Perseverance

We made it!

On Tuesday morning, after just one week in court #2 in Pereira, we signed our sentencia, making our family officially a family of seven.  We spent the remainder of the morning chasing after birth certificates and passport photos, mercilessly dragging the children around the city.  Thankfully Nic could do the remainder of the running in the afternoon without the children and I kept all five children safe in the pool for the afternoon.  It was a beautiful day and we celebrated with cake and ice cream for dessert after supper!  

After having three errors on the same birth certificate, and chasing around Dosquebradas and Pereira back and forth from the notary to the passport office for two straight days we finally received the passports for all three children on Thursday morning.  The children didn't quite understand the importance of all the rushing around, but each morning following the sentencia they woke up very early asking when they could fly to the United States.  They have also asked what language is spoken in Bogota.  Their world has been so small and we are excited to be able to share so much with them.

We had no trouble waking up the three oldest children this morning at 4 a.m. for our 6 a.m. flight from Pereira to Bogota.  We could have taken another airline on a later flight, but it would have cost $600 more and since the children were so excited we opted for the early morning flight.  They were so excited to fly and all five of them were absolutely perfect throughout the flight experience!  What an amazing blessing!

We arrived at Hotel Paris to a very warm welcome from many, many families here.  There is a family from Alabama adopting a sibling group of five - now making a total of 13 children, as well as a family from Minnesota that I have been in touch with via internet with a beautiful baby girl from Ayudame, as well as another family staying at Zuetana that I have been in touch with via the internet with a beautiful daughter from Ayudame, and a man and his daughter from Maine returning to visit after 20 years.  While we felt very much at home in Pereira and loved the climate and the people there, our welcome here was wonderful today.  And to top it all off the internet connection works!

I will go with Jhonny and the three older children this afternoon to take pictures for the US visas and to go to the US embassy doctor.  Monday morning I will go with Carmen and the three older children to the US embassy to apply for their US visas and on Tuesday afternoon one of us will return to pick them up without the children.  Then we will be ready to leave and we will be able to relax and enjoy our final days in Colombia.  As I type Nic is trying to arrange our flights home.  It is hard to imagine going home to snow...

The week was difficult because we felt that we were tripping over ourselves running after very important paperwork, but in the end we were thankful for the many people who were trying to help us, and for the grace, mercy, patience, and perseverance that came from God just when we thought we couldn't handle it another moment.