Nearly there!

I got so excited tonight...look at our thermometer on the side of this page! We are nearly halfway to our goal! We really just have travel expenses remaining. Hurray! God always provides. I've had a sense of peace since beginning this journey, and continue to feel His hand guide us.

Thank you to friends and family who have given to Mercy, we love you!

As far as paperwork...here's what's left:

• Our affidavit is being finished up by our lawyer. We have a draft right now. He says we should have the completed one by next week. This will tell us all of the documents that need to be mailed to Uganda. Once we have it, we need to make copies of all the included documents and get them notarized. Then get the notarized copies, copied. Make sense? I know, it's confusing.
• We need a letter from MAT explaining how we found out about Mercy. It is written, just needs to be notarized by a director, she's planning on doing that soon.
• We need a letter from our doctor stating that Mercy needs specialized care. I called our pediatricians office (who actually used to run an AIDS clinic in Africa) and left a message with the front desk. Hoping there will not be a problem with this. He's been helpful with adoption paperwork in the past.
• FBI fingerprint originals. Waiting on that. I actually faxed them the change in address today. I originally told them to mail them to our social worker. His office moved, and I realized that he doesn't need them at all, they are for our dossier. So hopefully the FBI will mail them to the correct address, ours.
• Mercy's home needs Ministry of Gender approval. Our lawyer told us that it's something we can work around if they don't get it soon. It would look better if they do. They had a health inspection last week. They are planning on running around this week for more paperwork duties.

That seems like a lot, but in all reality, we could be mailing in our affidavit/dossier by next week if things work out very well. More realistically, two weeks. Then, we will wait for a court date. I am not sure how long to expect to wait on that...but we have heard of two families who recently went with less than a weeks notice. We could be in Uganda by the beginning of March!