BIG day! (what an understatement)

So today we got the phone call that I was starting to think we'd never, ever get.  

We got our referral!! WOO HOO!!!  Praise God from whom all blessings flow!  

3 years and 3 days since we got on the waiting list.  Wow.  And in the third month of the year.

He is 18 months old and beautiful.  His name is Yosef/Joseph.  We can show you pictures in person but we cannot post them on the internet until he is officially home with us.  He is not ours yet but by accepting the referral it means we want to pursue him to be ours.  We are all excited and still letting it sink in.  Brady and Holden are excited for another brother.

There is a bunch more paperwork to be done (thankfully not a lot on our end) that will take probably 12-13 more weeks.  Hopefully we will get a court date set shortly thereafter.  Potentially we could go meet him late this summer.   When we meet him we will also go to court.  Sadly he cannot come home with us then.  We will return to get him once we are assigned an appointment with the Embassy in Ethiopia.

With all that ahead, we are still so thankful for today.  We praise God for getting us this far in the journey.  We praise him for Joseph!   Please pray for Joseph and for what remains on this journey for all of us.  I promise to keep you posted!