O Acordo esta pronto!

O Acordo esta pronto!  The Acordo letter is ready!  As far as we know it was mailed to Curitiba from the US Consulate in Rio de Janeiro today (or maybe it will be tomorrow).  In any case, they said that our agency would have a digital copy tomorrow and CEJA only needs a digital copy to proceed to the court.

The court social worker will decide how much time the children need to adjust to the reality of being adopted before we can come meet them.  Usually a week, but it could be more or less depending on the social worker's judgement about our situation.  We should (probably) know by the end of this week and could (possibly) be Brazil-bound in a couple weeks from now!

Could it be that we are really just one step away from being together with our children?  After all that has happened, could we really be just a couple weeks from being parents?  Lord, have mercy and let it be so!

Hope

We're getting to the end of July, 2009 and still don't know when we are going to go meet our precious children. The latest estimate is sometime in September. That's because even after the judge decides to grant our petition, there is still a tangle of red tape to sort out.

• Judge decides
• Submits decision to CEJA
• If it's a "yes" CEJA creates a document called a "Letter of Invitation" (LOI)
• A copy of that letter comes to us so we can get visas, a quick 2-day process
• The letter itself goes to the US consulate in Rio
• The consulate apparently has to send it up to the US to... USCIS
• USCIS approves our I-800 which ensures visas for each of the children
• Meanwhile, Lino makes our court appointments and we make our travel arrangements

That whole thing will probably take 2-3 weeks, but no one really knows because no one has ever done it before. The I-800 process is a new one and we were going to be the first Brazil family to go through it. However, we're told that another AWAA family is beating us to the finish line and will adopt their children soon. They are currently in the pre-travel document-push right now. Hopefully they will pave the way for us. And if things go well, we may overlap some time in Brazil with them.

The thing is that before the judge decides, she will have to receive a report from CEJA's psychologist, Daisy. All the letters (13 of them!) and answers to questions that we sent to Luciana on Monday (July 20) were translated by Lino and another helper that same day and taken to CEJA on Tuesday (the 21st). The psychologist needs to put all of that information into a report (even though I think it would have been easier and just as effective to put it into a folder!) for the judge. Having read all 13 letters from our friends and family and having easily answered all the judge's questions with very well-reasoned and heart-felt answers, We really think that the only thing the Psychologist can say in her report is, "This is clearly the family God has chosen for these four children."

So, everyone is feeling very positive about the future outcome of this process. We all feel like the Judge is looking for reasons to say YES, not reasons to say NO and that she will eventually say yes.

Last Wednesday when Luciana suggested that we might need to move on and look for other referrals... that was really the pit of despair for us. We had dinner that night with our friends Rose and Marcelo. We had dinner with them again this Wednesday and they commented that we seemed much more joyful and less burdened. It's true. We went through that moment of darkness, sustained by God's grace and the purpose He has given us (that's YOU, my children!) and we are now filled with hope.

We WILL be a family. Hopefully, after the LOI is written, Lino will be able to get us some updates on the children... more pictures, clothing sizes, more info! That will make the time go so much faster.

We missed Maynara's 10th birthday in April not long after we knew these were the children God had for us, and it looks like we'll miss Brayan's 4th birthday at the beginning of August too. This is sad for us, but we are focusing on all the birthdays and everydays that we'll celebrate when they are finally our sons and daughters.

Another thing that has been encouraging is the tremendous outpouring of love and prayers and support from our friends and family and some blogland people we have never met. We feel like we've really grown during the last 3 years and we are looking forward to the stretching growth we'll experience as parents.

Letter to the judge

We hope this isn't even necessary, but we have sent a letter to the judge who will be deciding whether to accept our petition by confirming CEJA's referral of our four children. If she confirms it, we will finally be invited to Brazil to meet and receive custody of Maynara, Abraao Lucas, Luana and Brayan... and then become their mommy and daddy.

Our friends Marcelo and Rose helped translated it to Portuguese for us and we emailed it to Luciana who will send it to Lino who will take it to CEJA who will hopefully get it to join up with the rest of our dossier before the judge returns from her vacation (which we hope will be in only a week or so).

We can feel all the prayers of our friends and family in the peace that has filled us during these last couple weeks. Though we are certainly anxious to get approval and go to meet our children, we are not stressing out about the timeline, for we know it is in God's hands. I'm sure we will marvel at how well-orchestrated this event has been in all of its details.

Final stages

It's been a long time of planning and waiting, preparing and loving.  For the first time, we really feel like we are in the final stages of our pre-parenting life.  From what we understand from a few emails with LIMIAR's staff in Brazil, the last signature of approval that is needed before CEJA can issue a Letter of Invitation is that of a Curitiba judge who happens to be on vacation.  A substitute judge has taken our paperwork home to review our petition and (hopefully) approve our match with the 4 children we've been falling in love with for the last couple months.  It's possible that we'll hear the judge's decision tomorrow.  It's not enough to make us feel like we can exhale yet, so we're still holding our breath for the final word.

In the meantime, we got the boys' room put together and that means pretty everything is ready to welcome home all four sweethearts.  

Approved! (but frustrated)

We found out today that our tall stack of paperwork has been approved by CEJA (the State Judiciary Commission on Adoption) in Parana, Brazil.  HURRAY!!!  That was one tall hurdle.  And one of the last hurdles too.  So, we're really on the home stretch.  CEJA sent our paperwork to the courthouse with jurisdiction over the kids' case--with their recommendation that we be formally  matched with them.  All that's left is for the court to agree with CEJA and for CEJA to send us our invitation letter.  Then we leave for Brazil!!

However, we also found out that the judge at the kids' courthouse is... on vacation.  Our agencies are now working to figure out if it would be more advantageous to have a different judge at the same court take care of our case... or to wait for the other judge to return from her holiday.  

And... one of our family coordinators is also leaving town for 2 weeks.  

We're SO close, but the finish line is surrounded in fog and we still don't know what comes next or when it will happen.  

See what I mean:  Approved!!  (but frustrated).

I feel like I am at the end of my rope and we need our friends to pray that everything works out SOON.  Our children are waiting for us and we need to get to them.

Requesting Prayer

I know it's been over a week since I wrote, and that usually means nothing is going on in the adoption process.  This time, it means that SO MUCH has been going on that we've really been unable to post--so much time spent talking, processing, praying and hoping.  

Last Friday we got a referral.  We got information about two boys (7 years old and 3 years old) whom we are both very interested in adopting.  On Tuesday, we submitted a petition to the court of minors in the state of Parana, but it turns out that we're not yet sure whether it's the big news we've been waiting for.  The referral was not sent just to us.  It was sent by CEJA to several different agencies (probably).  That means that there could be several different families reviewing the same information we reviewed and submitting petitions just as we did.  In all likelihood, most other families have had their paperwork waiting in Brazil longer than us, and would therefore receive preference over us.  We are told by LIMIAR that we should know in a couple weeks whether the court grants our petition or not.  

First things first:  if you're reading this, PRAY!  Please pray our documents to find favor in the eyes of the courts so that these two little boys might be our sons.  Pray for whoever is reading and approving our dossier and our petition that they will see Jesus on every page and between every line and just know that they need to place these boys with our family.  Pray that God will be glorified through this step of the process and that the boys will be placed very soon in the home that God has chosen for them.

Second things second.  I may be stating the obvious here, but we're a wreck.  Though we're trying our hardest to guard our hearts to keep them from being broken, we are already falling in love with these two sweethearts.  There is so much about them and their story that makes us feel like we could and should be their parents.  Though we've reviewed a few other kids' files (see this post that I wrote back then but didn't post until now), and had our hearts broken by what we've read, this is the only time that we've both been smitten and felt strongly about wanting to adopt them.  We are hoping that this tug on our hearts for these two boys is God's voice revealing to us who our children are.  We are distracted all the time and praying harder than we've ever prayed before.  

We submit to His will for our family--and we hope it's these boys.

CEJA

We've learned some new information about CEJA (Brazil's State Judiciary Commission on Adoption) this week.  Seems that the CEJA offices in Rio and Sao Paulo have closed to the US because of something to do with the way the US is implementing the Hague Convention on International Adoption.   Rio and Sao Paulo were two of the states we thought our dossier might travel to, but in light of these new events, our dossier is safe at home in Paraná in the south of Brazil.  The only other state LIMIAR works in is Pernambuco, way up north, but we're told that Pernambuco rarely makes referrals of children in our age range.  

So, it seems we know more specifically where our children (probably) live.  The capital and largest city of Paraná is Curitiba (Koo-ree-chee-ba), which was the home of all 12 children adopted by the 3 American families we are familiar with (2 from our agency, one from another).  Seems like God is doing what he does, and putting us right in the exact spot where He wants us.  I can begin to see Him using the feet of those who've gone before us to tread a path of blessing.   I can begin to imagine Him taking away our worry about where to stay, how to get around, what to do with our time in Brazil with our children.  I can even hope that some of the children who have come home from Curitiba to their American parents in the last year would have been friends with our children, and that someday we could meet with them in sweet fellowship.  

I was reminded while speaking with Luciana today that we must just be patient.  I think I'd forgotten that for a while, thinking that it "could be any time now."  That is uncertain.  What is certain is that we will be parents someday--someday we will see our children.  

 

CEJA

CEJA is the Comissão Estadual Judiciária de Adoção (State Judiciary Commission for Adoption).  Each state in Brazil has one of these Commissions and all adoptions must go through CEJA.  

We heard today that our dossier arrived safely in Brazil and that one of LIMIAR's employees will be submitting it tomorrow (1/29/09) to CEJA in the states of Rio de Janeiro, Pernambuco, Paraná and São Paulo.  

I know that sounded really calm and matter-of-fact.  Let me restate that with a quantity of exclamation points that properly portrays how thrilled I am about all this progress toward our children:

Our dossier is being submitted to CEJA TOMORROW!!!

A couple months for them to approve us, and then all we are waiting for is a referral (which could actually happen before we're approved).  I want to clarify one more thing here.  I'm not getting all giddy about the process or the papers or anything inconsequential like that.  I'm starting to feel that we are getting closer and closer to the day when our lives and hearts change forever because we've become parents to exactly the little ones God has planned for us to love all this time.  THAT is worth a few extra exclamation points! ! ! ! 

Adotar uma criança, um ato de amor 

Adopting a child is an act of love