After some strategizing over the calendar, we have decided to make a leap of faith and line up tickets to leave next week. Wednesday, to be exact. Because the in-country adoption process takes 5 weeks under optimal circumstances, if our court date doesn't take place this month, our in-country time could be extended by close to 50% due to government offices being closed for the Christmas/New Year's holidays.
Since our last update, we have learned that our court appointment will be set on Monday (11/20). With our itinerary in hand, our advocate should be able to request a hearing of the judge for us sometime during the window of time that both of us will be in Albania, 11/24-12/1. (On 12/2, Nathan will need to return to Kentucky to finish out the semester.)
If it ends up that we learn on Monday that the judge couldn't accomodate our request and decided to put us on his schedule for a date after December 1, we should have enough time to change our tickets and plan our new trip around the definitive court date. HOWEVER, a court date after December 1 means that we won't be able to take custody of Elisona until December 19 at the earliest (because of the madatory 15-day waiting period). It's estimated that it will take about 3 weeks after gaining custody to line up her medical exams, apply for and obtain her passport, and then get her American and any necessary transit visas. You can imagine how "quickly" that would go here in America between offices being closed for official holidays and specific, important personnel out of the office for vacation! We expect it will be even more complicated for us over there.
So, the tickets are on hold and we are going to wait to buy them until Bethany-Albania has an opportunity to respond to this new plan. We should hear something by 10AM tomorrow.
In the mean time, you can pray over the selection process on Friday (Friday the judges draw lots to see which one will hear our case). Then, you can pray for Monday's meeting between our advocate (not to be confused with "lawyer" -- the Albanian word for lawyer actually sounds similar to the English word "advocate", but of course is spelled differently) and the judge, that he won't feel hemmed in by our date request and somewhat tight schedule. Ideally, a court date on Monday, 11/27 would be the best! Then the countdown for the 15-day waiting period for custody can begin!
Nathan said that if this blog had such a thing as a "happy meter," it would have been on both ends of the scale in just the last 24-48 hours!
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