It's Official - Meet Nathnael William Stackler

We got the call today, we had a successful court date and Nathnael William Stackler is legally part of the Stackler family. He has long been in our hearts, but it sure does feel good to clear this legal hurdle. We are now scheduled to travel to Ethiopia to pick him up on August 15th. This is a little up in the air right now, so keep praying.

Here are a few pictures of our son.



Here is a video we put together to tell a little about our journey to Nathnael.

Another Bump

Well, I guess it would have been too easy to just wait for next Monday and get the good news about passing court. Apparently there was some miscommunication regarding our court date. The Ethiopian court has our court date as July 29th and not July 27th. So we will have to wait an extra two days. Still waiting with hopeful hearts.

While I'm Waiting . . .

Well, it has been an insanely long time since we have written, mostly due to laziness, but also due to the difficulty of processing all that is going on. The last time we updated everyone on the status of our adoption, we had a court date on May 20th. A couple of weeks prior to our court date we heard from our agency that cases like ours were not being heard by the Ethiopian court due to an investigation. The investigation was not directly about our agency or our son. Unfortunately, when our court date came around on May 20th, the Ethiopian court closed our case (and all others like ours) until the investigation was completed. This news was very difficult to take and I think that Amy and I pretty much went into shutdown mode.

We were told by many people about the ups and downs of the adoption process and how things will never go how you think they will go. I naively thought our case would be different and, quite simply, I was wrong.

The investigation eventually came to an end around the beginning of July (I think). We got another court date for July 13th. Then we heard that another government agency in Ethiopia was having training for a couple of weeks and could not perform their part of the court proceedings. They will not be returning to work until July 24th. So, on the 13th we got another court date. This time our court date is July 27th. This is the first time that we have had a court date with a chance of passing. I am not holding my breath, but I am hopeful.

I am learning so much about God in this process and they are not easy lessons, but they are lessons that I am better off for learning.

While all of this is going on, life has continued at its normal pace. Lucy and Sam are enjoying vacation bible school, Amy and the kids went to Savannah and Raleigh for vacation (I had to work), Sam started Cub Scouts, we got a sandbox, we got new carpet, Sam went to camp at The Marsh. Life has been fun this summer and I have had a great time with my family, but I have definitely felt those parts of our family that are missing.

I love being a father and right now my heart just wants our son to be home with us.

Take a peek back on the 27th. If we pass court, I will post a collection of pictures and you can be introduced to our newest son. To God be the Glory!