Welcome to Pereira

We are now at our bed and breakfast in Pereira. This place is absolutely beautiful. We will post some pictures for everyone to see later tonight. We have a room on the second floor with a balcony that looks right at the mountains. It not only meets, but completely blows away my ideas of what kind of place we would be staying at. Everyone here is very friendly and very accomodating. I will go in to more detail tonight. The owner of the bed and breakfast is going to take us to the mall at 4:30 today. Just wanted to give everyone a quick update before we start unpacking. Feel free to post comments so that we know you are there! Thank you for your many prayers! We will post again soon!

We made it to Colombia!!!

After a night of absolutely no sleep (we were cleaning house and doing some final touches), we are actually here! Our families met us at the airport bright and early this morning to see us off. That was really a comfort to us. They were all nice enough to watch our luggage while we dosed lightly. Our flights went very smoothly today. We were able to sleep for about an hour on our first flight which gave us just enough energy to wait for the next plane. Atlanta is a HUGE airport! We had to ride a train to get to our terminal. We had about four hours to kill so we cruised around on the tram to get familiar with the airport. The plane ride to Bogota was great. We were both exhausted and slept for about 2 hours of the flight. When we arrived in Bogota we got off the plane and were herded to the immigration area. It actually wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. It took us about 20 minutes to get through the check points. We gave them our passports, they stamped them, then we went to another room that had our luggage in it. After we got through the luggage check (they didn’t even open it – we were surprised), we went outside and found Andres who was holding up a sign with our name on it. He flagged down a cab and took us to La Zuetana. From the time we landed to the time we got into our room was only about an hour! It all happened so fast.
We don’t have any idea at this point what the plan is for tomorrow. Once Andres got us in the Bed and Breakfast he split. Our little room is nice. Actually at this point, I could probably sleep up against a wall if I had to. It’s been a hectic couple of days. Well, I think I’ll stop with that. I feel like I’m rambling. We are safe, happy, and very ready to go to bed. Thank you all for your continued prayers. They have definitely been answered! When we post next, hopefully it will be from Pereira! Good night too all.

Flickr Photo Site

I finally got the flickr photo page up and going tonight. There are new pictures of the girls on there that we received last week! Julie (the Colombian director for Childrens Hope) surprised us last week when she mailed them to us. They are such good pictures! We love them and can't wait for January 21st at 11am when we meet them for the first time.

We will be flying out of KC on Monday January 19th to Bogota. On the 20th, we will catch a flight to Pereira and have at least part of a day to get situated.

We are feverishly trying to get the house in some kind of an order before we leave. Amazing how this adoption process works. You sit around for 3 years waiting, and then BANG you get pictures and your referral and it's non-stop craziness. Please don't misunderstand me, I'm definitely not complaining...... Craziness is good. I am enjoying every minute of preparing for the trip. The hard part is trying to wrap up all of the stuff at work so that I can take six weeks off. Christina's last day of employment will be January 16th. The people at her work are incredible! They have been so supportive of our adoption and have done so much to help us. I can't thank them enough. They even threw us a shower last night, and we got all kinds of good stuff for the girls: books, clothes, toys, games, etc. I hope the Lord blesses Munlake and the people who work there with much success throughout this year and the years to come.

I would also like to thank everyone who has helped us through this adoption process. We are ever so grateful, and look forward to paying it forward in the future. Because of the support of friends and family, we have been able to meet our goals financially so that we do not have to take out any loans for the adoption. That is a true blessing!

Please stay tuned and we will continue to update as things happen!

Picture Day a.k.a. Referral Day

Wonderful news!!! We received our referral today. We are proud to announce that we are the parents of 3 little girls.

Our oldest is Vanesa (6) - 3/10/02

Our middle is Manuela (4) - 9/14/04

Our youngest is Angee (2) - 8/29/06

This is the only picture and information that we have at this time. We should know more later this week.

You know, Paul and I were just talking about painting one of the rooms the other day. I had picked out a pretty blue color and thought we could accent with purple if we got a girl, well... I'm thinking blue probably isn't the best choice now.

PRAISE GOD for bringing us together and thank you for all of your prayers for our family.

Learning about Pereira

The last couple of days we have been learning as much as we can about the region we'll traveling to in Colombia. I love the fact that orchids and lots of other flowers are found there. We've also read that there are many natural springs you can visit. The city is in the Andes mountains and has a tropical climate - very exciting! Another CHI family traveled to this area earlier this year, so we have been scouring their site for info. We were able to get pictures of the places they stayed and the places they visited. It's good to know that there is a zoo, parks, lots of pools & springs and a coffee plantation. They also said that the architecture is just as unique and beautiful as the landscape. I'm afraid I won't want to leave once we get down there, I cannot wait to see all of the beautiful flowers that we don't really have here.

I'm much more at ease knowing that we will not have to stay in the hotel the entire time we are in Colombia. We can take our children out and get pictures of their native country. What a relief and blessing. We will probably be staying in Bogata the last few days of trip (while things are finalized in the courts, etc.) We are really hoping that we get to spend some time with our friends from church who traveling to Bogata to meet their children. I'm really hoping and praying that we have a few days for our children to get to know each other a little.

Tonight was a real treat. We got to have a video call with some of our friends who left last week to get their children. We just talked to them last Sunday, but so much has happened since then that it seems like it's been a month. In the last week they have flown to a different country, met their children for the first time and are learning all about their new family. While we here, have learned about a regional assignment (that is a really BIG deal!) They are staying about 100 miles North of where we will be. They said they went 45 miles or so South today to a water park and that the sun was really intense - don't forget sunscreen. I know I need to take some, but think it's funny that I'll be taking it for me, not the children. I'm sure the children will be just fine without it :)

Picture of us and the Bonds, who just traveled earlier this week to meet their children.

Regional Assignment

We got some news today!! Julie (CHI Colombia program director) e-mailed us today to let us know we were assigned to Pereira Colombia! It was kind of weird and unexpected, in a way. She was e-mailing because she thought she had already told us what our regional assignment was, and that it was for a different region. She was actually e-mailing to correct herself and notify us that our region was Pereira instead. The problem was that she had never told us any of that until we received her e-mail today. So to say the least, we were quite confused. Good thing I didn't get the e-mail until the end of the day, because I didn't get much work done after that. So I (Paul) e-mailed Julie right away and Chris called her to try to confirm what the e-mail said. Julie e-mailed back to us quickly and talked to us about our assignment and confirmed that we are assigned to Pereira.
For those who don't understand what a regional assignment is, I will explain.
When you first start the adoption process you have to fill out tons of paperwork including, psychological evaluations, physicals, FBI background checks, child abuse and neglect, social worker interviews.........pokes....prods.......you name it they do it. After you are done filling out the mountain of paperwork, you send it all the Colombia to be approved. All the paperwork that you send to Colombia is referred to as your dossier (dos-eee-ay). Once you are approved by Colombia's social welfare program (ICBF) then you are put on a waiting list (Baby list, sibling list, older child list, etc.) Once you name reaches the top of the list, the next step is to be assigned to a specific region of the country. After you are assigned to a specific region, the only thing left is to be assigned to your children. In the past, rule of thumb has been, once you are assigned to a region, you usually get assigned to your children within a month (remember this is just a rule of thumb). Throw in the mix of the holidays (Not much happens in Colombia in December) and I'm guessing we will be assigned sometime in early January. Although I hope I am wrong, because we would love to have pictures of our children before Christmas. So...... just something to pray about.
I have no doubt that God has picked out a specific set a children for us, so I'm not too worried about it. I do not know their names yet, but Chris and I pray for their safety and comfort every night. God knows their names, God knows where they are, God will give them comfort, safety, and peace. So if anyone who reads this would like to pray for them too, I would encourage you to do so. One of these days, when it's not so late, I will put my testimony on here about how the Lord softened my heart towards adoption. It is a very cool testimony about how God can work in your life if you allow Him to do so. If anyone has questions about anything with our adoption, please feel free to ask. Just type it in the comments and we will respond.

Spaghetti Dinner Fundraiser

We are happy to report that we had a very successful fundraiser dinner on November 11th. We are thankful that we have so many friends and family that have been so supportive during this adoption process. We were able to raise $2500 towards our adoption fund. With time getting short before we travel, this was quite a relief. We could not have done this without the help of friends and family who gave at least one night to come greet people, seat people, cook food, serve drinks & spaghetti & dessert, and to stay late to help us get the dishes done and the church cleaned. We had a great time serving everyone spaghetti and listening to the brass band play Christmas music. Again, thank you to evereyone who gave of thier time, talent and financial contributions.