Well, after 3 1/2 hours of waiting in the humid un-airconditioned courtroom while the judges went through dozens of cases, they finally called our name and we gathered the children and stood before a panel of 5 judges. “Mr. the President” opened our file and said in French “We have judged favorably for you to adopt the child.” .” He proceeded to close file and go on to the next one. Our lawyer rushed us out and congratulated us. So that was it. No questions no nothing. In our American culture, it sure seems like a phone call would have sufficed! Ha ha. But no really, we are just absolutely thrilled to say now that Silas is legally ours and he now and forever will be a Hayslip!!
The next step is waiting for the judge to put this in writing and with that we can get Silas’ passport. We ask for continued prayer that these last 2 steps will be speedy and easy. Thank you to all who have prayed so faithfully for this! It truly is a miracle. We’ve heard that the things that have happened over the last two weeks usually can take several months. So we thank God that He’s still in the miracle working business. Silas’ full legal name: Silas Wendkuni Andre Hayslip. (Wendkuni means “God has given!”)
Jakob and Silas had a wonderful Easter. WE went to the Ambassador’s house and did an easter egg hunt, Joel and Heidi led the singing, and we ate lots of delicious food. Here is a slideshow with a few pictures as well as some kinda random pictures as well:
Jakob in a traditional hat - looks cool and oh, so functional
Silas actually SLEEPS in that wierd position in his crib!
A bunch of pictures of Silas’ 1st haircut - he loved it (wink, wink)
We arrived in Dori tired from our 5 hour drive from Ouagadougou, but very excited to see what was happening to our CPs: were they working? were they putting all the training into practice? were they still alive???
On Wednesday we have an audience with a panel of 3 judges who will then make the final judgement on Silas’ adoption! It is possible that within a week we could have the necessary paperwork to start the process of getting Silas a passport. Of course, anything could happen… The judge’s uncle-in-law’s step-brother could have a sudden marriage, requiring that everything get held up..
Would you take a minute and pray that this audience with the judges would indeed occur, and that we will have a favorable judgement?
This was an awesome trip! We had been anticipating visiting the children’s pastors ever since the end of their training in Ougadougou in March. We decided to surprise them so they couldn’t “prepare” for us. We wanted to see how things really were going.
There is so much to report that I will make several posts. I will call this one
