Shifted and Shepherded

I promised to give you an account of the first 48 hours with the niños. Since then, we have lived what feels like a thousand lives. So I will try my best to recall the details. To review, we drove home (to our airbnb) from the orphanage midday on Tuesday, November 6, with two sleeping children and two other nervous children. When we pulled up to the house, both of the littles were awake and saying, ¨La casa! La casa!¨ = ¨Home! Home!¨ Then began very hard times for the Bro6ans. The agency rep who drove us home, helped us get all the kids out of the car. Then she said goodbye and drove away. At this time, Chad´s Spanish was very limited. Mine was basic but conversational.  Chad unlocked the front door, and the tornado began.  Despite the fact that we were told the kids would bring nothing with them from the orphanage, two IKEA-sized bags of toys had been sent with us. We had successfully hidden the candy, but they saw the bags of toys. And we did not have the sense to ...

I have a lot of feelings right now. Chad and I both stop in silence every hour or so and sort of test the moment to see if one of us is going to cry. So far, we haven’t. But there are still 24 hours till take-off. I wouldn’t bet against a breakdown just yet. Of course, all the tears-verging is not out of sadness. Rather, we have joy AND sadness AND anxiety AND terror AND impatience AND relief and every other blip in the spectrum of human emotion. All at once. Silently and deafeningly. It’s weird. And that is why I can’t really convey my heart and mind to you in this blog. Yet I felt like I needed to update everyone and say goodbye (for now). Therefore, the best use of this blog space is to enlighten you as to the logistics of our November. We fly out of Atlanta tomorrow around dinner time. We have a house sitter (yay!), which is a praise and a cool story. She was displaced by hurricane Michael; a mutual friend connected us. We also have some sweet friends giving up their time to ...

So, we are officially matched! Join me in a happy dance and a prayer of praise! Now that we have rejoiced, you might be wondering what exactly that means. Well, like anything that has to do with relationships...it's complicated. But also wonderful. As well as terrifying. All in the best way. I'll go ahead and get the bad news over with: I still can't show my new son and daughter's faces on this blog or on any social media platform. If I see you in person, I can show you every picture I have of them, all of which are adorable. But I can't share actual faces digitally until we sign papers in front of a judge in Colombia. So, for that, we all have to wait a while. Below is a brief summary of what happens next. Some of this happens at the same time, and some of these steps are sequential. The caretakers at S and A's orphanage will tell them they have a family. This concept will be completely new and foreign (pun!) to them. The orphanage will spend several w...

Right off the bat, let me hit you with the disappointing news: we did not get matched today. I am not joyful. But I am still hopeful. And am working on being satisfied. The orphanage approved our dossier today. This is great news. It means they see no problems with our potential adoption of siblings. But that is all they had time to do in regards to our case. We are not the only family applying for kids at this particular orphanage. Our dossier is upwards of 50 pages long, maybe more. And, of course, in the best interest of the orphans in their care, they review every item on every page. So it is understandable that approving the dossier took up all the designated Brogan time on the agenda. Matching requires more than just giving a thumbs up or signing on a dotted line. This is not a rejection. It is an imagined delay. I say imagined because today was not guaranteed in any way. We had hoped to be matched, to talk with Lolo and Lala via the internet, and to share their sweet faces ...

I have been waiting to write this post and share this news with you for a couple of weeks. Read on and see that the Lord is GOOD, and we are blessed to take refuge in Him and call Him father. On June 14, I asked our Facebook adoption group to pray that God would gift us a vehicle. That's right, you heard me. I didn't ask for ours to be repaired or for us to find a good deal. [I asked that later when my faith faltered.] I asked for a vehicle to be all but plopped in our lap. Before you get the idea that Chad and I sit back these days and swim in dolla bills Scrooge McDuck style as donations and art sales roll in, I want to explain why I asked for such a prayer and why I prayed it myself.  First, I believe the Holy Spirit led me to pray for a vehicle, not from a place of greed or even comfort. I think He led me to that prayer (request) because God wanted to work His good pleasure for His glory. I believe He had a tremendous blessing waiting for us; we simply needed to ask...

I have a lot of "next things" these days. I could relive my pity party from this week with a minute-by-minute detailing of ALL THE THINGS. But that wouldn't do anybody any good. Suffice it to say that I set a very early alarm every day - which pained my summer-break heart - and from the moment I got up until I was in bed and blurry eyed, there was not a moment of rest. It felt like each time I sat down to do one thing, I added five next-things to my list.  I came home Thursday night from working my non-teaching job and wanted to cry. But I was too inadequate to even muster the tears. In our former, non-fundraising, paperwork-free life, Chad would have tried to 'fix' me by cuddling with me and putting on a cheesy movie. But there was no time for movie-watching. We had work to do, forms to fill out, letters to write, and budget spreadsheets to update. So, instead, he followed me to the porch (I had to water the flowers) with a glass of wine. He held it for me unti...