Last Wednesday morning, we got to have a video chat session with Maria! We had a friend of Anna’s with us who was able to translate, and had the opportunity to ask a few questions we had. Despite varying signal strength, difficulty hearing or understanding some questions and answers, and the difficulty they had in getting a three year old to pay attention to some strangers on a computer screen, it was wonderful to get to see her.

She likes dancing to Frozen songs, recognized Anna as her mom (!!), loves computers (mostly because they are the source of entertainment, but still, as a computer engineer I’m hopeful I can teach her a trick or two!), loved going outside, has no problems climbing up and down stairs, and likes animals. It was wonderful to get this glimpse into her life, and I can’t wait to meet her in person. We’re very grateful to everyone who facilitated the meeting, especially for our translator and her husband who completed a 45 minute drive to be at our house at 6 a.m.!

We’re leaving for Colombia on Friday, Lord willing. Plane tickets are bought, all three sets. First, we have to go to the Colombian consulate in San Francisco to go get our visas. We could have mailed our passports, but our agency recommended going in person so we could handle any issues that arise. So for our first trip to San Francisco , we will be there around 12 hours of which we’ll be trying to sleep for around 6. Unfortunately, not a lot of time for sightseeing!

Then at the end of this week, we’re off to Colombia! A rough schedule of what we expect our trip to look like:

• A day and night in Bogota, where we will meet some of our agency folks, and take care of some initial logistics.
• A week and a half in Bucaramanga. This is the city where Maria currently lives, and according to the current schedule, we’ll get to meet her on February 5th! That day or the next, she’ll be staying with us, and we’ll be her guardians. At the end of the week and a half, we’ll be released to travel.
• A week in La Mesa/Anapoima (a town about 2 hours drive outside Bogota) for court proceedings. We will essentially turn in some paperwork on day 1, and then wait for it to make its way through the system. Once it does, the court issues an adoption decree and Maria is officially our daughter!
• A week in Bogota getting Maria’s travel documents. Some from Colombian authorities, some from the American Embassy, and then a plane ticket home!

It’s good to be in the final paperwork stretch! Our agency does their best to make sure our time in-country will be spent getting to know Maria and helping her adjust to being part of our family. The process is almost over. Of course, then we’ll be the parents of a 3-year-old, so maybe the work is just starting!

Some things you can be praying for:

• To prepare Maria for the coming transition. While we firmly believe this process is a good thing, we are about to remove this little girl from pretty much everything she knows and understands, and bring her to a place where everything will be as foreign to her as Colombia is to us.
• Travel to go smoothly! With flights to San Francisco and back, flights to Colombia, and flights inside Colombia, there’s lots of places things can go a bit sideways.
• Stability inside Colombia, and their neighbor Venezuela. A week and a half ago, there was a terrorist attack in Bogota. While it is the first in nine years, this is cause for concern. Additionally, Venezuela has been experiencing tremendous political upheaval as the populace is trying to regain control of their nation from the current regime (sorry, that’s a bit biased, but tens of millions of people are suffering at the hands of their own government).

Thanks, and we’re committed to making regular blog posts while we are travelling, so stay tuned!