Come again?

At 10 a.m. this morning, we were waiting outside the judge's office with our translator when Alexei came out and asked why Travis' middle name was not listed in his passport.  Travis explained, and while we did not understand why this suddenly became an issue, it was obviously a big one.  Fifteen minutes later, we proceeded downstairs to the courtroom for the first of our two court appearances.  Today the judge went through each document, as we sat with a prosecutor, the orphanage social worker, our translator, and two others.  Again, Travis was asked to give the court an explanation regarding the missing middle name in his passport.  The judge explained that she is unable to issue any adoption documents without the passport matching the name on the rest of our submitted documents.  Nothing else would suffice; not the marriage certificate, not Travis' birth certificate, not the previously submitted copies of Travis' expired passport, all of which she had.  This is Russian bureaucracy.  We continued through the rest of our documents for the next hour.  All were satisfactory.  We were then asked to wait outside the courtroom while the rest of the courtroom discussed the passport issue.

The verdict was that our second day in court, scheduled for tomorrow morning, would be canceled.  We need to provide satisfactory documentation from the U.S. Department of State that Travis is who he says is according to his passport.  The prosecutor asked whether it mattered to the U.S. that the adoption documents would be issued with Travis' middle name missing.  We answered 'no'.  Travis asked if there was any other alternative to satisfying this requirement, but the answer was final.  Pete's adoption is further delayed by at least one more court trip + 30 days.

Rules are rules, and there are no exclusions.  No one, not even a judge, has authority to make an independent decision, even for such a trivial matter.  This is socialism at its worst.  Bureaucracy and big government unable to allow independent thinking and problem solving.

The judge left the courtroom, and the translator told us that the social worker was upset, but told us not to worry.  Tears welled in my eyes.  We're upset, but we understand we're adopting Pete from a foreign country, and it's the way it is.  Did anyone catch this oversight before now?  It's a mistake that costs an awful lot of money, but Praise God that He provided Travis with a new client yesterday so that we can pay for it.  And then there's the greatest cost of all:  Pete is left in the orphanage for an untold additional number of days, unable to bond to a family anxiously waiting to carry him home.

In a few minutes, we're off to see Pete, and it's going to be bittersweet.