UNCERTAINTY, EXHAUSTION, DISCOURAGEMENT.... AND HOPE -

UNCERTAINTY,EXHAUSTION, DISCOURAGEMENT .... AND HOPE -

It has been a whirlwind of the last 48 hours…

On Wednesday night, after the ninas from the foster home had all gone to bed, we received a phone call that our judge had signed the adoption decree! We were asked to be in Neiva, Colombia on Friday morning by 8:00am to sign adoption documents.

We quickly made reservations…

To be honest, we had lots of mixed feelings…

Although we very, very much want to be home, we were not prepared to leave Tenjo so quickly….

We were sad...excited... and everything in between…

Then I woke up at 3:06 am… but that is old news by now…. (See prior post…)

On Thursday morning I woke Heidy and Andres up very early… 5:30 am so we could tell the ninas in the foster home good bye. I gotta admit… that was very, very hard. They had gone to bed not knowing we would be gone the next day before they got home from school. There were many, many tears… from all of us…

I guess it is good that we had a quick goodbye… that was hard enough…

Then we went to eat… well… not me because I still was not sure of my tummy... I did ask for warm water and lime juice though… not straight lime juice… lol!

After Heidy and Andres ate we packed…

The kind people from CDA, who I had called the night before, kindly changed their plans and picked us up to bring us to Bogota.

That was on Thursday morning. It was am emotional morning. So many mixed emotions… sad to be saying goodbye, mad at myself for missing even one second of enjoying this special place, so excited to be moving on to the next phase of coming home.

I am not sure what was harder… saying goodbye to the girls, or saying goodbye to the staff. They did not know until that morning that we were leaving either. Still – although my Spanish was nowhere close to being understandable, and their English being sparse… we somehow forged a very deep bond… an unspoken experience of mutual respect, and fun, and a deep love…

Jimmy, from CDA, brought us to Bogota. Our friend, from CDA, who I have never met… Willie… who speaks English… called me to tell me he had gotten us a great rate at a hotel right near the airport in Bogota. We were due to fly out to Neiva at 5:50am on Friday morning and fly back, landing at 9:30 Friday night. The hotel had/has a shuttle. It was perfect!

Thursday evening Diego, from our agency, his wife and their 18m old sweet, sweet baby girl, came to visit us. They are very gentle, kind and peaceful. They had some concerning news for us… I tried not to cry… but still the tears fell…

They told me that one of the documents in our file was not filled out properly.

For the children’s new birth certificates the documents needed to state their new last names of McIndoe Crawford… (Both mom and dad’s last name in Colombia) but the document only said McIndoe. This was a problem b/c all the documents have to be precise.

This same problem happened a few adoptions ago and it took over a week to get the document fixed b/c it has to be signed again by the Family Defender, the Judge, the Attorney and by the family. Our agency cautioned us that it was possible, but very unlikely that would all happen in one day – Friday – for us. I would very likely have to make a second trip to Neiva and this would likely add on another few days to another week before we could come home.

My phone call home on Thursday evening was hard. Lots of tears and uncertainty, discouragement and exhaustion…

Our family prayed for favor - we hung up, and went to bed with heavy hearts…

Heidy, Andres and I woke up at 3:30am on Friday morning to get to the airport by 4:30 am for our flight at 5:50am to Neiva – hoping and praying for a miracle. We landed in Neiva at 6:50am. And thus began another amazing day….!