Miscellaneous Items (by Thom)

A lot has been going on lately so we're going to résumé here and get caught up:

First, all the paperwork regarding the adoption is final and in our hands. We've now applied for Malian passports for the girls and are expecting those to be finished soon. Once we get those we can apply for visas to the US for them. This is a little complicated but we get asked this question a lot so let me try to explain it clearly here:
We have legally adopted Miriam and Hannah but they are not yet American citizens. That is not automatic. We will pursue duel citizenship for them (American and Malian) but we don't have time to make them Americans before we come to the US (more on this in a minute) so we're getting them Malian passports. Malians cannot enter the US without a visa so we are going to get that, too. Hopefully that makes sense. Once we return to Mali in June we'll finish the citizenship issue and get them American passports, too.

We are supposed to be returning to the US March 1st for three months! We have held off on sharing this officially because we wanted to wait until the adoption was final. We're praying and hoping that we can stay to this schedule and to do that we'll need their passport and visa paperwork to go through without any problems. We're really looking forward to coming home and seeing our friends and family. We've 'met' so may new people through this website during the last couple of years without ever talking face-to-face. Thanks for all the support we're received! We will be based in Lima, OH for our furlough but will be making a number of trips to see family and friends. Our schedule can be seen here, but it is subject to change. We've had a few churches request we come and share what the Lord has done in our lives here in Mali and we're excited to be able to do that, but at this point we don't have any more Sundays available. If you have a weekday function in the area and you'd like Amanda or me to share our stories we'll be happy to see if we can work things out.

Speaking of returning to the US, thanks to everyone who emailed me with advice on which photo printer to buy. I got a lot of great leads and ended up settling on a machine that will be perfect for our ministry in Mali. It even does things I wanted that I didn't know existed!

Amanda hasn't been feeling well lately. It's one part stress plus one part flu. Please pray for her health. Both of us are feeling we're at the end of our emotional ropes. Our furlough couldn't come at a better time!

Finally, I'm very, very busy at the mission office right now. I'm trying to work ahead through the end of June as best I can. We only have 6 weeks left here and I'm trying to cram almost 6 months of work into that. Please pray for me that I can get all my tasks done. I'm working on buying tickets for missionaries who will travel this year, preparing salaries for our Malian employees while I'm gone, budgeting for the coming year, and more.

Thank you all so much for holding us up in prayer. We're excited to be coming home soon and sharing two very tangible results of all that prayer! Oh, speaking of Miri and Hannah - there are more new pictures of them on our site! Enjoy.