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