Becoming real

With their sweet voices playing over and over in my head, I trudged through the paper chase with renewed enthusiasm. Their host family sent me a total of one hundred sixteen pictures of their summer adventures. I printed many of them and put them up all over the house. Now I had both a visual and an audio reminder of the purposes behind all this paperwork.

But I wanted to know more about their specific location while I talked with them. I looked up the name of their orphanage online, and I found much more than I expected, including lots of pictures and even some videos. Their living conditions actually impressed me. The orphanage appeared bright, clean, and child-friendly.

A huge surprise blessing soon overwhelmed me when I found a video posted online by a couple who adopted two children from the same orphanage. I got to see the outside of the buildings, the street where they lived, and I even found Viviana in the video! I couldn't mistake her sweet, high-pitched voice. That twenty second video lit up my world!

There she stood, my daughter, though much younger at the time. I can’t even count the number of times I replayed that video, longing for the day I could hear that sweet voice in my home every single day.

The orphanage permitted me to call the kids two times a week at specific times in the evening. I always tried, but I didn’t always reach them. My conversations with Viviana remained muffled, but sweet. I learned about her favorite colors, her interest and ability level in school, and whether or not she could read yet. She sure loved and missed the family who hosted her and her brother here in Texas.

Living with a family made a huge impression on her heart, a life-changing experience she would never forget. She adored their dog (and all animals in general). She seemed clueless about the adoption, so we purposely left it that way. My phone calls delighted her, and she continued to call me Tía. We kept the conversation topics pretty basic, but I did tell her I planned to visit her.

“I hope to go to Colombia to visit you someday so that I can see you again.” That excited her and gave us a more solid purpose for our talks.

I couldn’t reach Juan David as often, but our conversations took on a natural tone whenever we talked. I quickly found out he did know about our intent to adopt them.

“What do you think about that?” I asked hesitantly.

“It would be great!” Suddenly his voice filled with excitement, and his entire mood changed. He seemed so much more enthusiastic to talk and get to know me.

I wished Mike and David had more Spanish skills so they could talk to him, too. The more I learned about him confirmed what a great match he made for David as a brother. They both loved Math, and Juan David said he loved P.E. because he could play soccer. Funny, David claimed recess as his favorite “subject” because he gets to play soccer. These two boys would make a great pair together.

Being able to talk with my children perked me up again and helped me stay focused through the final steps of our adoption process. We wouldn’t make it by April, as hoped, and it looked like we couldn’t even make it by June.

God knew exactly what I needed at that point in time. Our paperwork finally arrived at the immigration level for processing.  Up to ninety days might pass before receiving approval, but at least that gave us a number and time frame to go by. It helped to know things moved along, not as quickly as I preferred, but at least nothing stood at a standstill.

We still waited to hear if we’d qualified for any grants or financial aid to help us pay for the rest of the process. We watched God miraculously provide every penny so far. We still owed the final amount to our agency,roughly another five thousand dollars. That included the second half of their normal fee, a translation fee, and our attorney fee.

Around the same time, I found myself wrestling with God over a matter He pressed on my heart. I knew He asked me to give a little over three hundred dollars to someone in particular. I whined and complained, saying, “But God, I’m in the middle of trying to adopt two children. I could really use that money for this process.”

He wouldn’t take the burden off my heart, though. I already paid the bills for the month, subtracted the amount from our checking account and budgeted for the month without that money. I stalled on actually writing the check, but eventually I obeyed the still, small voice and wrote it. I felt the burden lift as I addressed the envelope and put it in the mail.

God taught me an incredible lesson that very day. He couldn’t show me until I obeyed. You see, I put that check in the mailbox first thing in the morning before I left for work. That evening, Mike brought in the new mail, and we went through it together.

While I read one piece of mail and he another, Mike suddenly shouted out, “Rachelle! Listen to this!”

He proceeded to read the letter in his hand, saying a check for five thousand dollars had been sent to our agency to help cover our expenses. I wanted to cry. I felt so elated, yet ashamed at the same time. I’d argued with God over a measly three hundred dollars, and He turned around and blessed us with the entire remaining amount owed to our agency. Where God guides, He also provides, always.

Yet the blessings didn’t stop there. That same weekend, a couple in our church offered us an entire girl’s bedroom set they didn’t need any more.

“Thank you, Father. Thank you. Your goodness is so humbling.”

We really grew as a family during those last few months of waiting on our final document, our immigration approval. My weekly phone calls to Juan David and Viviana made their role in our lives a reality.

“Is David there? Is your husband home? Pass the phone to them, please.” Viviana loved hearing Mike and David’s voices on the phone, even if they didn’t understand more than a few words she said.

“How did David’s team do in their last game? Did they win?” Juan David asked about David’s soccer games almost every time I called, connecting them more as brothers.

These kids were real, no longer just pictures of two faces we’d met months ago and nearly forgotten about. Our bond with them grew day by day.

David talked about them as his brother and sister, and we talked about them as our children. They say once you adopt, you love the child as if they had always been your child. So why not love them and talk of them that way from the beginning? It made sense. We already claimed them as part of our family, a part of each one of us. I even noticed in my phone calls with Juan David that he already thought of David as his own little brother, too. We never talked about the adoption or where we stood in the process, but he knew, and to him, we already made a family of five.

The adventure of watching God continue to provide for our every need (not just financially) helped make the wait time much more bearable. We found out another Christian organization awarded us a Matching Grant for  twenty-five hundred dollars, meaning another possible five thousand dollars toward our travel expenses within Colombia if enough friends and family donated to match it.

We held three garage sales over the next month to raise money for the airline tickets. So many people donated to our sales, helping us raise overa thousand dollars, possibly enough to cover both kids’ plane tickets to come home. Everything seemed to fall right into place as we neared the end of our journey.

Still needing to make another trip to Austin to apostille a few documents, we planned to at least stop by our friends’ house while there (the ones who opened their home to us the two weekends we traveled to meet Juan David and Viviana). They ended up having to travel out of town that weekend, but they arranged for a neighbor to meet us to send us home with a beautiful bunk bed set for Juan David and David’s room that their own boys already outgrew.

“Thank you, God.”

Now, He not only provided the bedroom set for Viviana’s room, but He also provided the bunk beds for David and Juan David to share. Endless provisions continued coming! What a beautiful experience for our family.

​Our faith grew exponentially. God brought everything together, showing us His plans are not our plans, but they are always better. His timing is not our timing, but it’s always perfect.  

Juan David asked me to send him a special blanket he left behind in Austin, a blue quilt someone made for him. On our most recent trip to Austin, his host family happened to send us back with all of the kids’ toys, clothes, and belongings that they purposely held onto for their adoptive family. Special items they knew the kids would love to see again in their new home, including the blankets made for them!

I couldn’t wait to tell Juan David I finally held his blanket in my possession. We set up the bunk beds as soon as we got home, and I draped his blanket over the railing on the top bunk. It felt like I brought a little part of him home, too. Seeing it on the bed where he would one day sleep made him feel so much closer. Still, my heart ached for him more every day. Eight months now slipped through our fingers.