6:50 pm Me: Is it ok to share this news publicly?
D: Yes – do it!
So here goes nothing…
10:30 am Words are falling short…maybe it’s more like the inability to form a cohesive sentence. My thoughts and entire inner being feel like they are running on high speed. There may come a day when I can better give voice to all that has happened…is happening. But today marks another in a series of “before and after days.” In a few short hours, a young boy is going to stand before a judge and tell the judge that he wants to come home with us. That he wants to be part of our family. He is going to tell that judge something I have been telling him for so long…he has a family. We are that family.
Just the facts ma’am…that all I feel like I can do right now. Copy and paste updates via text to everyone who is holding this up, and holding us together, through prayer. Right now, the emotion is being held at bay while I feel like I am holding my breath.
Just over 2 weeks ago everything changed. While my feet were on Guatemalan soil, we got some news that we have been praying about for months and months. It didn’t look like we thought it would, but a court date had been set for our sweet boy. We didn’t know why, it wasn’t expected and hadn’t happened for years. And the judge was someone who would be sympathetic to a request laid before him. An international adoption, a last ditch effort and an only option. A family – forever. This was our chance. Impossible isn’t for our God and this wasn’t a surprise for Him although it certainly came as one for us.
With this news, my husband, a man who loves his family and God so well, put everything else aside and within hours got on a plane, so that together, side by side, we could look into the eyes of our child and finally share our secret with him, the one whom it affected the most. This child’s sweet, honest words will forever be imprinted on my heart. When we had the privilege of inviting him to be part of our family, when we finally could give voice to the battle we have been waging for him for over a year and a half, when we could assure him that no matter what any judge, court, or government says, we are family, that it doesn’t matter how many “nos” we get, we are never going to give up the fight, when we completely blind-sided him and overwhelmed him with news that I am sure he was too terrified to ever hope for, when we finally gave breath to the conversation that has lived in my head over and over, his words were quiet, simple, as he processed all that we threw at him. And my heart melted. So many prayers, so much hurtful hope, so many tears. You are so loved sweet boy.
If this day never came, I didn’t want to be able to look back and know that I didn’t do everything in my power to bring him home. I didn’t want to wonder if I could have done more to make it happen. But you know what? There is not a thing that I have done that has made any bit of this happen. Every. Single. Piece. Has been directly from the hand of God. There is absolutely no doubt of His plan, of His love for this child, of His greatness, of His movement. He is doing things in a way that can leave no doubt as to who is responsible for this. The credit, the glory, the praise belongs to Him and Him alone. Many days in this process I have cried out to him in frustration, in anger, in fear, on days when I felt that I was banging my head against a wall, begging him to move, begging him to speak, to act. “It is well” had come with a stripping away of so many layers of self, a painful scraping away but before this news I had gotten there. We had reached a place of acceptance of “maybe never.” But God is so good…He didn’t leave us there.
As the minutes drag forward today, construction hammers on in the background, a bedroom addition, our own ark of sorts, started in faith, now, God willing on a crash course of frenzied activity to hopefully be completed in time to accommodate our growing family.
The calendar stares at us unblinking with a circled milestone birthday only 35 days away and there is so much to do, so much to be accomplished between now and then, so many “yeses” that must replace “nos” and my heart rate speeds up and my chest tightens as the mountain looms impossibly large. To be so close and yet so far, and to be reminded that God specializes in one minute to midnight.
And the clock hands move, and I know he must be on his way by now, his nerves and my nerves are thrumming together, thousands of miles apart. I cling to the promise that God will finish what he has begun, that as much as I love this child, God loves him infinitely more. And I have to trust what is out of my control, I have to be content to sit, and wait, and breathe, and do nothing when everything inside of me screams at me to do otherwise. And a war wages on internally and my foot taps incessantly.
9:23 pm Because, as readers, you live outside of my space time continuum, you missed me pacing the floor this afternoon, missed the dear friend that came to sit with me (made me sit) until we heard some news. (And documented me answering my phone when the call finally came.)
And now, without the agonizing suspense that I endured today I can tell you, aloud, publicly, for the first time, without the veiled conversation and innuendo, just as we were finally able to to share it with our sweet boy. We are currently working to adopt a child from Guatemala. Yes, I know adoption is closed. Yes, I know that this is “impossible.” But I also know that “What is impossible for people is possible with God.” He has already proven that over and over to us though this process.
Today, a Guatemalan judge ordered that steps be taken to explore the adoption process between Guatemala and the United States. People, this is God stuff!! Please join us in celebrating and praising God for all that he has done to get us to this place in time. And then, continue to pray because it’s not done yet and as soon as the judge ordered it the representatives from the Consejo Nacional De Adopcionescna (CNA) said they couldn’t do it. The judge replied that there is no legal reason for them not to proceed with this, he gave them a list of things that they must do and set our next court date for one month from now. You best believe that this mama will be down there next time. (Actually, as only God can do, I already had planned to be there!)
We need people talking about this, we need the government pushing for this, we need political and judicial connections locally. We need to be able to bring our son home!
The plan is to spend the next month generating publicity around this in Guatemala , bringing the decision to light, and the question posed to me was, “How big can you go?!” Can you help us go big? Please share this, spread the word, help bring pressure to bear on CNA as they try to stall this adoption process. A process they are now legally bound to comply with.
Here is a look back at where we have been on this journey.
Tonight we celebrate!
Run and Be Still 
Ashley, you don’t know me but as I read Jill’s comments to your blog tears were in my eyes and a lump was in my throat. You see, 11 years ago on August 21, 2008 we officially adopted 3 children from Casa Bernabe. It was one of the last two adoptions allowed to complete after international adoptions were shut off in Guatemala. I am so happy for your family and for other hopeful families that God has allowed this to start happening once again.
Thank you so much! We still have a long way to go but yesterday was a major victory. There is finally movement…exploratory but progress. Hard as it is we have to trust God’s plan in all of this. I don’t believe he has brought us this far to leave us here. But, though all of this we were finally able to tell our sweet boy that we wanted him, were fighting for him. We are a forever family – no matter what that looks like.