I did not include it when I calculated how much more we would need for our second trip. The fee goes to our facilitator in Russia and it's $19,000! So far we have spent approximately $20,535 on our adoption fees and travel. Before our next trip we need $ 24,125 more! I know all of you who read this blog have been so faithful in praying for us and we appreciate it more than you know. Please add our request that this huge need be met to your list.=) Chris is putting our donation icon back on the blog as well as a "thermometer" so you can see where we are financially in our adoption. Please don't feel obligated to donate but if the Lord leads you in that direction, we will praise Him for it! We desperately need your prayers though.