Well…it’s Sunday, November 30th.  That means our bowling fundraising event is over!  It was a big success.  We had about 66 tickets pre-sold and sold about 86 more the day of!   The silent auction even turned out much better than we had hoped.  We started a raffle for a quilt 8 women in our church had made for us.  That went well too.  We’ll keep that going for a couple more weeks and draw a name the week before Christmas in case the winner wants to give it away as a Christmas present.

 Thank you to the following people and businesses for contributing to our silent auction:

* Carol and Roman Henningfeld 

*Sue and Jason Weber

*Lisa Shannon and Family

*Renee Henningfeld

*Diane Lambert

*Sharon Leonard (Hearts of Hope Adoption Ministry)

*Sarah Duesterbeck and Sue Thelen

*Crystal Brokopp

*Dawn Schumacher- Eew-Nique Designs Elkhorn, WI

*Dave Hinman- Casey’s Carpet Cleaning Etc.. Elkhorn, WI

*Kikkoman Foods- Walworth, WI

*The Green Bay Packers

*The Milwaukee Bucks

*The Milwaukee Wave

*The Milwaukee Admirals

*The Beloit Snappers

*Panera Bread- Delavan, WI

*Papa Murphy’s- Delavan, WI

*Cousin’s Subs- Delavan, WI

*Christine Slawson

*Seth and Lydia Tost

*Marge O’Leary- The Tea House- East Troy, WI

*Sarah Kuespert and her mom & dad (sorry I don’t know their names)

*Kristi Rowntree- Premier Designs Jewelry

*The Barnett Family

*Four Lakes Athletic Club (FLAC)- Elkhorn, WI

Also, a HUGE thank you to all the people who came and bowled, bought tickets for bowling, bought quilt raffle tickets, bid in the silent auction/won silent auction items, and for your help with spreading the word, setting up, cleaning up, hanging out with Evan (especially my mom, Aunt Josie, and Uncle Ron).   It couldn’t have been a success without any of you.  Thank you to everyone for your support and prayers for our adoption as well- that means more than anything you could ever give!

 And for an update for those who do not know….everything on our end is completely done.  We are just waiting still on a court date.  The paperwork all arrived in Ethiopia October 29th.  We still have not gotten a court date.  This is because of two things- the courts closed in August/September for the rainy season, creating a backlog and secondly, when they close, they often come up with a new requirement.  The new requirement by the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MOWA) in Ethiopia is that a document be authenticated by the local court where the children are from.  This is for any children who have a living birth parent (our boys have a living father).  This is creating huge hold-ups and delays because it is not that simple in a foreign country as you might think it would be.  Their home is 3-4 hours from Addis, the capital and big city where MOWA is probably located.  Please pray that this document get to the local court, be authenticated, and returned promptly so that we can be given a court date.  We are still being very patient, but we feel bad for our boys…it’s not that they are getting bad care by any means, but it’s just not the same as a loving family.   We were originally hoping for a December court date and to travel in January.  Now we are hoping for a January court date and travel in February…we’re hoping that’s not being too optimistic, but it could be.  Hopefully we’ll have a date and good news any day now!