More prayers needed...

I received an email from our attorney today. He was simply updating me on our case. He has registered his paperwork with Minor's Court to enable him to represent us in Cintia's case. He has also had some contact with the judge to get our names on her case file or as a part of her case. (Not exactly sure what that means...but he is saying that he requested that we become officially part of the process in Cintia's case. We will somewhere be listed as potential adoptive parents with reference to the fact that we are fostering her in the US.) Going back a little for her history, Cintia had no one whom she belonged to, not a birthmom, nor was she a ward of the court...so I do mean no one when we set out to bring her here for surgery. In Guatemala, she is simply no one's child other than a child of God. She was never legally abandoned so she basically...until I went to court on March 31, 2008....wasn't even a ward of the court. She was simply no one's child. Her foster mom by law had no rights as a parent and apparently had not petitioned to adopt her. That is understandable due to her age (she was a grandmother to Cintia) and Cintia's medical issues. When her birthmom abandoned her, she left Cintia in limbo and no one ever filed her case for a legal abandonment. It's very sobering..isn't it? Can you imagine belonging to no one? Once she was surrendered to the court on March 31, she became a ward of the Minor's Court in Guatemala. At that time, the judge did not offer to start her legal abandonment process and asked us all to make statements that we were not trying to adopt her. We really were not. At the time, we were trying to get her the medical attention she needed. Now, without a legal abandonment signed by our judge, Cintia is still deemed unadoptable. So our next step is to try to get our judge to proceed in Cintia's absence with her legal abandonment. This could take weeks, months, or years....it is up to this judge.

Next week, our attorney will go to court for a meeting with our judge to discuss Cintia's case, explain his strategy to her, and hopefully agree on how to proceed with the abandonment. He has already met with PGN a few times and they are aware of our case and have agreed to collaberate with our attorney to help us. Praise God! This is no small blessing...anyone familiar with Guatemalan adoptions can vouge for the fact that they can make or break a case.

In case you wonder, this email made me shudder a little...knowing how real this is and how big it is for our family. If it were not for faith in the One who has this all under control, I would be totally losing it about now. However, He is busy working things out and I am choosing to look straight to the finish line focusing on when He gets this all done not if He does. Please focus prayer on His provision....He and only He can get it done.

Also, please pray diligently for our attorneys (lead attorney is Marco) as they proceed next week. We really feel that Marco is God's man to get this done. He is a Christian and I know that your prayers would be greatly appreciated by him. Also, pray for our judge ( ) that God will soften her heart and hasten her signature on Cintia's abandonment papers. She could stop us in our tracks. She can be very scary...and I don't scare easily. However, I keep going back to this one moment, a mommy moment when I knew she was a mommy too. It was the day after the scary day in court with this judge who looked and acted as mean as you can imagine. She passed Cintia and I in the hall outside her office... she stopped...looked at Cintia, stroked her leg, and smiled a Mommy kind of smile with a look of "I know I've done a good thing for you sweet girl..." on her face. I think that she knew this little girl's life had just been saved. Everyone involved did. I can't begin to explain that week in words except to say it was beyond anything any one of us could have done. It was big....it was a miracle for a little girl who had been dealt a horrible hand in life. Now I pray that our judge remembers this very big thing she did and chooses to finish the very good deed she started. Please pray with us.

As more unfolds, I will share it with you all. I hope that you will enjoy the picture of Miss Stinkerbell with her pigtails that she asked for herself today. She knows what she wants and doesn't mind telling you about it. Today, instead of asking for a bath in the big tub or a showder (shower in Cintia words), she said, "The sink is dirty and it's too cold. I need a bath. It hot!!!" We have a big sink in the nursery where we bathe her every day. She did not want a bath in it today. She is focused on her manipulative strategies, don't you think? I was quite impressed.

Blessings!

April