Another referral?

Hello all!
Well - I'm frustrated - I just accidentally erased all that I had just wrote in this post and now have to start over. aaaaagggghhh. So - here goes . . . . . .

I know it's been awhile since I posted anything. We just got back from a wonderful 2 week vacation to Florida - going to Sea World, The Kennedy Space Center, the Edison House in Ft. Myers, and a week in Sanibel Island (a great place for shelling!!). It was so nice to be on vacation - but it's never fun to get back to the work of daily life. . . . . .And thank you Lord for providing the money to go at the last minute!!! PTL!

As you know - our wonderful social worker, Carol, had finished our homestudy the week before our vacation. She had worked hard to get it done and up to our homestudy agency (in northern VA) so that we could get our notarized copies before we left on vacation. That way I could send them to Immigration (for our 171H) and to the Sec of State and Guatemala Consulates along with our other dossier documents (that have been ready since mid May) and hopefully they would be authenticated and to AHH by the time we returned. We would also be a couple weeks closer to getting our 171H. That would have been nice. . . . . however . . . . our homestudy agency dropped the ball and didn't even try to open up our homestudy report till after I called them on Wed (14th) to make sure we would get them by friday. On thursday they called me and said they couldn't open the attachments but were going to send them to their other office and try there. They finally opened them and said that they needed to fix a few "errors", but could send them out that afternoon. THEN the homestudy agency director realized that she wanted to have Carol's signitures on the notarized copies before she sent them to me (that required her to send them to Carol, for Carol to send them back and for them to send it to me - which would be several days!). Carol said she has never had to sign them before and that it isn't a state requirement. aaagggghhh. The homestudy agency did agree to send off a copy to immgration for us while we were gone so that at least our 171 H could be in process. I trusted it would be done quicklky. . . . . . . wrong!
I expected our notarized homestudy reports in the mail when I returned so that I could send off our dossier stuff yesterday or today. Carol had said that she had signed the pages early the next week after we left and had sent them back immediately (over a week ago). I assumed that the homestudy agency then got them a week ago Wed and would have sent them out Thursday or Firday (a week ago) at the latest. NOPE - I called them yesterday asking where the reports were. They had just mailed them out to me and Immigration on THURSDAY (the day before)! Why the delay - they blamed it on the rain/storms that DC had - saying that they didn't recieve the copies from Carol till just a day or two before. ????? True or not?? I don't know. At least they are in the mail (I hope). So - I'm about 3 more weeks behind in "my schedule" . . . but probably right on time in God's schedule! Isn' t that how it always goes?! I'm ok with that. I just needed to vent some! Thanks. :)

As for the possible referral . . . a week ago (friday) we got a message from our AHH family advocate, Maria, saying that she wanted to talk about our "options" in our adoption. No one has been able to get ahold of Donnie Hernandez, the director at Casa Bernabe, for some time now. It's as if they have fallen off the face of the earth. Evidentally their e-mail and phone service is sketchy and hasn't been working right. I did speak with Nancy from Friends of Children Everywhere (the ministry that covers Casa Bernabe) - and she was supposed to talk with Donnie a couple weeks ago about getting my application and whether they had any little girls available for adoption. She told me Donnie's e-mail was working better and to try again - but I haven't had a response (neither has Maria, who has tried calling many times). So - since they can't get ahold of Casa Bernabe, and since Tony Brewer isn't "ready" to look at or work with other orphanages right now (the person who had looked for us at first, Mark, is no longer with AHH . . . . .great . . . ), they are not sure what to do with us. Super. Their lawyer still has the little 2 year old available, and will notify us if she gets any other relinquishements, but they also gave us the name and number for another agency that has a 6 year old at the present time. I had seen this little girl on www.precious.org awhile ago, but had not investigated her as #1 - she was listed with another agency, #2 - she is a month and a half older than Meghan, and #3 - she was a recent relinquishment. We were mainly looking in the 2-5 year range, focusing on 3-4 years old mainly, and thought we were being led to an already orphaned child (at an orphanage or foster care). BUT - I am totally open to whatever God has for us!! That's for sure. Well - what Maria told us was that if we decided that this little girl was our daughter (or any other girl that the other agency had available) - that they would basically transfer all our info over to the other agency. Basically . . . . AHH doesn't have anything for us, and may not have anything for us, isn't willing to look at other orphanages, but is willing to pass us off. . . . . . . . is that right? :) Ok - so maybe that's a bit harsh. I'm sure that they are doing what they can. I appreciate their help. I was just lead to believe that they could help us in the "orphan" or "orphanage" area. . . . that they were wanting to branch out in that direction more (to have an "older child" program within their Guatemalan program - at least that's what Mark had said). I am just praying against attacks and blocks from the enemy to thwart God's plan and that if this is God's plan (to be redirected to this other agency), that we will have total peace. God works in strange and miraculous ways - so I don't doubt that he could have some detours that I hadn't expected . . . in fact I usually excpect the unexpected to happen (I still plan for the expected though many times). He did tell me it would be like climbing down a sharp, jagged cliff with rapelling gear! So I can't expect an easy trip.

Well - you can check out the little girl by clicking on the Title. Please pray for her and us. If she is meant for our family - then great! If not - I pray that she finds a wonderful christian family of her own. God give us peace and wisdom!

God bless you all and thank you for checking in with our adoption process. We appreciate the support.

Oh - and another praise . . . . a long-time family friend sent us a $500 check towards our adoption just before we left for vacation! What a blessing! God bless her 100 fold!!!

Lori :)