First Update in Country

Hey Gang! So we realize we don't have as many emails as we thought we did so feel free to pass this along, especially at church we're relying on you guys to help us spread the word that we are indeed alive and God is good!

So one thing that we have been doing since getting the kids on Wednesday (besides occasionally pulling hair out and loosing weight) is to keep a list each day during the day and at night of the "goods" and "bads" of each day to look back on. When things get really loud, really overwhelming and really frustrating it is good to look at this list and see especially stuff on the "bad" list is sometimes typical kid behavior and sometimes things on the "good" list are just plain sweet for God to let us witness.

Here are some things about our trip so far.

Bogota:

The city is great, most days. Nick and I really really really miss our vehicles and didn't realize that as fun as it was to walk 8 + miles each day while it was just us here that now being trapped in the apartment is less than desirable. The apartment we've rented is nice though. The neighbors have taken great care of us and our Spanish is improving by the hour. This is a BUSY packed city! You often see people hanging out the side of the bus to pack in tight. There are lots of small markets, butcher shops (where they don't use gloves or sanitation that we saw but we ate it anyway :) and fresh fruit markets with so many fruits that we've never seen in our lives. We like it here and are trying to soak it up but if we could come home this afternoon we would do that too.

Vida Bogota

The church that we got to go to last Sunday and plan to while we are here is called Vida Bogota. You can google it or youtube it is a cool set up. We of course couldn't understand the entire sermon but the music was half English and half Spanish and the people were amazing. We spent the afternoon with 2 families until late that night and had to get a cab home. They take such good care of families here, one of the families is riding to our house tomorrow to take us on the bus for the first time to go to church as a family of 5.

The Ninos

The Kids.... while I type this sitting on the couch Stiven is watching power rangers next to me and Nick has the girls squealing in the back room they are surely jumping all over him. So we have Stiven (Brandon Stiven but apparently he goes by Stiven which we found out on Monday after calling him this for almost a year) and we have Daniela (Breidy Daniela who also goes by her middle name) and Michele Dayana who goes by Michele. We are limited to not posting pictures of their faces on social media but I'll attach one here just please don't share online.  So they are siblings...they fight as such. They have been loved by the foster family they were with but not disciplined very much. We feel that we say NO so much but we make sure we have as many or more "Buenos" Good or Good jobs! They eat a lot! They drink a lot of water. They sleep mostly through the night. They like to watch tv, play puzzles, and color. Their personalities are pretty much just as we thought. Stiven is shy, but comes out when he does something well (like finishing a 100 piece puzzle with me this morning) Daniela is very much our handful and a half. We are constantly correcting her and trying to equally love her (and her fits). Michel has Nick's whole heart already she is so spoiled! She smiles and thinks she gets whatever she wants. They all 3 already know what "popcorn" is and love having it after dinner along with a movie before bed.

Nick and Jennifer (Papi y Mami)

I should have let him write this part. We are doing ok. Honestly the most encouraging moments are to hear from my parents on Skype that we are doing good and they are proud of us. There are tough moments/hours. We have literally been on our knees singing and praying at bedtime just for them to go to sleep. The first day with them I cried...a few times... and the next day was a little less. Still at moments we feel like it and it feels so good to cry out to the Lord who put us here for his Glory! Pray for our hearts, our hugs and our kisses and our conversations at night while they sleep. Pray that Nick actually gets to work while we are here, so he can save some vacation time.

Prayer Requests:

-That we could continue bonding and attaching to each other through the tough stuff.

-That they would go to bed easier and sleep longer. This has been probably our biggest challenge so far.

-That Nick and I would have patience and be able to focus on them individually too

-That our integration meeting would go well on Wednesday and that the court process would go quickly so we can get home fast!

-That our language barriers would disappear and that we could understand them more fully

Praises:

-We do have some really sweet times with them

-they eat well (we didn't know how this would go)- Today they even said "perfecto" to our Colombian soup recipe.

-We've survived day 4 with no serious injuries, sickness, or complete lack of sleep

-We have so many people praying for us and we feel it all the time

Thank you for continuing to be behind us through this. Thanks for listening to us (ME-Jennifer) whine about things, and thank you for loving us and showing us that we are not alone and that we can do this ONLY with HIS help!

Los Quieremos (We love you)

 

Today we leave

Well the past few weeks have been utterly crazy busy that I have not gotten in bed at a decent time, ate very much, or let alone updated you guys. We are on our way to Colombia! We have bags packed, tickets bought, and work (almost) taken care of for while we are gone. We arrive late tonight and will get to go explore the city and get familiar with our surroundings for the first few days. On Monday we have what's called a team meeting. We will get to meet with the team of social workers, psychologists, and workers that have taken care of our kids for the past few years. The foster family will not be there, we are not allowed to meet them, although we may be able to send them a card passed through the office there to them. We expect this meeting will be helpful and give us any last minute updates we need on the kids. On Wednesday, August 6th we will have our "gotcha day" meaning we will go get them and they will be in our care from this day forward. The country of Colombia considers us "great friends" to the kids until they are legally ours in a month or so. Until then we can do about whatever with them except leave the country. We will try to send out emails and post on here as to how our trip is going. Please pray for us as we travel, that things would go smoothly. Pray as we meet with their team. Pray as we meet the kids and that we would start to bond with them and grow to love them.

Until we are home (in 2 months)

Official Match Granted and moving forward

We have been officially matched with the 3 kiddos we have been pursuing for some time now. When I got the phone call Beth called me first. I was in tears and quite literally fell to the ground! You guys know me I hardly ever cry...THIS. WAS. WORTH. CRYING. FOR! I got to go surprise Nick at work with sweet letters and pictures of the kids. He almost cried :) . It was a weird mix, like we knew it was coming but the sure feeling of the relief that followed was glorious! It has been nothing but 200 mph since and they assure us it will not slow down. We have been frantically planning final fundraisers, making bunk beds, painting rooms. We are trying to find clothes, shoes, and guess at sizes that might fit them according to past weight and height. We have also had 100's of pages translated from their files with medical info and background stories, this is a huge praise and my heart just hurts for mamas that get none of this information. We are praying God will use this in a mighty way in their lives one day to look back and know where they came from.

Right now we need prayer. Lots of it. We need people at dinners, and lots of hugs saying It'll be ok. We need rest, I got some while I had my wisdom teeth out and the Lord knew I would not sit still unless it took surgery and a week recovery.

We are constantly reminded how faithful God is in supplying our needs. Randomly the other day someone handed $100 over to the family hosting our spaghetti dinner, they didn't even know us just knew they wanted to be a part. We have tons of friends and family coming to help the night of the spaghetti dinner as well as tons of people donating baskets to auction off. Also a few weeks after the dinner friends will give up another night to help at Pizza Inn for a fundraiser. Whew! This takes a village LITERALLY!

We couldn't do this without you all and we are so excited to see our next steps unfold. They tell us we will be traveling in early August and we know the stay in country will be close to 8 weeks. We are trying to find a place to stay right now and think through all that would be required to travel for that long with 3 kids.

Here is our little announcement flyer about our family. Stick with us guys, the hard work is about to begin.
Oh and in case you were wondering, "B" is our oldest He is 8. "B" is our middle she is 6. and "M" is our youngest she is 4. Let the craziness begin!!!

Dossier APPROVED!!!

Hup, two, three, four... Keep it up, two, three, four

I feel like this video says it all. Inspection. Discipline. Forward progress.... Keep it up! And it also makes me laugh a lot so here ya go!  

Praise Jesus we are finally APPROVED to adopt from Colombia! What this means is great news for us. We submitted our Dossier to Colombia ICBF (central authority on children, families, and specifically adoption) back in early December. They looked over it for a few months and then came back with more questions for us. Now, about 5 months later, after reviewing our answers and the remainder of our files in country, they have said YES We the Colombian Government will allow the SANJINES family to adopt from our Country! This is such good news and such a relief. 

Our hearts are praying for the Lord and the Government of Colombia to let us adopt these 3 precious kiddos that we have identified and put in a letter of intent on. If for any reason they were to say no they don't think we'd be the best parents for these kids then on a positive note... they have still said YES we think you will be great parents to Colombian kids one day!

Nick and I both listed to a great sermon from Davis Platt on Prayer from this year's Together for the Gospel. The link to listen or watch it is HERE and is free until 4/30/14. We have both been encouraged that although the days are Looooooong as we "hurry up and wait" on an answer, that our prayers for these kids and this country are never put to waste! How encouraging is that!? Won't you please spend some time in prayer for our kids tonight with us and also for us and our hearts? HE will hear us, and HE will answer our prayers with HIS will and perfect plan! 

Isaiah 40:31 But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

Psalm 105:4 Look to the Lord and his strength; 
seek his face always. 

Until they are home,

Request for Evidence

Our Dossier has been in Colombia since December. It got there just before all of the Holidays began so we've been patiently waiting to hear any news about it. Well this week we got some news. We got a "request for evidence". This is a fancy way of saying they had some more questions. From what we have been told by our agency and others this is slowly becoming the "norm" now and almost every family is getting asked further questions.

This is good. We want them to ask questions. I mean come on, even we think it sounds weird that a couple with no infertility issues, as young as we are, would want to adopt, adopt internationally, and on top of that adopt more than one child! Nick and I thought we would loose some hope in their system if they were to NOT ask us more questions. Our home study and dossier have everything in it except for hair samples (which are probably somehow in there too) but we knew they still want to know more. The questions they asked were reasonable. We will now have to answer them and return our answers, translated and sealed, to Colombia as quickly as possible so they can continue to review our family.

We just wanted to update you and let you know we'd appreciate your prayers while we hurry all over town to see Dr.s and Psychologists to write letters and "evidence" to support our family in our attempt to adopt. We are praying the people that accept the answers will indeed accept them and approve us and we can move forward. The scary thing is there are no "for sure" situations in adoption, and this, unfortunately, is one of those not for sure times. We could submit these answers and they could move us along, or they could say no. We aren't really thinking about what would happen if they said no. Only that God is in control of every detail (see last post) and we are confident in that. That being said our "details" that we give to the Colombian government need to be quick, accurate, and honest.

Thank you for praying along with us.

Back in School

So last weekend we left Empowered to Connect conference in Birmingham. We got to meet some new friends and got to see our favorite social worker from Lifeline. Our brains are on total over load right now. We loved every minute of it! I'm finding myself just loving to learn lately. It seems like just about everyday I'm reading an article, practicing Spanish, searching blogs, and now after this weekend we will be doing more research into nutrition and sensory issues that our kids will be dealing with. In the midst of all of our learning I'm feeling a little stuck. I'm stuck thinking when are we actually going to get to use this stuff. How much longer!?

 Nick and I are both not emotional about many things, I am the more emotional one of the two, but friends even comment to us, do y'all not ever get mad or upset or sad. I think I only cried at two points of our wedding day.Ok... maybe three but compared to most I'm a little dry. It's not that the emotions are not there. It's not that I hold them in and then explode either. I'm not sure why God has made us this way.I'm not sure and that's ok. 

While we were in Birmingham we were at church on Sunday with one of our most admired pastors and speakers. We missed our home church family but were happy to be at church with our Lifeline family. He reminded us that as they have been reading though Genesis just as our church has, at all the details and what some call "coincidences" but what he referred to as an "orchestra of God's moves". This picture of God orchestrating all the little details has just been so prevalent on my heart lately. He made mention of his family's adoption journey and how in their failed attempts at pregnancy and adoption that God was using that to culminate to him leaving to go to Nepal (where they had to stop their adoption). He said never would he have made up or even dreamed up that years ago after their struggles and often asking "God why"" that he would be going on this trip. 

So to be honest with you, the sibling group we are currently reviewing has a little girl in it. She is the younger of the two girls and her birthday was during the conference. We both made it though the day, we prayed for her and thought of her often. Because we don't know if officially she is ours I wasn't as heartbroken as I thought I might be that we'd missed her birthday. God once again why did you make me this way? I want to be emotional about it,I want to be overwhelmed with love for this little girl who is now another year older and without a mom and dad. The second little girl in this sibling group has a birthday coming up in only a matter of days. Please pray for her as she too, only days after her sister, will be missing a mom and dad on her birthday. 

The fact that God is orchestrating our details, rather they lead to her and her siblings or to different kids, or whatever,

the thing I keep getting overwhelmed and "emotional" about is the fact that we serve a God who is always planning, always doing, always figuring, always loving, always disciplining, always true, always real, and always faithful. 

I try to be so many things and it's ok if emotional wreck is not one of them right now, I'm sure that will come with time and then I'll wish I was back the way I am now. But I just love that even though I'm on information overload God had reminded me that He has called us to Live Recklessly for Him and he is using each feature of who he is to bring us closer to our kids and to make us into every detail he has designed us to be as believers, as parents, as husband and wife, and most importantly as children of His.

Thank you God for allowing us to learn so much it hurts. Thank you that in your prefect timing we'll get to unleash it all on our kids with love and that until then we can laugh about all the "use your words" and things we say to each other anticipating having to say them to the kids one day. God keep us sustained though this journey. Please let little M & B feel a special kind of love on their birthdays. Let them know they are fiercely being pursued and that we are able to do so because you so lovingly pursued us and have taught us what it looks like to love like crazy and trust in your details.

In the next day or two I will try to post an update on our actual "process" after talking with our Social Worker.

I am going to also be posting more information for you as our family and friends so that you can Learn along with us, so stay tuned! Here is the one for Empowered to Connect.
http://empoweredtoconnect.org/

Dossier In!! Now What?!

HUGE PRAISE and Awesome UPDATE!!! Our Dossier is in Colombia and is fully translated! What does that mean?!
Let me back up. What is a Dossier? dos·si·er
noun-1.a collection of documents about a particular person, event, or subject.

So our "collection of documents" has pretty much everything in it except for real life blood samples! I think I caught our social worker stealing hair from my brush for this thing. (kidding about the hair) but seriously they do know our blood types! So for weeks they were translating this mega folder...anyone picturing a 10 ft long filing cabinet... and translating can be difficult when you want it to be as accurate as possible but also have to watch out that something said in English might be reworded in Spanish and sound weird. We can't have us sounding weird, we are already crazy! So we got a call from B at the agency and she said she had great news before Christmas and it was that our Dossier had arrived Safely and fully translated in Colombia. 
-Sidenote-whew so glad someone at fedex didn't steal every ounce of our personal info and get this thing into the wrong hands, this is the reason I pay $20 to ship a package :)

We have been assured that (contrary to our original thinking) it would not begin to collect dust on someones desk that they are actually reviewing our family and our files get passed around to multiple offices, officials, regions, etc. So nice to know its moving somewhere and not just sitting there. So right now the courts and ICBF close for a few days for Christmas and New Years and after that they open back up and will be back to reading ours (and numerous other families) Dossiers and decide rather to approve them or not. 
-Scary little known fact, even though the USA said we are approved that does not mean Colombia has to agree. They could say no. We are confident, however, that if the Lord has brought us this far he will not drop us off (literally) on someones desk to be told NO!

So now we wait a little bit. About 3 months is average for the officials to approve a family. 
During this time you will be anxious to know what we are doing....well....we are reviewing files! Yes reviewing, like reviewing as in we get to PICK, it sounds terrible and confusing and heartbreaking and it is a little of all of the above but also a little cool too that God would guide us in the direction of what Colombia names "waiting children." These kidos are who our agency has such a heart for. They are mostly "special needs" - If you do not know already about what is considered special needs in other countries please look up some examples of it before you come chasing me down asking "what are you doing!" You will gasp and gag at what they call "special needs" in other countries, some of them are huge lifelong needs and some are as minor as needing glasses, it floors me that they are all in the same category and that no one wants these kids because of these big or small issues. 
(END of rant about that)

We currently have files for a sibling group of 3 kids we are praying about. We are praying God would reveal to us whether they are our kids or someone elses. We are praying for their safety, for their health, for their hearts, and most importantly that our Savior would grab hold of them for his name sake and find them a family! We are having some files translated (3 English pages=30 Spanish pages) so its fun to see and "get to know" them through paper and through tests that tell things like "she's artistic" or "he likes pets". Things that would not make or break our decision in any way but just things to start to get to know them.

 Think of it like an ultra sound. We are getting to hear their heartbeat and see them move and grow 

(sort of) :)

So what can you be doing? I only have 1 answer for that, or maybe two. 
--ONE- PRAY, pray for us, pray for our agency, pray for our kids (whether its them or not that we currently have these files) pray for our life after we're home, pray for us to be diligent in our Spanish learning attempts. 
--TWO-Encourage. Don't get me wrong we both need to hear the "my friend has these kids and they are crazy" stories but please if you are going to "encourage" us with opinions let them first be thought through twice and please also remember that we have thought this whole thing through and even though there are about 1,000,000 answers to questions we don't have right now one HUGE answer we do have is that God is behind us and yet pulling us through this at the same time. He is the one who has CALLED us to do this and even though we know you love us (think we're crazy) thats ok! We like being different, we like being "not normal" we like being known as the crazy couple adopting siblings! We are excited and nervous all at the same time. 

We are thankful and happy to have you as a part of this with us. THANK you for staying with us and thank you for asking~ It means a lot to me, personally, and to Nick, to get to talk about it with friends and people who are curious.

Goal for 2014: Update the blog once per month! Here's to January!