A Trip to Chicago

Things are moving forward. Becky has been on the phone often and has a new "friend" down in St. Louis, where our I-800 has been for the last 2 weeks. Becky apologized in advance on Monday and told the woman who was working on our approval that, "I'll be calling you everyday". So she did, to see how the progress was coming on our paperwork. And today we found out that we've been approved! While that is great news, the one thing that might be a minor hang up is that she wasn't able to view a set of fingerprints with her computer for one reason or another. Regardless, she did say that if she wasn't able to button everything up today and have it sent out, that it would be done by Monday.

Immediately after that Becky got on the phone and spent 1-1/2 hours with BCS, going through the Colombian consulate's website to schedule our visa appointments. I tried to help by looking on their website, but the website is completely in Spanish and I haven't brushed up very well on my Spanish, so I was essentially NOT helpful. Website only in Spanish + 2 people who speak little Spanish= recipe for disaster. They've also changed the way appointments are made, so now they need to be done online. Fortunately, BCS was able to help her enough to get the appointments, and now next week Friday we go to Chicago to get our Visas!

Of course, this is great news. This means we're getting close to leaving, but there is one problem. Currently in Colombia there is a transportation strike. From what we've been reading from other peoples' blogs (thanks Housemans, Tanners, Thompsons, and Kammeraads!) it sounds like it started this week and is due to the fact that the government wants to take over all of the public busing system. This is a big deal because so many people use that mode of transportation. Our friends there are not allowed to travel to the south end of Bogota until the strike is over, so what does that mean for us? We don't exactly know yet, but it could delay us from traveling- we're still praying for 2-3 weeks, but we know it's not our plan. Never has been, never will be. But we do know one thing: God is bringing us closer than ever to getting Will, and we can't wait to make ours una familia de cuatro!

Thanks to everyone for the continued prayers, support, and love. We're so blessed to be going through this process, and to know and see you all stand behind us means more than you'll ever know. We truly have been blessed with incredible family and friends, and we hope our journey blesses you in some way as well.

Scott, Becky, Ally, and (soon to be) Will