Can You Believe It?!?

You will not believe what the rest of our week has been like since we last wrote! It has been the whirlwind of all whirlwinds!!!

On the way to our fingerprint appointment Wednesday, we got a call from our representative at Children's Hope. I answered and told her that we were getting ready to do our fingerprints and asked if she had news...she said "yes"...I asked "how big?"...she said "REALLY big!" So I told her we would call her back & we had to WAIT to hear the "big news" until after the appointment (which took a long time because we got printed twice each!)

When we got back out to the parking lot and called her back she told us that we are approved by Colombia AND that they had a referral for us. (Totally unexpected!) Approved and referred pretty much immediately afterwards - unbelievable! That was nothing compared to what she told us next...

We were in total shock when she told us that Colombia was referring us the very same sibling group that we had found out about at the end of August and had put in a petition to pursue adopting but were told that they would be referred to some other family!!! "What?!?!"

It is completely amazing that they chose us! Our Dossier is in transit to Cali, Colombia. The Government said that this is our official referral and gave our Agency permission to tell us about the children, to send us their reports, AND their picture!!! I assure you that they are ADORABLE!!! Now we are waiting on the official paperwork from Colombia so we can officially say YES!!!

Our Kids are in Cali, Colombia!!!

To make a very long story short: on Wednesday we were totally overwhelmed because we were told that the Colombians wanted us to try to be there immediately and to complete the adoption before the end of the year. We scrambled to get things in order! Later that night, we read through our travel guide and discovered that we could not get our Visas without the original letter from Colombia or without plane reservations! So, we quickly realized that there was no way to do this before the end of the year.

In corresponding with the director of the Colombia program, we were told that we should tentatively plan on traveling to Colombia on January 6th or 7th (but we cannot make reservations until we get that letter and receive confirmation back of our acceptance letter.)

The Agency is hoping it will arrive sometime next week. In the meantime, our clearance from the FBI should be arriving in the next week or two. Now we need to hustle to get all our paperwork ready + make reservations + get the house ready + get ourselves in order = list, lists & more lists!!!

Sorry! You are probably in such suspense about the kids' details!!! I am excited to tell you that our children are: Girl - 5 1/2, Girl - 3 1/2 and Boy - 18 months!!! We are so thrilled & in awe of God's pairing us with these precious children! What an honor to become their Mami & Papi! When we have signed all the papers and it is officially official, then we can post pictures and names. Please keep us in your prayers - Thanks!!!