The miracles never cease.

**Please read the post "estamos aqui en Guatemala" before reading this post!

The more we learn about this trip to Guatemala the more we are amazed at what all has happened to make this work. The President of Guatemala's freak decision to make an executive declaration was the initial reason for this trip, but as we have already stated, we had not yet received a referral that would make such a trip possible. As we were talking with some other families and heard more from our Agency heads, we found out that the reason that so many children (14 in all I believe) were available immediately for referrals was that most all other agencies in Guatemala would not make referrals because of the nature of the President's address. Thank God that our agency is working behind the scenes. I know that other agencies are heavily involved in the adoption world in Guatemala. However, we chose this agency because of its unique relationship to the Guatemalan government. The people of our agency are actually involved in getting laws passed that are pro-adoption in the Guatemala congress. Yes, as you may have heard, it was the Guatemalan congress that put pressure on the president of Guatemala causing him to forego the declaration. The fact that our agency was able to step out and make referrals inspite of the possible conflicts with the president, allowed us to see our little girl at only 3 days old! Not only that, but the pressure that was placed on the Guatemalan president may actually work against him as there is now a call to reform the policies of PGN! It is amazing how things can work out in the end!

Shalom,
Chris