When One Door Closes...

...Another Door Opens...

I haven't written in awhile, partly because I was waiting for word from Peru, and partly because things have been fun & busy here!

Well---We heard officially this week that Peru has rejected our case.

We held out hope that they would look beyond their "bureaucratic binoculars", but they ultimately chose to kick us out because of the technicality with George's names. Peru said that because Jorge is the name on his Peruvian Birth Certificate (but he is now George on his American documents) we must amend his Peruvian BC in Peru (which would take at least a year to do, and would involve attorneys, more money, and more bureaucracies. We have chosen not to pursue this at the present time). They chose to overlook the complete, documented papertrail that connects his birth in Peru to the present day. Apparently that was just not enough for a Peruvian adoption....

Yes, we are sad about this ridiculous decision, but what we are even more sad about is that another Peruvian child is without their forever home....all because of a bureaucracy and their red tape.

However, we have some good news to report. We are proud to announce that an ECUADORIAN child will soon have their forever family with the Kutschma's! We are amazed at God's planning for everything. The VERY minute that we found out Peru was rejecting our case, we were presented with the option of an Ecuador adoption. I was literally crying tears of sadness (Peru) and joy (Ecuador) at the same time. It was one big South American river of tears, right here in Wisconsin!!!

As it turns out, our agency, Children's Home Society out of Minnesota, was JUST granted the ONLY United States license to complete adoptions in Ecuador. Amazing. We are so thrilled because we are working with an amazing lady named Jean, at Children's Home. Jean is the same person who helped us bring Marcella home in 2007.

We are currently compiling our Ecuadorian dossier. (This is becoming old hat!). We should have the dossier to Ecuador sometime in March or April. We are told that once Ecuador has our dossier, it could be anywhere between 3 and 18 months before we receive a referral for our child. Wow......! Once we receive our referral, it takes about one to two months before we can travel to Ecuador to finalize the adoption. Then, we have to stay in Ecuador for two months!!! Marcella and I are thrilled about this!!! George can come back home after 21 days in order to keep working, while Marcella and I (and maybe a grandma or 2?) will remain in Ecuador until we can bring home our newest addition!

We truly believe that when one door closes, another door opens. We certainly may not always understand the reasoning behind WHY things happen as they do, but we trust that God has a master plan for everything.

On a side note, we went to Kohl's today, and Marcella insisted on taking the cart with the TWO child seats in (as opposed to one). It was the thrill of a lifetime for her. I think she is getting really excited for a little brother or sister...

I am going to sign off for now, as I have some packing to do yet tonight. We are heading to sunny Arizona tomorrow for our annual Brewers Spring Training pilgrimmage! YAHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!