A journey within a journey...

Here are the details of what has happened over the past 36 hours. It is so clear that GOD has orchestrated EVERY DETAIL. It just makes me smile to think of all of the ways He is handling this whole process.

Adam and I decided to drive our dossier out to Washington, DC to take it to the Department of State and hand deliver it to the Rwandan Embassy. We left at 6pm on Thursday and arrived at our hotel at around 2am on Friday. We slept for a few hours and then went to the Authentications Office a little after 7:30am. We initially went to the wrong building, but a nice security guard helped us find our way! All of our papers were given another official cover sheet and then it was time to head over to the embassy. It was pouring rain and parking spaces are a little hard to come by in DC:) We parked about 3 blocks away and ran- trying not to get too wet! It was now just a little after nine and the door to the embassy was open. When we walked inside all the lights were off, but a man greeted us and asked what we needed. Just as we were answering another gentleman came in from the rain who happened to be Mr. Michael Rukata, the person we were hoping to see!!! He said he had three minutes because of a meeting with the ambassador and asked what he could do for us. We gave him our dossier and informed him that we would return with a pre-paid envelope so he could mail it back when he was finished. He looked it over (we had already sent it there once), and said that he would stamp our documents and have our approval letter ready to pick up by 4:30 THAT DAY!!! This was totally unexpected:)

After our initial trip to the embassy, the rain stopped and the sun came out making for an absolutely gorgeous day. We toured some of the sites and enjoyed the cherry blossom trees, which were in full bloom. When we returned to the embassy, our dossier was finished and we were granted the much needed "No Objection" letter. We left to drive home at around 5pm, hit major DC traffic on our way out, and returned safely home at about 2am this morning. After making copies and bundling everything together, our paperwork is now en-route to Kigali, Rwanda. The Minister of Family and Gender is the next step along the way.

These are some pictures of our "road trip" to DC that I plan to put in the lifebook I am making for our kids!!! We just can't wait to hold them!!!