Our 13th Wedding Anniversary and Our Three Beautiful Children!

Dear Family and Friends,

Today is a very special day.  We are celebrating our 13th wedding anniversary, and we are so thankful God brought us together!  On our 10th anniversary, we began discussing adoption.  Our dream is coming true.

We would like to introduce you now to our three precious children, Angie, Ingrid, and Juan.  We will be adopting them in Colombia in just a few short weeks!!
 

Angie - Age 10

 

Ingrid - Age 8

 

Juan - Age 6

As we look at our children's pictures, pray over their health, safety, and happiness, we are thankful that God has given us these children to love and to raise. 

We recently saw this poem that touched our hearts, and wanted to share it now with you.  It is called KISSES IN THE WIND: The Waiting Child's Lullaby.  When we finished reading it, all we could think about is "We are coming!"

KISSES IN THE WIND: The Waiting Child's Lullaby

I hold you in my heart and touch you in my dreams.  You are here each day with me, at least that's how it seems.

I know you wonder where we are... what's taking us so long.  But remember child, I love you so and God will keep you strong.

Now go outside and feel the breeze and let it touch your skin...Because tonight, just as always, I blow you kisses in the wind.

May God hold you in His hand until I can be with you.  I promise you, my darling, I'm doing all that I can do.

Very soon, you'll have a family for real, not just pretend.  But for tonight, just as always, I blow you kisses in the wind.

May God wrap you in His arms and hold you very tight.  And let the angels bring the kisses that I send to you each night.

--- © Pamela Durkota, written for Josh

Te Amamos Angie, Ingrid, y Juan!
(We Love You Angie, Ingrid and Juan!)

The US Embassy in Colombia and Our Travel Call

Now that we have received our I-800 approval in the mail, we are faxing the USCIS approval, along with a form called the DS-230, to the US Embassy in Colombia today.  The DS-230 is an application for each child to get their Visa.  It will take about a week to process everything there, and then the US Embassy will issue a letter called the Article 5.  The Article 5 will then be sent to Ayudame, and they will set our travel dates!

Also, we had the opportunity to have our travel call with our agency this morning.  We went over the specific details of our adoption process while we are in Colombia.  She answered a lot of our questions, and we are really excited!

We Are Getting Closer!

Our adoption continues to move at lightning speed, and God has opened up many doors.  It is hard to believe we were just matched with our kids on December 16th!  So, this is a small recap of all that has happened in just two short weeks.  Our agency submitted our I-800 to US Immigration on Tuesday, March 8th.  We received an e-mail confirmation from them on Friday, March 11th, to let us know they had received all of our forms.  We received our physical receipt in the mail from USCIS saying that our I-800 was being processed on Monday, March 14th.  We then received a call from the Immigration Officer that is processing our case this past Friday, March 18th.  She said she had just received our applications and was processing them now.  We learned today that she had approved our I-800, and it should be on their way to us, via USPS 2 Day Air.  We are getting closer and closer!  Thank you so much for sharing our excitement with us!!

Ayudame

A friend of ours, who is also working with our agency, was recently in Bogota for their adoption.  Here are a few pictures of Ayudame orphanage.  We will probably go to Ayudame to meet the director of the orphanage and be presented with our kids.  It is wonderful to picture where we will be going and are so excited!  Our documents are in process at US Imigration, and it will be time to travel before we know it! 

Our I-797C, Notice of Action

Today, we received three documents from Homeland Security.  These documents are called an I-797C, Notice of Action, and we received one letter for each child.  The I-797C is the official receipt from US Immigration regarding our I-800 approval.  Although we had received the e-mail confirmation on Friday that our I-800 was in process, we are very excited to get these official documents.  They came a lot quicker than we thought they would!  We hope we will have the approval of our I-800 in the next week or two.  Meanwhile, we are busy getting our paper work ready to send to the US Embassy in Colombia and our Visa applications.  We are so excited that things continue to move smoothly as all of our paper work is processed.

Our I-800

We got confirmation from US Imigration that they received our I-800 documents, and it is being processed now!  We hope it will be done and approved by the end of March.

Play Station

Dainis recently built a play station for our kids, and we can't wait for them to get here.  We wanted to build something that would allow them to play, use their imaginations, and have an area where they can learn while having fun.  The station consists of three different parts.  The one end is a kitchen with a sink, refrigerator, stove, oven, and a microwave.  There is play food, pots, pans, baking pans, utensils, plates, and cups.  It has all the things they will need to cook and bake.  The middle section is set up with a grocery store and a puppet theatre for them to learn all different food words in English, count and use US dollars and coins, and use their imagination to put on their own puppet shows.  The last section is a work bench for Juan to start using his own tools.  The front gave us lots of storage for dress-up clothes, legos, trains, and much more. We would like to say a huge thanks to Lori's Aunt and Uncle.  They sent us many things for this play station, and we know the kids will love it all.

A Very Special Day For Our Kids!

We just wanted to share with you that this was a very special day for our kids.  The director of Ayudame notified our agency that our kids were brought to the orphanage today to hear great news!  They were told that they are being adopted, and will be coming to America very soon! We recently made a photo album for each child of our home, along with a DVD, both of which were bilingual.  We sent these things, along with a few presents to the kids.  Our kids were presented with these gifts today.  The director said the kids were very excited, and we can't wait to go and get them!!  We hope we will have a chance to have a conference call with our kids soon!

Our Official Referral Call!!!!

Dear Friends and Family,

We just received THE phone call that everyone who has ever adopted, or is currently adopting, waits for!!  It is the "official" Referral call from our agency that says we have been matched with children by the Colombian government!!  The process has been quite confusing for us because we went through the waiting children program and adopted older children. 

For those who adopt through the traditional program, this is the first time they have heard about the children that they will soon be adopting and receive any information on them.  For us, our paperwork had to catch up with our match. 

We found out today that our match was officially approved by the Colombian government to adopt these three kids on February 14th - Valentine's Day!  We now have all of the documents from Colombia on our kids!  These documents, along with our I800 forms that just arrived to our agency in MN, will be sent to US Immigration on Monday from our agency  We should now be prepared to travel in six weeks.  There is still a few pieces of paperwork to fill out, and we still have to make a trip to CA to get our visas after we receive our travel dates from Colombia and book our flights.  So we are looking at possibly traveling over Easter weekend. 

As we reflect on the true meaning of Easter, we have SO much to thank God for.  It will make this Easter so special, and we can't wait.  It will be a very busy month as we continue to prepare for our children's arrival and travel.  We will keep everyone posted, so please check back often to see the latest news.  Forevermore, Valentine's Day and Easter will be two very special holidays close to our hearts.  Thanks so much for sharing our joy with us!

Great News!!!!

We received the call from our agency that we have been waiting for, yesterday afternoon.  We are officialy approved to adopt our kids!!  All of our documents have been approved by the Colombian government, they have all been approved and released by the court, been translated, and are now at our agency!!  Although we had already received our referral, our official approval from ICBF in Colombia was on February 17th.  All of the documents we needed in order to move on to the next step were approved by the court on February 21st, and our agency received all of the translated documents yesterday.  Now, we will send in forms called I800 to US immigration for approval to adopt the kids.  They will be sent in by the end of the week.  If everything continues to run smoothly, we will travel sometime towards the middle to the end of April.  We are very excited and continue to keep busy getting ready.  Thanks so much for sharing in our journey and our excitement!