Guat. City

On one of his visits down here, my dad asked "Who would want to live in a place called "Guat. City"?" It just doesn't top most people's travel destinations list. The Guatemalans just refer to it as "Guate". I have to say that it isn't really a fun or pretty place, but I had a good time there today and yesterday.

I made a trip to "Guate" to visit the Embrey's who are here to pick up Cindi! Thanks to the Embrey's generosity, I stayed the night at the hotel and hung out with their family as well as the Whitworth's and Wheeler's who were also in the city for the night. The Wheeler's and the Embrey's both had their embassy appointments today and pick up their visas tomorrow! Yea!

The Dorsey and Dawn with Cindi and Caterin (Samuel adores these girls!).


The Embrey family is adopting two girls, but Caterin's case is still stuck in PGN. I went with the Embrey's and Whitworth's to PGN today. I think we caused quite a stir- you don't see many adoptive parents in there! It can be a bit of an intimidating place. The Embrey's and Whitworth's were both able to speak with the head lady over adoptions and, after some tense conversation, both families received good news. When we left PGN, the Embrey's lawyer packed us all in his Jeep Cherokee (all six adults, 2 babies and 2 girls!) and took us back to the hotel. Someone said that the car ride was very indicative of our Guatemalan experience- you just never know what will happen next, but at least we're all in it together! It was a funny moment of looking around and being SO thankful for the other families that God has placed in our lives through this process. The bond we share is a sweet blessing! Below is the infamous PGN building. Not all that exciting, but thought the other adoptive families might appreciate it. They also have the lovely (insert sarcasm) bushes that spell out P-G-N in front of the building. I am sure that Jimmy would have many suggestions on how to TP or vandalize them....



Without going into too much detail, this week is a big week for us as we wait for progress with our case. Please pray that God would grant us favor with our lawyer and the Guatemalan government. We should have a better update after Friday.



This week we also celebrated what I think is the last of the 1st birthdays of our Antigua friend group. Miss Rachael Anne turned one on Saturday and had a fun garden party. Here she is below with her parents, Beth and Kirk. She is also now out of PGN- praise God!

I read the verse below this morning- found it very encouraging as I prepared to head to PGN with the other families and also in light of our case. In the Spanish version, instead of "gate", it says "tribunales", which means court. The Lord continues to give us the strength to "contend" and fight to bring these kids home!

Psalm 127:3, 5 "Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him.... Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies at the gate."

Road trip: Chichicastenango

Today was a great day and a real change of pace! Lee Anne and I spent the day in Chichi, a city about 2.5 hours from Antigua. We left Erick and Samuelito at home with Maria as 5 hours on the road with them (and no car seats) is no fun. I realized this is just the 3rd time in 6 months that I've left him for over 2 hours!



We visited Chichi in July when my dad was here. This time, we went to check out a ministry called Pray America. They have a feeding program, a housing program for widows and are in the process of building an orphanage for "unadoptable" children. We heard about this ministry through a friend here in Antigua and went to see if it might be a place our church could get connected.



Before heading to the ministry office, we shopped a little bit at the market. Chichi has a population of around 100,000 and the majority of the people are indigenous. In the department/state that Chichi is in, there are 7-8 indigenous languages spoken.




We spent 3 hours with two of the Pray America staff members. We saw the land they have purchased for the orphanage. The house that they've renovated as the administrative office was originally built in 1820! Random sidenote: one of the original features of the home is this small brick hut looking thing. It's sort of like a steam room, but you crawl in and use the steam to bathe. The maintenance man and his family who live on the property still use it!





Next we saw one of the widow's houses they built. They are small, concrete floored, wood walled homes with no water or electricity. They also make bunkbeds for the homes. The staff shared that there are many widows due to the Guatemalan Civil War that ended in the mid/late 90s. The woman whose home we visited has 5 children. It was pretty humbling to see. I continue to be challenged by the amount of poverty and needs that we see here daily.



After that, we drove to the site of one of the feeding programs. They feed 300-400 people daily in different sites around Chichi with most of their efforts focusing on children and widows.

On the way back to the office, we stopped to snap a picture of the land for the orphanage. One of the staff members pointed out that the hill next to their property is one of the most famous Mayan sacrifice sites where they used to practice human sacrifice. The site is still used today, but we were assured us that now the sacrifices are usually chickens :). (Current administrative building and the land for the orphanage)
Mayan sacrifice site

The trip home was beautiful- lush countryside and a gorgeous sunset. It was good to be reminded that Guatemala is a pretty country and we've met many good people here. Lately I've had trouble fighting off the "get me out of here!" attitude. Today was a good reminder that the challenge of this adoption process is nothing compared with what some of these people face daily just to survive. Lee Anne and I debriefed a bit on the way home. How do we respond to all of the hurt and poverty that we see? How does that change how we live? It gets kind of overwhelming. My prayer is that we can return often to Guatemala to serve here (and give Samuelito lots of exposure to his "roots"), but also return to the States with better priorities and a more generous and willing spirit to be used by the Lord in our home community.

On the adoption front- no news. It's been 3 weeks of waiting for our birth certificate. We've been out of PGN for about 6 weeks with no real progress. If we can get our birth certificate by the end of next week, I could still be home by the end of October. If not, it will be later. This makes me sad, but we're still hoping for movement within the next week.


That's all from here- hope you have a great weekend! We have a "busy" weekend (The term "busy" is very relative here. If we have any weekend events, it is "busy"). Lee Anne's hubby gets in town tomorrow which means I get some things from home (fun!). Pat and Jimmy should charge courier fees because they always have to bring down things for us! Saturday we have a birthday party (you guessed it, another baby is turning 1!) for Rachael Anne. Next week Lindsey and Miss Eliana are heading home and the Embrey's are visiting to pick up Cindy, so we have lots of celebrating and good-byes coming up!

The Housemates

We've had some rainy days lately so Lee Anne broke out the bubble machine for some afternoon entertainment. Our housemates are pretty cute!

SamuelitoEliana (who is PINK as of today which means she has her embassy appointment on Monday and will be in the US next week!)

Milo and Angie

Erick (I have a feeling those eyes are going to make him a ladies' man!)

So thankful to live with such sweet kids and their moms!