It’s Official!

Well, most of you know this by now.

But for those who don’t… You may have noticed the blog has gone quiet for a few days.  That’s because things have gotten rather busy around here.  We didn’t want to let the cat out of the bag too soon…

About a week ago I got a phone call, and I was informed that Mi Familia and the court judge felt that our family was doing so well together that they did not see it necessary to have us stay for the normal duration of the process here in Nicaragua.  In fact, they felt that the very best thing that could happen for our family is to get us back to the states so we could be at home together.  So, they had decided they were going to put our case into what they called “ultra-expedited” mode.

What??!!  Are you kidding me?  Remember, we were supposed to be waiting for up to 8 weeks just for the adaptation period alone, and THEN the legal proceedings would start.  Who knows how long that part would take.  Again, we were expecting a total of anywhere from 10-20 weeks.

Nope.  Not the way God had in mind… Longer story short, Mi Familia recommended our adoption be approved, the government consejo (committee) that had to approve our adoption did so this past Tuesday, and we appeared before the court judge on Friday for the final approval and declaration.

It is done!  Our Nicaraguan adoption is complete!!  We are now legally the parents of these three beautiful children.  We are officially a family!

17 days!

SEV – EN – TEEN DAYS!!

Only God!!!

This week we have to finish all the U.S. required paperwork to obtain passports and visas for the children… But if everything goes like our advisers here believe it will, we could fly home as soon as Saturday (the day after Christmas).

We are still in disbelief on one hand, but on the other hand we are smiling because it’s exactly what we asked God to do.  So many of you have prayed with us that God would do miracles and shorten the normal timeline.  Wow, did he answer those prayers with a resounding “yes!”

The Friday experience at the court was incredibly amazing, because even the judge had developed a special place in his heart for our kids.  By the time we were done, we were all crying – the director of Mi Familia, our agency liason, and yes even the judge himself was in tears.  We were told afterwards that this whole thing was filled with “never before’s.”  Never before have they seen a family gel together as quickly as ours. Never before has Mi Familia made an exception to expedite a case this quickly.  Never before had the judge displayed the emotions he did with us.

Only God!

Of course, they also made sure to tell us that we should not tell other adopting families to expect the same thing.  “Never before” was followed by “and probably never again.”

For us, it’s nothing but answered prayers and praises to the Father!  Why God chose to break the rules with us, we don’t know… But we could not be more grateful.  Once again, as in so many previous steps of this journey, we have been reminded that…

“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”  Isaiah 55:9

When we walked out of the court, Carlos, our liason, snapped our first photo as an official family.

So… Merry Christmas from Casey, Lee, Jennyfer, Sofia, and Jose – The Sisney Family!  We hope to see all of you very soon.

He is a good, good Father, and we are indeed blessed!

Lee

(PS I will continue to post updates as things get wrapped up this week, and as we hopefully get to make plans toward flying home this coming weekend.)