We Received An Early Christmas Present!

On Friday December 14th, while everyone was reeling in disbelief over what happened in CT, we received a phone call that brought more tears to my eyes.............happy tears!  A USCIS staff person called us to tell us that they received the referral information from CNA for our case and we are ready to begin processing under the new Acuerdo!  I couldn't believe what I was hearing!  My mind immediately started running through the list of things that need to be done..............our Spanish............first on the list is improving our Spanish!  We've had 5 years and here we are........not very proficient in her native language!  That phone call didn't include any kind of time line that we can expect to follow but knowing our little girl will be coming home is enough for now and knowing I still have some time to get my Spanish skills whipped into shape is not a bad thing.

We also found out where Nola is living.  When we went to Guatemala a few weeks ago with the Bags of Blessings for the children at Hogar Solidario, I was devastated to find that Nola wasn't there.  The house moms told us she was with a family.  They made sure I understood that the family wasn't adopting her but that didn't make much sense to me.  When we returned home, I sent a message to my USCIS contact letting her know that Nola wasn't at the home and asked if they could find out where she was.  When they received the referral information, it contained the name of the hogar where Nola is currently living so they gave us that information.  It's a small private Christian home called Hope For Tomorrow.  They have several pictures of Nola on their site (although they refer to her as "Mary"?).  She looks healthy and happy!  According to her bio, she was adopted by a Guatemalan family in January but two months later, the family decided they couldn't keep her so she was taken to the Hope hogar.  It's amazing the path her little life has taken but it has finally lead her back to us.  God has had His hand in it all along.  I believe it's been His plan for her to come home to us and I know He was protecting my heart by not letting me find out about the national adoption until after it was disrupted.  I can't imagine how I would have dealt with that!

Hopefully as soon as the Holiday's are over, we'll get our documents translated and delivered so we can again begin waiting.  The next step will be the Empathy Study which will be a supervised one week visit with Nola.  We're hoping to get that scheduled about 8 weeks after the CNA receives our documents but they will contact us when they're ready for us to come.

It has been a long five years full of doubts and fears and anger and frustration but last Friday, all of that changed!  Our little girl's coming home!  No, we don't know when, but she IS coming home!

Thank you all for your prayers and please continue lifting up all of the waiting families.  We've become a very close group and there are still so many who are waiting for their turn to receive good news.  I'm praying their turns come very soon!