One step almost complete?!?
December 2, Jerry submitted our paperwork. 52 pages of paperwork. (All written by Jerry – GO Jerry!) The paperwork was 2-fold: one part was to petition for a license to start the local NGO “Embracing Hope Ethiopia”. The other part was our first project proposal that spelled out the details of the day care we hope to start (how many we’ll hire, what we’ll do, even down to how many rolls of toilet paper we’ll buy over the next 3 years, hence the 52 pages). And then the waiting started. Weekly trips to the office revealed that they weren’t finished with the paperwork yet. And the waiting continued. I’ll admit, it wasn’t always “patient waiting”, as we so long to get started. But the waiting continued.
On Wed, January 12, we were surprised by a call from our friend who’s been helping with the whole process. He had our paperwork back for corrections!!! (I guess we shouldn’t have been surprised – we started praying that morning, and all throughout the morning and afternoon, as a family specifically for the paperwork to come back. I wish I had a photo of the kids’ eyes when we told them. Caia danced. God building their faith!) Jerry went and got the paperwork and they went over what the required corrections were. They tried to submit the paperwork on Friday, but the woman they needed wasn’t in the office, so they went back Monday morning.
On Mon, Jan 17, the paperwork – with 14 typed pages of corrections – went back in. And the woman at the office scheduled an appointment for us for Friday – tomorrow – January 20 at 10am – for us to come in and receive our NGO license!!! We are cautiously excited.
This is a big step. The project proposal still needs to go to a few more offices to be approved, but we can begin work on setting up the NGO so everything is in place when the day care is approved. We can begin to hire an executive director, an accountant, and required other staff. We can set up the required office. We can apply for our work permits (these would allow us to work/volunteer for the NGO, and give us a more permanent status here).
We would appreciate your prayers for Friday – that a license is indeed issued. Then it will be full steam ahead with lots of details large and small to attend to, and we’ll have lots more prayer requests. 🙂 This week feels a bit like the calm before the storm…and we are thankful for both: the current calm and the coming storm. God, we find, is in both.