In God We Trust

The adoption process is often described as a roller coaster.  It is one crazy ride filled with highs and lows, twists and turns, emotional ups and downs.  As a Christian, I know that God's timing is best but that doesn't mean it's always easy.  Today we had to make the decision not to travel to our children until after the new year.  So many outside obstacles/events added up to this.

One obstacle was the passport-sized photos needed to go with the Visa application for our children.  Our agency requested them over a month ago, and they have yet to receive them.  I find this conflicting to me emotionally because if we did have them we would likely be traveling to Colombia now and be taking care of our children.  On the other hand, we would be in Colombia in the midst of a judicial strike that has been going on for about 3 weeks now.  We keep hearing that negotiations have been made and the strike is ending... and then it doesn't.

The strike is a big part of our decision not to travel even if the children's visas were processed. We have heard that only about 10% of judges are still working in Colombia.  That means 90% aren't.  Families who traveled already to receive their children are in limbo there.  They have no idea when they can come home.  Adoption is expensive to begin with, but add on the extra weeks in Colombia and it's even more so.  Families are also divided by it.  Many husbands/wives have had to travel back home to work while their wives/husbands and child/ren stay in Colombia.  Even when the strike ends, there will be a backlog of cases.  Adoption cases aren't usually the priority.

Then there is the break that occurs for some governmental workers in Colombia at the end of December/beginning of January.  If your adoption isn't completed by the end of the year, then you get to add at least 3 weeks to your stay in Colombia.  That's a long time for us, especially since Kevin works for himself.  His income will already be greatly effected for the period of time we will need to be there without adding extra weeks.

The worse part of knowing we can't travel is the children.  By this time, they know who we are.  They know we are their new parents.  They won't know why we aren't there for them yet or why it is taking so long for us to get there.  They aren't even living in the same place.  The best I can figure out from the paperwork is that they are in 4 different foster homes.

I comfort myself with the peace that God is in control.  His timing is perfect and not mine.  I pray that He uses our trials for His glory and that others may come to know Him through us.

Please continue to pray for our children in Colombia.  We were told today to expect a letter soon from ICBF concerning our four year old daughter, Briyic.  ICBF doesn't usually send letters out of the blue that have good news in them.  The last time we received one it was about one of our sons, and it had sad/bad news in it.

In God I trust,

Karen