Busy 24 hours

On Thursday afternoon we went to the AWAA office to see if our 2nd MOWA letter had come in. They told us it hadn’t. We need this MOWA letter to get Jacob’s birth certificate. We were told that it would come in “maybe tomorrow”. So we left thinking not much would be happening this week. Friday morning we went to the Embassy to try to get our I-600 notarized (something that just became required). We hired a driver and went to the Embassy only to find out that the notary doesn’t work on Fridays. We got back to the guest house and were trying to decide what to do with the rest of our day. We were sitting down in the lobby using the internet and watching the Royal Wedding when T came in a told us we had an appointment at Immigration to get Jacob’s passport in 30 minutes. We were so excited and confused how this happened so fast! We started asking T questions and he said you have 30 minutes to get there, so we can talk later. We quickly called our driver and he was close by! We made it to Immigration with 5 minutes to spare, then waited for another AWAA employee for about 30 minutes. I was afraid we missed our appointment, but it didn’t seem to be a big deal. We followed the AWAA employee to the front of the line. This was a little uncomfortable. There were over 100 Ethiopians waiting to apply for visas, and we just went to the front of the line and applied for Jacob’s passport and he got his passport photos taken.
While we were waiting for the paperwork to be all filled out we got to see Jacob’s birth certificate. It said Jafar Bradley Mowen ( we will legally change it to Jacob Jafar Mowen when we get home)!!! How exciting!!!! It also listed his birthday as November 8, 2010. All of the paperwork we had received said December 8, 2010. We called to the AWAA office and they told us its no big deal it was just a typo, but it’s what we have to go by now. We have a police letter that says he came to the orphanage on December 8th and we were given pictures of him from when we was just days old, so we know that was a close birthday. I was so sad that we lost a month of his life. He is now 5 ½ months old. Although, I am sad he is now considered a month older, I am glad his birthday won’t get mixed in with Christmas.
So within 24 hours AWAA received our MOWA letter, got Jacob’s birth certificate, and we applied for his passport!!!! Praise the Lord!!!! We are hoping that we will be submitted to Embassy for our appointment and Jacob’s visa on Wednesday. Then we are hoping we will be able to come home WITH Jacob in the next 2 weeks if everything goes quickly!!!!!