Events of today

So much to write about tonight!  Our hotel takes us on an outing every Friday. Today we went to a small museum of Natural History. We got to hear an abbreviated version of evolution in Spanish.  Then again, I didn't need a tour guide to enjoy the displays of the wonders of God's creation here in Colombia. The biodiversity He spoke into existence here  is more remarkable than anywhere I have ever experienced. Really enjoyed the museum.  Then we had lunch is a small cafeteria there.  I had about half an hour to share with Yolanda my faith in Christ , and the many ways God has worked in our lives over the course of these three adoptions. I think God used this testimony to touch her heart.  After that Yolanda, our host, took us into the children's section of the library that was in the same building as the museum. She came and told me that Jose had  asked the librarian to show him where to find the books about God! She said she was impressed with how the children were doing with us. Gave me a chance to talk to her about there being nothing special about us, but rather is was about God who is in us. People down here cannot fathom the concept of 15 children, we keep using this to point to the great God whom we serve and what he can do with a willing heart. Pictures tonight include one of Jose and the first book he picked out today.

We were watching a movie tonight and Anyi tells me about a friend from the orphanage who was bitten severely on the head  by a dog.  she obviously had very positive feelings and memories about the time at the orphanage.  I did a quick search for a utube video Betty and I had watched when we learned the name of the orphanage several months ago. I found the video and we watched it together.  A couple of minutes into the video she got very excited "mi hermano, mi hermano Hamilton"  I did a rewind and then paused. The video had Hamilton playing soccer when he was 11 yrs old. This is the same older brother Betty and I met who we wrote about several days ago. So then we rolled the video again, and Anyi is naming all the people in the video . Then she tells me it is me it is me!  there was a clip of several girls sitting on a floor clapping and singing. I pause and sure enough there was my Anyi! She said she was 6 in the video. Facial feature told me - absolutely my Anyi! She told me many things about the people in the video- always with a sparkle in her eyes. She was obviously very well cared for there and has good memories of her friends.  Probably a dumb thing to do, but I google translated and asked her if she was happier to be in a family now.  Much to my relief, I got a very enthusiastic YES!!! The patriarch of the orphanage was the daughter of the founder of the orphanage. was in he 80s or 090s in the video. Clearly LOVED by everyone in the video, and she clearly has a special place in Anyi's heart.  Then Anyi told me she went to be in heaven a few months ago, on a Sunday.  We will somehow copy this video for them when we get home. If there is anyone out there that God burdens to raise up support for an orphanage- I have a recommendation.  Oscar Scarpetta Orphanage in Cali.

We continue to covet your prayers. Likewise I pray God's blessing on you.

Jim

 

Our thanks

First, today I give thanks to the Father who has blessed us in more ways than we can count. He has been our constant companion and have met our needs in ways we may never even fully known.

Second, my thanks go out to our friends the Steinbachs who set up the ucare site when the strike began to help us to raise the unexpected costs of being delayed here in Colombia.

Third we thank those of you who have helped us along the way in our three adoptions. Because of each of you Jason, Tatiana, Luke, Makenzie, Isaiah, Anyi, and Jose have a home. And.. we have the privilege to share the love of Christ with them.  Almost all of the contributions to the ucare web site have been anonymous donations. I am so humbled by this. I will never have the opportunity to thank those anonymous donors is person or with a thank you card. So let me from my heart thank you here on this blog for helping us to bring Anyi and Jose home. As you have given in secret, God's word tells us you have stored up treasure in heaven where rust and moths can not destroy. I pray God's blessings on you.

Jim

Judical Strike Continues

Still waiting on the strike to end. Last night Betty and the girls headed home. I returned a couple of days ago and am waiting with Anyi and Jose for the strike to lift. It was very hard on Anyi when her momi left for the airport. Much crying by everyone, but especially Betty and Anyi.  She has perked back up to her normal self by bed time. These two hijos of mine are very sweet, lovong and complianct- I know we are in the honeymoon phase, but this time around things are much easier. Perhaps God knew in His infinate wisdom that this is what we need/ can handle for our 14th and 15th child in our 50's!!

We heard the strike lifted in one of the departments yesterday (equivilent of a state). I pray that if this is true, it will be the match that lights the fire of court reopenings. We need to get these two HOME so their lives can begin to normalize.

Anyi shares new nuggets about her life almost daily now.  Yesterday out of the blue she tells us she has a half sister who is 21 yrs old and attending a university one town away from Cali. Palmeria (sp?). This is a half sister on her fathers side. The case study we recieved at referal did not mention this sister at all.  Later, I let them pick a movie to watch- they picked Apple Dumpling gang of all thisgs. They have watched this at least twice before since we got them. A favorite I guess. Anyway, in the part where the indians attack the train, she points to the TV and tells me "indians",  pauses for a minute and then tells me her birthmother was an indian. We had suspected Ayni had South American native blood based on facial features- I guess we just should have asked. I think she was trying to tell me her mom was fully indian. 

No news on the stike yet....

 Much walking to get out of the apartment!

 Braiding hair

 

An Eventful Couple of Days.

We have had an eventful few days, although not in positive ways.  My husband had to return to the U.S. and go back to work yesterday early in the morning.  He took 4 of the children with him.  I kept 7 with me.  We thought I only had a couple more weeks here. Little did we know that only hours after he left, the Judges in all Colombia would go on strike. For us this means we are just stuck in the process until the strike is over.  It could be a few days, weeks, etc.  no one knows. We can progress no further in our adoption.  Please pray that they resolve this quickly and we can continue in the process  towards home.  Our family is now split between two countries for an undetermined time and we so want to be all back in the same home again.

Fruit Market

Friday we went to the fruit market. This trip was a gift from our hosts- they made sure we tasted many fruits that were previously unknow to us. Hope you enjoy the pictures as much as we enjoyed the experience!

Yes those ARE eyeballs looking at you. One of the hosts said they are primarily sold a food for animals. We are not going to eat anything that is looking back at us!!

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A visit to the country

Getting  a little ahead on the time, but I will first post about today and then go back and post pictures from yesterday's visit to the fruit market.

While we were at the fruit market yesterday, the owner of the hotel invited us to be his guests at his country club today. I (jim) was a bit reluctant to go on an outing two days in a row. But... seeing it was very important to our hosts that we go we agreed. WOW- most enjoyable day here yet! We drove out of the city about 50 minutes to a country club that has golf, tennis, swimming and more. You will see below the amazing view we had and all the fun we enjoyed. When it can time to eat, we had a fabulous meal that included salad- well both trips we have totally avoided lettuce as it is one of the most likely places to pick up intestinal "issues". We ate the salad - and it was amazing! Pray with us we don't regret the decision by getting sick!

How was the weather back home today?!

Story of an amazing young man

In our lives there have been many dificulties and many trials. Of coures there have also been many times when our hearts over flow with the joy of our LORD and the blessing he pours out upon us. Our time with Anyi and Jose have been one of those times of great joy and blessing. And yet even in those places in life where we seem so fulfilled we can at the same time experience such unimaginable sorrow. Today was such a day- I would even go so far as to say this has been one of the hardest and perhaps sadest days of my life.

Let me share with you the story of an amazing young man. His name cannot be listed nor can we show you the photos we took of him this morning. He is in the care of the Colombian government (ICBF) and their laws forbid us from sharing his name or photo. I will only leave this post up for a few days because I would never want him or our new children to stumble upon it. You see, this young man is the almost 16 year old brother of Anyi and Jose. I mentioned in a previous post that he has sacrificed much for them. He had one simple request when he was asked to agree to their adoption. He wanted to meet the new parents so that he would know that they would be ok. This sort of meeting was also very much on our hearts. Today we had the meeting- and we wept together for this remarkable young man. We were joined in our tears by our translator, and his psychologist. We spent an hour with him and truely our lives will never be the same.

First we met with him and 2 psychologists, the head of the Cali ICBF, and our translator. His first concern was to know if we would ever let him contact them again. And we said we would. ICBF will be the filter through which we communicate. He wanted to know what our home and family was like, as I described these things, he seemed very pleased. Then I asked to speak to him and told him the same thing I told Anyi and Jose on Integration day. I first told him my spanish was poor, but then said, "te quiero usted hermonos, siempre, siempre y siempre"  I will love your brother and sister always, always and always. This is when most of us began to leak around our eyes. This young man gave me a broad smile though we saw his grief in his eyes. Honestly, I'm not sure what else was said in this group setting, but seeing it was going well we were left for the next 45 minutes to talk with just him and our interpreter.

He wanted us to know the things he thought were important about Anyi and Jose. He asked us about their school- this was an akward moment for us, but we charged ahead and explained we home school- he actually understood the concept and was very excited for them to be home schooled- he said "Cool"! We asked him about family and he filled in some gaps for us. We asked him about his life goal- and he wants to be a doctor. He asked to leave the orphanage and be seperated form his siblings so he could attend a better school and have a greater hope for accomplishing this goal. He explained that when he was asked about his consent for Anyi and Jose to be adopted without him, he told the authorities he wanted them to have the opprotunity to know the love of a family. He told them he knew for him there was no hope for a family because of his age, but he very much wanted it for his siblings. It was here that my fathers heart began to ache like I have never known before.

And he went on and said after meeting us he knew that this is God's will for Anyi and Jose to be with our family and he is very happy for them to have this opportunity. He thanked us for adopting them and said that he thought that they would not get a home either because of their age. Even now as I reflect on this and share it with you I have tears streaming down my face and my heart breaks for him. His assement of this floored me and I responded that that was exactly how we saw things. God had brought us to this point and it was our obedience to Him that had made this possible, and yet in our obedience God was giving us great joy. I told him he would forever be in our prayers- and he will. Please remember him in yours. While he sacrificed himself for them he remained upbeat and optimistic and had much hope for his own future. He told us he longed for a family more than anything else, but thought that it would not be possible. His life circumstance has allowed him maturity and wisdom far beyond anything we have seen before.

This experience is burned in my memory, I will never forget what this 15 year old boy taught me in a one hour meeting on a day in October. It is one of the rare life experiences that changes you forever. And it was not just Betty and I. When he was no longer in sight, Betty, our translater and I  made eye contact and began to weap for him, and we wept. Once the emotions were brought under control, our interpreter told us that she had been doing this for many years, and had never experienced anything like it before. She also said she has never been moved to cry in all her years in this business- our tears together could have filled buckets. My father's hearts cries out tonight, oh LORD my God, bring a family to this young man.

Birthday Cali Style

On your birthday here it is traditional to have your friends crack raw eggs on your head. Nobody we asked could tell us the origin of the tradition- but tradition it is. We aske Anyi Camila if she wanted us to do this for her- she gave us a very enthusiastic yes! So we did.... The hotel staff kindly allowed us to do this in the small parking area.

 

Happy Birthday Anyi Camila

Happy Birthday to our newest daughter. Anyi Camila is 10 years old today. We love you and look forward to many more birthday celebrations.

Momi Y Papi

Integration Day

Yesterday morning we went back to ICBF for our Integration Day meeting. This is the meeting where the Colombian authorities decide if we will continue with the adoption. Up to that point we were having a trial period. At the end of the first week ICBF, the kids or the parents can stop the process. We spent about an hour in our meeting and were actually asked a lot of questions this time- the case worker was very thorough. Anyi and Jose would not talk to him at all. We are begining to think this is a good thing as it means they are much more comfortable with us than with the social workers. We had to answer their questions for them, then the case worker would ask the kids "is that correct?"- then they would only nod!

All in all integration was very smooth and the social worker thought they were doing very well in our family and bonding better that expected. When we got back to the apartment and one a time I held their hands, looked deep in their eyes and told them "Anyi (and Jose) tu es mi hija por siempre, siempre y siempre. Which translates to mean  "You are my daughter (or son) for always, always and always". And so it will be for as many years God grants us.

Then we took 3 seperate taxis to move the whole group to a large mall called Chipichape. We took the kids to lunch at McDonalds while we were there because there was a lagre playland there. Boy did we need the playland.  Spent about 5 or 6 hours walking around the mall. Great day out with plenty of fresh air and walking. Isaiah feed his left over french fries to the pidgeons- he thought it was halarious. Ended our day by visiting Crepes and Wafles for ice cream- our family favorite in Colombia.

God bless and we continue to appreciate everyone's prayers. We now wait for the court date where the judge will finalize the adoption. Pray for a fast court date.

Jim and Betty.

Today we experienced an earthquake.  They are fairly common here although this one was stronger than the norm.  Our whole apartment complex shock for quite awhile, it seemed.  Don't know how big it registered.  My daughter who was just going in the bathroom to take a shower says the water in the toilet was splashing all over!

These cat statues are near our hotel. Yolanda from the apartment told us we should walk down to see them. Each cat had a name and a sign telling something about the cat. It was good to get out and walk around. We also stopped at an ice cream shop before we headed home.