Lisa's big fat blog: One step closer.

Today is the day we've been waiting for since we've gotten back from the states…the day we finally get things rolling again with the adoption. Our lawyer asked us to meet her downtown where the presidential palace is so she could take us directly to the building where any legal cases involving minors are handled. We piled the girls in the car and drove down the hill to where the new city bus stops to pick up passengers. Natty was excited to ride the bus for the first time and I was happy to know that it would be a relatively quick (25 mins.) trip downtown with minimal stops. The new buses actually have specific stops and won't just stop and pick up passengers wherever, like most of the public transport. It was full today and after an elderly woman started to stand to give me and Jubilee her seat, a young man got the idea and got up instead. We were able to sit with Natty smashed against me and Scotty close behind her in the aisle. The sun was streaming in the windows and the bus was heating up nicely inside- maybe a bit more nicely than was comfortable. But, before long we were downtown and jumped off the bus, greeted by the picturesque sight of Mount Illimani covered in snow and some dark clouds starting to accumulate around, threatening to be another strangely cloudy afternoon in this very dry season. We hoofed it uphill for about 7 or 8 blocks, holding tightly to the girls' hands and dodging the pedestrian traffic that was in top gear all around us. After running across a few busy streets and up some more hills, we finally made it to the beautiful cathedral in the plaza where our lawyer had already arrived. She led us up another few blocks to an unmarked building where the judicial office awaited us. Up a few flights of stairs, scooting around yet some more people in a hurry, down a narrow hallway, to an office with a cartoon Dalmatian stuck to the door. What I saw inside was not encouraging, but fairly typical. A few guys sat at small desks with hundreds of manilla folders stacked up on shelves all around them, spilling over with the papers inside. They had brightly colored tags taped to each- some sort of organization system, I'm sure. I don't think there was a computer in sight. This is where all the records for each orphan is kept, not to mention other matters pertaining to anything domestic regarding children. How in the world do they keep track of it all? How will they keep track of our papers? And, even more important, no wonder there are so many children waiting in orphanages without papers completed so that they can be adopted. It made me so sad to see that reality, right there, in front of my face. There just isn't enough man-power to get it done. I sat on the floor with the girls outside the office and tried to help them understand the reality of these children without families. I'm finding Natty less empathetic these days than a mommy would like to see and she's not overly excited about welcoming a little boy into the family either. I'm trying to help her understand how badly these children need a home with parents to love them and a message of hope offered to them. I took her inside and held her up over the counter so she could see the mountains of paperwork. Hopefully, the Lord will get that message to her heart before long. So, we signed a few things and the lawyer assured us that within a week or two we will have our final interview with this team, get a couple more background checks, and we'll be done. She also showed us a notebook filled with lined paper and our name scratched at the top. She said that each week, until we receive our son, we need to come down to this office to sign our names again. And again. And again. It's how they'll know you're still interested, she explained. So, we have a standing date each week to make the journey downtown, wind our way up to the office, sign our names and be on our way. For as long as it takes.