In The Details

Hind sight is always 20/20. Isn't that what they say?

I've always been confident that God is in the details. But as a Type-A Mama I wanted to have my hands on the details, too. Okay, I wanted to direct the details. I've got so far to grow in the faith department. And despite all of my shortcomings, God's blessings are so rich and full that I'm overwhelmed by His goodness and mercy.

Last week one day I tried to be a super-hero mom and run just a few too many errands with the children: library, Cub, Costco, Cindy's, and then home before lunch time, story time and nap time. It didn't go as smoothly as I'd hoped, and the children were eating a very late 2:00 lunch while I read stories to them to speed things along, when our social worker called. Now, our social worker is a very patient person and she's understanding that when she calls there is usually a fair amount of child-noise in the background - unless it's nap time - which it should have been on any non-heroic day. Hearing the usual child chatter, our social worker asked if the kids were sleeping and I ashamedly admitted to my overzealous morning, telling her the kids were on their way to bed soon. She quickly asked me to call her after they got to sleep. I wasn't sure if this was good news or bad news that she needed my undivided attention for, so I hurried the story/lunch time along and promised a larger than normal snack for after nap time. After a very quick version of "Jesus Loves Me" and two potty breaks they were tucked in and I was on my way down stairs. I sat down at the computer, prayed quietly committing whatever the matter might be and called Nic at work, leaving him a message that went something like this, "Our social worker called and left a cryptic message to call her after the children were asleep - maybe she has news. So, please be available if I need to call you to tell you something important." Then the crying started upstairs and I ran up two flights of stairs to find out that Noah's baby was tangled under the blankets and with his arm in a cast he can't maneuver them all. I saved baby, calmed him down, prayed with him and ran back down two flights of stairs. Entirely out of breath, I called our social worker and then held my breath to hear what she had to say.

Congratulations if you've stuck with the blog entry this long...

It was then that I found out that we had a referral for a sibling group of three children. However, the ICBF office in Pereira officially gave the referral more than three weeks ago, but due to paperwork discrepancies, translation and more paperwork errors, we were just receiving it today, and with some paperwork still missing. Some parents might be upset that they had lost three valuable weeks to work toward bringing their children home, but I was confident that God had a purpose for those three weeks because by this point I was beginning to learn something about God's faithfulness to us in the details. We weren't able to tell our family about the referral right away because we didn't have the complete information and we wanted to be able to pray over and make a decision based on the complete referral. Finally a few days later we received the missing pages which were all in Spanish and which I digested over supper that very night. After praying over the children's information we felt a great sense of peace in accepting the referral for a daughter age 10, a daughter age 8, and a son age 5 1/2.

The amazing thing about waiting three extra weeks to receive their referral is that just this week airline tickets to Colombia went down $400 a piece - a huge savings for a family of seven. Had we received the referral three weeks ago it is very likely we would have purchased our tickets before the ticket prices had been reduced. In addition to this, the nation-wide judicial strike ended this past Thursday clearing the way for adoptions to be processed again. At the same time, we were informed that the city our children are in never participated in the strike, so there will be no backlog in the court system there. It will likely take at least 4 weeks (or more) to get ready to go (see below), which is how long Noah needs to have his cast on. I'm amazed at how God takes care of every detail.

We eagerly await being united with our new children in Pereira, Colombia. Here is the process that remains:

• We send the acceptance letter to ICBF (Monday).
• They send back some official paperwork to us stating a date they will present the children to us.
• We apply for our visas.*
• We (all four of us) travel to Bogota and stay overnight.
• We travel to Pereira the next day.
  
• The children are presented to us the next day or so. They will stay with us from that point on.
• After having the children in our care for one week, we attend a meeting with the "Defender of Minors", a government appointed worker in charge of the case.
• After this meeting our lawyer submits our paperwork to the court in Pereira.
• The lawyer calls us when the judge has signed the adoption decree.
• We gather new birth certificates for the children with their new last name.
• We apply for Colombian passports.
• We fly back to Bogota and visit an embassy approved doctor.
• We go to the embassy to apply for US visas for the children.
• The next day we pick up the visas.
• We are able to fly home.
• The children become US citizens upon stepping foot on US soil.

Please rejoice with us for the blessing of beautiful, joyful children, who are eager for a family to love and care for them. Please pray with us for the many, many details that remain before we can hold our new children. Please pray for tender hearts and a tender joining of our family in Colombia. *Please pray specifically for the details of the visa which may include a drive to Chicago, per the Colombian Consulate's requirements. Most importantly, please pray for the hearts of our children, both those at home and those waiting to come home, that they would see God's love for them and His pursuit of them through their adoption experience - that it would be a stepping stone, and not a stumbling block for their faith.

There will be more details of the children in the future, but it is all very new to us and we just want to hold them a little closer for now.