Update on Conleigh

After many days of having sporadic communication with Conleigh's orphanage, they have finally established a fairly consistent communication through texting. I learned last night that our orphanage director had already been at the US Embassy trying to get kids out but that the lines were too long. She is planning to go today as well. They left Mirebalais at five a.m.. She is planning to take the three children from the orphanage going to US families, her son, and her mother's adopted son. Her goal is to get all of the kids out with her mother and herself escorting them. They are hoping to be able to fly on some type of military plane. I am so thankful to hear that she has been working on this. Before, we didn't know what was going on and were maybe assuming she was busy doing other things. That said, there are no definites. The state department has outlined a procedure for doing things and are encouraging people not to go to the Embassy with kids since they don't want to make the chaos at the Embassy even worse. That's fine but that's not what most orphanage directors will do, especially those with only a handful of kids will probably do. They will probably show up at the Embassy with any paperwork they have on the child and try to get on a plane. Up until last night, I know the Embassy was issuing paperwork for Humanitarian Parole despite the State Dept. not having given an official notice of such. So they still may give paperwork even though our case has not been approved via the channels the State Dept. is suggesting. Melinda, our director, will probably have just as much evidence as we do on our case so if she has that it should work. But the lines are long. Who knows? We just have no idea. We also have no idea of what will happen if they do get out. Where they would be flying to, how we we would find our children, etc.. Hopefully we'll hear more on that today. For the first time, I am starting to feel confident that Conleigh will be home soon. Please pray specifically for Melinda, Pat, and the children as they are probably have just arrived at the Embassy. Pray for the children (Julie who is 2, Conleigh who will be 3 in a few weeks, and Eddy who is 6 I believe) to be calm and to be cooperative. Pray for Melinda as she works on getting everyone out. Pray for Amanda (10) and Michael (5) who are the children of Melinda and her mother. Pray they would understand why their parents are asking them to leave for a while. And pray for our hearts, we are excited but a little scared to believe that this could actually happen. We don't want to be crushed. And we also are not prepared for her homecoming in so many ways. The physical things like a having a bed and a winter coat we can do; the emotional part of preparing for her we hadn't really done much of at all.