Good Day in Kampala

We had a great day in court! The next court appointment to receive the ruling will be on January 25th. I know this sounds a bit later than we were hoping for, but there were actually some recent documentation issues that arose concerning Patricia's adoption. There had been some false testimony given by the equivalent of the village mayor where Patricia's grandmother is from, and there was concern that this would be upsetting, understandably, to the judge. During the drive into Kampala (close to two hours away) I was praying for the worst thing not to happen, which would be that the judge would throw the case out because of the deception that had taken place, even though it was now resolved. However, he did in fact give us a ruling date, which is great, but he does want some additional documentation. While the judge spoke with Patricia's grandmother during court today, she mentioned that P's father visited the village fairly recently, so the judge is requesting to either see the father or have an affidavit from him agreeing to the release of his parental rights, prior to our court appointment. Our lawyer and Claudia (at GSF) feel that they will be able to present an adequate paper trail to satisfy him, even if they don't actually find the father. If the lawyer had no intention of giving our case a ruling, he would have said as much today.

So, besides court, we ate out for lunch and also did some shopping. This was Patricia's first time in a restaurant, and she had pizza for the first time! Some funny things: after she finished eating, she walked her plate back to the kitchen (we were sitting near there); she picked up food off the floor when she dropped it (not that uncommon for her age); she LOVED the automatic hand dryer in the bathroom; during her passport 'photo shoot', she hammed it up big time; she saved any food that she couldn't finish and put it in a napkin in my purse, and remembered to get it out and finish it within the hour! It was a very fun day, but also very long as we left at 8am and returned at 6pm.

Tomorrow the plan is to get Patricia's medical exam completed in Kampala and also to visit the Embassy and start the process of investigation that they do. Our lawyer will also be able to get Patricia's passport during this next month. The combination of starting the visa process at the Embassy as well as getting her passport should make for a very short trip at the end of January. During this whole process, Nate has wanted to be able to bring Patricia home with me, and we're thinking this may be possible now! Claudia says that we should be home by February. As you think to pray for us, I think that would be a great request of the Great God!

I'm going to close this post so that it can load in case I lose it during the attempt to upload a photo. But I will try really hard to add a picture to it in a few minutes so that you can see Cutie Pie!

Many thanks to everyone for your prayers for us during this exciting time.

Love,
Kim