Update

Well, it's been awhile since my last update -- our internet at home hasn't been working and it just got fixed (thank you Juan!!).

So, a brief recap. The trip to Bogota over Columbus Day weekend went well. It was wonderful to see the girls, though of course also hard to see where they are as well. I was able to share the photo album with family and friends, and many people expressed surprise at how nice San Mauricio seems. It is nice, in pictures, but when you are there it is really sad to see so many children without families, and also to see how much relational time they are missing. But, they are safe and I think reasonably well cared for physically, which is more than happens in many orphanages, so for that they (and we) are lucky. I think the girls were kind of freaked out by me being in their environment, so it took a little while for them to kind of relax into being together. And then, once they had, it was time to leave! Christine was fabulous and it was so great to be there with her -- she was so helpful to me in processing everything and in handling all the logistics, and also just wonderful with the girls.

Hopefully the next visit will be a bit longer -- we are looking at possibly going again in November over the Thanksgiving holiday and hoping we can get permission for the girls to stay with us for 3 or 4 days.

And, dossier update. Sadly our dossier is STILL at the Regional office. Apparently there were delays with the defender sending the girls' documents there, and then today I heard that there were mistakes in those documents so they were sent back to her to be corrected. So, we are now looking at travelling to adopt in January, assuming our dossier can be reviewed next week and assuming we are approved. But after so many delays I am trying not to count on that! It has been hard to wait, to say the least.

I will post some pictures of the trip separately. Thanks to all for the prayers and support! We are hanging in there.