It has been quite crazy in our house the last two weeks! I originally wrote a post to update you at the end of September and it looked quite different than the one I am writing today.

We are extremely excited to let everyone know that we have plane tickets purchased and hotels booked to go to Korea and complete the adoption of Elijah. In the last two weeks we had a couple major updates, resulting in a court date in Korea on December 9!

From waiting for news to purchasing plane tickets

For those of you who need a refresher, we have been praying and waiting for the government to issue Elijah’s emigration permission since the end of May. This process took months longer than expected, and we were wondering how long the whole process would be delayed.

On September 29, we were contacted and told that this paperwork was finally complete and his case would be passed along to the Korean family court system. The next day we were told his case was officially court submitted and that it would go under review by a judge before they would issue a court date for us. We knew that this next process could take four to eight weeks, and then once the case was reviewed it could be an additional four to eight weeks before the court date. As a result, we were mentally preparing ourselves to travel after the holidays to Korea.

You can imagine our surprise when we got an email less than two weeks later saying we would be expected to be in Korea for family court December 9!

We are over the moon to be traveling here before Christmas and also in a little bit of shock that it happened so quickly. As we look at the calendar we realize there are only six weekends left before we travel, and in that time there are many things to do and celebrate, including Markus’s birthday, Thanksgiving, and early Christmas.

We are so excited to be traveling with another family from our church who has the same court date as us! We can’t wait for both of our families to bring our boys home.

Prayer requests

• Global tensions are high right now, and that includes this area of the world. We serve a big God, and we trust him as we make this journey around the world to bring Elijah home.
• Transition to a family of four. Adding a child into any family comes with lots of adjustment. Adding a child into a family that God brought together through adoption can have particular challenges. Please be praying for us as we make this transition, especially for Olivia. We are so thankful that she will be going along on this trip, but we know that experiencing Elijah’s adoption may bring with it some struggles and hard memories. Pray that this will be a joyful time for our family

We love you and are so thankful for your prayers and support. We can’t wait to bing Elijah home!

Markus, Sarah, & Olivia