I'm here!

After one of the most uneventful & easy travel days of my life, I arrived before 11:30 Guatemala time to an airport full of masked and gloved people. Atlanta airport was very empty today...economy or pig flu???? Probably both... Anyhow, we had to fill out a health form before they let us into Guatemala due to pig flu. Anyway, I made it through and checked into the hotel. The only issue I have now is fatigue...after going to bed after 3:00 this morning and getting up at 4:00, I am exhausted.

Tonight I met with Luis...the attorney who is doing the legwork on Cintia's case. We talked about different avenues and aspects of her case. All of this would be too scary if we didn't know God has it all under control. Lots of potentials but nothing is known.

We will attempt to speak with the judge in the morning. She may speak with us or she may decline. If she declines, we will file a formal petition with the request to leave the country with Cintia after the hearing. We would then have to wait for the answer. We will procede to the embassy from there where I will ask to meet with the consulate about getting another visa when we come back in October. Nothing will be mentioned about our desire to adopt Cintia, we will purely present the medical need and get our options.

Luis and I talked about the adoption process which is completely separate from the abandonment. Since the "adoptibility" factor hasn't been worked out (the abandonment), the central authority (who is in charge of adoptions) can't really make formal remarks to how we can procede since all US adoptions are suspended. One avenue may be to apply for temporary residency in Guatemala which takes 4-6 months to get and then procede with an in country adoption. They have done a couple of cases where the adoptive parents are from Spain by doing this. The adoption would then take around 5 months and she would be legally ours in Guatemala. That means we should be here no longer than a year. We don't know if they will do it or not but it may be a good option which will make Cintia our legal daughter in Guatemala...then we would have to get her to the US to readopt so she would become a citizen. I think that is doable with political help on the US side. So....

Tomorrow we procede with the first option of trying to get things worked out so that we can bring her back home and procede with the adoption in her absence....complete with visa concerns and the judge. If the judge says she has to stay, we will request to be her substitue family. Please pray for those details.....whether home or in Guatemala she needs to stay with us.

I will update again tomorrow! Please pray!!!

April