An Answer to Prayer

    In July, 2014 we rode a bus to Jocotenango, a neighborhood about half an hour from where we lived at the YWAM base in Antigua.  We were going to visit our lawyer and find out what paperwork we would need for our temporary residency application.  We were armed with our passports, birth certificates, and Eloisa our Spanish teacher-- just in case we didn't understand what was being said to us.

   We had been in Guatemala less than a year, and had spent most of that time in language school.  We had little understanding of the journey we were embarking on.  All we knew was that we wanted to adopt, and this was the first step.

    Immediately, even in that very first meeting, we realized it wasn't going to be as simple as just handing a lawyer our passports.  We began making trips to Guatemala City every couple weeks; employing every form of transportation including Tuctucs, taxis, chicken busses and walking in order to get around between the immigration office, police offices, lawyer offices (Guatemalan's love their "official stamps"!) and the Canadian embassy.  It was taxing on our finances, patience, sanity, and language ability... but finally on May 9, 2015, the immigration office accepted our papers and we were officially "in-process".

    We and/or our lawyer returned to the immigration office in Guatemala City every single week for a full year.  During that time we made our move to the lake-- effectively adding four hours each way to our travel time.  On one of our visits I nicknamed the immigration office the "unhappiest place on earth".  Each time we'd arrive through the doors and stride across the white tile floor with great expectations... only to be shuffled through the gauntlet of desks and sent away empty-handed.

     Friends and supporters prayed for us.  We prayed for ourselves.  A year of "processing" came and went, and then suddenly, it happened.  The same woman who'd rejected us so many times finally took our papers and wrote something different on them.  She typed a couple magic keys on her idling computer-- and we were approved.

     Of course the process from there to having stamped passports in hand was not simple, and there was more running around to pay bills and get lawyers to sign documents... but we knew we'd already been approved.  The battle was won.  On May 16, 2016, almost two full years after starting this process (and being promised it would take no more than three months-- a laughable statement in the developing world)... we are now temporary residents of Guatemala!!!

    Thank you to everyone who has prayed with us through this time!  Only two years as temporary residents and then we can apply for permanent... and adoption!