A Glimpse of Los Pisingos

Maria lives in an orphanage called Los Pisingos in Bogota, Colombia.  Our friends the VanderMaas's are also adopting two little girls from there, and this is where they adopted their first two children.  (This is the family whom I've mentioned several times already in previous posts!)  We're so thankful that God has connected our families together, to share in this beautiful journey of adoption together.  Kristi VanderMaas keeps a blog for their family as well, and on Sunday she wrote a posting about Los Pisingos.  I loved reading it, and asked her if I could copy it and post it on our blog.  She agreed, so now you'll know more about where Maria lives!  Please keep her and all the children at Los Pisingos in your prayers, and if you think of it, please also pray for the VanderMaas family.  They have been waiting a lot longer than we have, and are just aching to get down to Colombia to meet their daughters.  

Here is the posting from the VanderMaas's blog:

Los Pisingos Foundation is like family to us! It is where Isabel was cared for the first 8 weeks of her life, Silas, the first 9 1/2 months of his life, and now Caroline and Marta the last 16 months. It is a foundation that is about the child, not the parental rights, or the waiting adoptive families...it is about the child, and what is best for that child. They understand that every child needs to be in a healthy family, and they give their best efforts into finding or returning their children into the home that is best for them. Although an institution, it well organized, meticulously clean, and the children are shown much affection while being housed there.

You might think of an institution for the orphan, or a "safe house" for the abused, neglected, under privileged children to look a lot different...where you would see malnourished, underfed, under clothed children. This is not the case at Pisingos. Just seeing what they feed their kids is remarkable to me. A typical lunch would be fresh salad, rice, and lentils, with freshly squeezed juice. This is seriously made fresh each day. They eat lots of pudding for dessert (we think that's why Silas came to us so "rollie-pollie"), and a typical snack would be something like a "mango smoothie"...you wouldn't see anything like spaghettios or mac-n-cheese. They even spoon feed the little ones, not owning highchairs, but, feeding each one individually on the caretakers lap. They separate the kids by age. Newborns, infants, toddlers, etc. up to age 12. They are currently housing very many children, it is very full.

With all that being said, Los Pisingos is still an institution. It is not a home. Not a family. Yes, it is a safe place that houses broken and fragile children, but, it is not the same as a family. Each one of these little children are "alone." They don't have a daddy or a mommy to tuck them in at night, or to be by their side when they are sick...they have themselves, possibly a sibling, and that is all.

Below are a few recent pictures taken by my dear friend Gayle Knibbe. (Caroline and Marta are not in them...they did not know about them when they toured Pisingos). (Maria is not in them either.) As I share these pictures with you, please pray over the caretakers and children of Los Pisingos!

Below is our Colombian Representative through Bethany, Tia Isabel, loving on a little boy at the foundation. See his face light up to her touch!


I just received an email from her. She said, "I hope you can come asap. I just visited LP and saw your girls. They are so very cute, and they need you so very badly! Each one received 4 kisses. One from Daddy, Mommy, big sister, and big brother!"

Yes, God does set the lonely into families! His heart is for the fatherless! If His heart is, than shouldn't our hearts be also?! We are so privileged that our God chose us to parent 2 more precious children, His children...who He loves more than we ever could! Soon...very soon...

"Sing to God sing praises to His name! Lift up a song to him who rides through the deserts, his name is the Lord, exult before Him! Father of the fatherless, and protector of widows is God in His holy habitation. God settles the solitary in a home...Blessed be God!" from Psalm 68

USCIS approval!!

We just heard word that our case was approved today by USCIS!  This is the big thing we've been waiting for that now gives us the official o.k. to adopt from a foreign country!  We'll receive the official approval by mail next week which we'll then have notarized and apostilled, and then off we'll send it to our agency who sends it to Colombia.  Once it's in Colombia it will be translated along with the rest of our dossier documents that we sent to our agency this week.  After translation our documents will be reviewed by the orphanage and then they'll issue us an official referral of Maria.  With that official referral we can then file the I800 (the other big piece of an international adoption).  I don't know how long it will be for us to receive approval once we file the I800 as it seems to vary.  Once we receive approval, we will apply for our visas, and then we can travel to Colombia to get Maria!  We're still hopeful that it will be the end of January.  Please pray with us that it won't be later than that!  We trust God and know that His timing is perfect, but we will pray the desire of our hearts, which is to be with Maria as soon as possible! :)

For fellow adoptive families, here is the time line that we all love to know about each other's cases:
9/11/09 - home study complete
10/21/09 - USCIS finger printing
11/12/09 - I800A approval

"For Nothing Is Impossible With God" (Luke 1:37)

Waiting is the longest, hardest, and biggest part of the international adoption process.  Sure, there is a lot of paperwork to be filled out during various phases of the process which can keep us busy for awhile, but most of the time is spent waiting.  Waiting to hear back from our case worker, our adoption agency, or the orphanage, but most often waiting on something from a governmental agency.  We are in one of the waiting phases right now. 

We need to send our dossier (a collection of supporting documents) to the orphanage in Colombia.  They have been patiently waiting for us to send this to them ever since we were approved by them to adopt Maria.  I was able to gather all of the necessary documents within two weeks except for our I800a approval (the approval from USCIS (immigration) that states that we are allowed to adopt a child from a foreign country) which we are still waiting for, and our FBI clearances (criminal background checks).  According to the FBI's website, it takes 3-4 weeks for them to process our fingerprints and send us the results.  Last Thursday marked four weeks. 


Kevin called the FBI yesterday, and we were given the disappointing news that our clearances are going to take another four weeks at least!  He asked if there was anything we could do to expedite the process, and the woman said there is not.  But then she told him that if we provided them with a Fed Ex number, they could overnight the results to us instead of putting them in the regular mail which would take 3-5 days to get to us.  So, he hung up the phone and immediately got a Fed Ex number through the Postal Annex that we use.  The woman at the FBI told him to email the number to them.  So that's what he did.  That's all we could do.  And so the waiting continues. 

We were so disappointed, especially when she first told us this.  I emailed our case worker the news, and she wrote back to me right away saying that we could send in the rest of our dossier to her, minus the FBI clearances and the immigration approval, and she would send it on to Colombia to be translated while we wait for these other documents.  So that's what we're going to do.  Even though we are very disappointed, I don't feel anxious or overwhelmed by this news.  (Which is very unlike me!)  I think it's because I know that God is orchestrating all of this, and we trust Him completely. 

I was in the car in the afternoon, running errands before picking Carlos up from school, and this song by Addison Road came on the radio.  The song is called "Hope Now," and I instantly thought of some friends of ours who are also waiting.  They are waiting for their final immigration approval so that they can travel to Colombia to adopt their two daughters.   (This is the family I mentioned in my previous post.)  These are the lyrics that brought our friends to my mind:

Everything rides on hope now
Everything rides on faith somehow
When the world has broken me down
Your love sets me free

These words also gave me comfort.  All we can do is cling to our faith in God's perfect plan and timing, and trust that we will be united with our daughters when it's supposed to happen.
 
So now the part where the title of this posting comes into play:
 
When Kevin emailed the FBI our Fed Ex number yesterday, he explained our case to them again.  Well, Kevin got an email back from Gary at the FBI today:  "Good news, I have tracked down your four requests and am pleased to report that they should be finalized by tomorrow. Estimated shipping late Wednesday or early Thursday.  If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me."  What?!  That's amazing!  Nothing is impossible with Him!   Thank you, God!

This is just another example of how God is letting us see how big He is!  I would love to share other examples, but as it's getting late now and I'm still up with an ill little boy, it'll have to wait for another day!