From the mouths of babes (or big kids!)

When we told the kids about Daddy's "souvenier" from Guatemala and showed them a picutre of Giovanni, they were, to say the least, excited. It was neat to see their reactions and to have them be so enthusiastic about stepping out in faith to see where God would take us. Our kids are in a Bible quizzing program at church. This year, they're studying Genesis. I asked Jeff if he could tell me about a verse from Hebrews that talks about faith. He grinned from ear to ear and said "By faith, the Carrs, when asked to do another adoption, which would be their inheritance." At this point, Rob stopped him and said "Actually, he gets MY inheritance, which means he will share in YOUR inheritance." Undaunted, and still grinning, Jeffrey began again..."By faith, the Carrs, when asked to do adopt another child, who would share in MY inheritance, obeyed and did it, even though they did not know where they were going!" By the time he got to the end of the "verse," we were all laughing. As I look back on it now, I see more and more truth in his little words. And, in fact, aren't all our children OUR inheritance?

Blessings,
Amy

PS - We were wondering about a name for Giovanni. We really like the name, but weren't sure if we'd keep it or not. Yesterday, I researched the meaning of the name. Giovanni means "God is gracious." Looks like that one's a keeper!!

Dossier Miracle!

God is doing above and beyond all we could ask or imagine. Yesterday morning, I got a call from Sue, our agency director. She started the conversation with "Your adoption of Giovanni has fallen into a unique circumstance." Unique...is that good unique or bad unique? I held my breath to find out! It seems, it's good unique! The attorneys in Guatemala are saying that simply signing a power of attorney (POA) in Guatemala is not going to be enough to have a case registered and grandfathered in by the end of the year. In order to register a case, the attorney must present a POA and a letter stating he/she has reviewed the dossier, read the witness letters, examined the financial information and believes this family can parent an adopted child. Without a dossier in hand, the attorney cannot sign that letter. Trying to pull together a complete dossier, have it notarized, apostilled by the state, authenticated by the Guatemalan embassy and delivered to Guatemala by the end of the year would be almost impossible!

However...we have a unique situation. Samantha came out of PGN - the Guatemalan court system - in November. Usually, after a case exits PGN, the dossier is logged into a system somewhere and the documents are archived in a library forever. Well, Samantha's attorney had not yet logged her dossier. She was willing to hand it over to Giovanni's attorney and did so at noon yesterday! Now, with POA and dossier in hand, we should be able to meet the requirements and be grandfathered in under the previous law. Our attorney has asked us to prepare a 2nd dossier, just in case, but there's not as much rush. It seems that we are where God wants us to be and He is a God who cares about the smallest details!

Rejoicing in Him!
Amy

So it begins!

Who knew what God had in store for us when we stepped out in faith and took a trip to Guatemala in December of 2007. When we booked that trip, we thought we were going to see Samantha and deliver Christmas presents. At the time, birth certificates from the town she was born in were taking months to obtain. Not wanting to miss her first Christmas, we booked tickets and prepared to head down south. That afternoon, we received notice from our agency that they had obtained Samantha's birth certificate and we were weeks away from bringing her home FOREVER! We wondered if we should still go visit. Then, the day before we were supposed to leave, we heard from our foster family that Samantha had rotavirus and they weren't sure they'd be able to bring her to us. We were devastated. Now what? After much prayer, we decided that God had asked us to go and we needed to go and see where the road was leading. Above all, we wanted to walk with no regrets and for us that meant seeing what God had in store.

Through some pretty amazing circumstances, completely orchestrated by God, we ended up meeting with our agency director Saturday evening, in Guatemala. We had been praying about accepting a 2nd referral, but didn't know if there was time to do so before the Ortega law went into effect. We decided to take the chance, and Monday morning, signed a power of attorney for Aldo Giovanni. His story is different from Samantha's, in that he resides in an orphanage outside of Guatemala City. He isn't in a foster home, so his care is different. His parents are unknown, as he was an abandonment case. He's a bit older, born sometime in August 2006. He needs a family, and we're it!

Our days will be filled with hurrying around, trying to pull together a new dossier as quickly as possible. Because he's in an orphanage, there won't be many pictures this time, but I'll try to keep his blog updated as we learn new things about him and about his case.

Here's to our new journey!

Blessings,
Amy