It is hard to believe that we had been home for 18 months on October 9th with our baby boy Cameron. One more post placement report at 21 months and we will be done with Cameron’s adoption. Needless to say, when I got an e-mail from our lawyer in Bogotá, my heart skipped a beat. Not that I thought there was anything wrong, or that they would be asking for us to return Cameron, but a dozen thoughts like that flooded my mind. “What could they possibly want from us now” I wondered.
It was Thursday evening, September 15th, when we got the news. That night marked the beginning of a new adventure for the Mulvehill family. Just a week or so before, Mary Ann and I had been talking about the future. Would we adopt again? How long should we wait? Where would we get the money to go through another adoption process? Where we going to be too old? We were asking so many questions, but not really coming up with very many answers. Trust the Lord. That was all we could do.
Then we got the e-mail:
Mr. Mulvehill,
Good afternoon.
We were the legal representative in Colombia for the adoption agency through which you completed the adoption of Cameron. We are writing to report to you that the ICBF (the Colombian Family Welfare Institute) at this moment has placed into the adoption process the child David, who is the brother of Cameron who was adopted by your family.
According to the policies of the ICBF, the sibling must be presented to the family who adopted his brother in order to give them the option to adopted him as well. The child David, was born on February 23, 2011 in Colombia, which means that he is now 6 months old.
If you need additional information, please contact us. We will available to answer in questions that you have.,
Sincerely,
[Our Lawyer in Bogotá]
My first response was shock. It didn’t last long before the emotional image of Cameron playing with his little brother immediately flooded my mind. My heart immediately melted and for a few moments I day dreamed about how our seemingly complete family all of a sudden seemed now incomplete with this news. “Cameron has a little brother,” I caught myself whispering as the tears began to well up in my eyes.
IÂ headed downstairs and handed the tablet declaring the news to Mary Ann. I watched as she read the words and knew immediately that this was God’s answer to all of our questions posed earlier in the week. I had no idea what it would mean or how it was going to happen, but something inside me said, “This is our son and we need to go get him.”
We responded to the lawyer in Colombia stating our desire to adopt David and contacted the adoption agency (Bethany Christian Services) to begin talking about the process.
It didn’t take long for reality to set in, as I began to think about all of the logistics I was suddenly overwhelmed by this new direction. What would be the process in this case, since they contacted us? How much would it cost? Where would the money come from? How long would it take?
We already knew that the process in Colombia was changing for adoptions. What took us four weeks last time around might end up taking five to nine weeks with the new changes in place. The two big questions that we needed to have answered before we proceeded were regarding the process and the money.
The process question boiled down to whether or not we would need to go through the entire adoption process again or whether they would allow us to skip a few steps since we were still completing the process with Cameron. In my mind, they had all the needed information on us from the last adoption. I figured that we could forgo the initial dossier process and skip right to the referral. This would cut out several months of paperwork and get us down there much quicker. However, it hasn’t worked out that way. According to the law, we have to complete the whole process as if we were starting a brand new adoption, even though the child we intend to adopt is already waiting. Though this news was a little discouraging, we still felt like we needed to proceed. Fortuantely we got approval to work with the wonderful folks at Families First who will be helping us complete our home study, which is the first step in the adoption process. That should help things go a little quicker.
The next big question was regarding the finances to complete the adoption. How were we going to raise enough money to complete another adoption so soon? International adoption takes a hugh financial commitment and even with the thousands of dollars that were given to us through our friends and family, we were still recovering from Cameron’s adoption. The Lord was going to have to intervine…and of course He did.
Shortly after we received the news regarding the new adoption, I got a call from some dear friends of ours in Chicago who wanted me to come up and help them with a big presentation their business was doing to Hallmark, Inc. I went and through a series of events we were offered the opprotunity to open a holiday kiosk and have a portion of the proceeds go toward our adoption of Cameron’s baby brother. It is always amazing to watch God work. Within a five week period, all of the paperwork and necessary arrangements had been made to open a Kindred Hearts kiosk at the Oglethorpe Mall in Savannah. Not only did all of the details fall into place in a very short time, but we also secured one of the best locations in the mall for the products we are selling. The mall staff learned of our pending adoption and have been doing everything they can to help the kiosk be a success. Our families have stepped up and offered to work the kiosk so that we don’t have the expense of paying employees and our friends at Kindred Hearts even came to Savannah this last weekend to help us get things setup. We are so grateful to them all and are very excited to see what else the Lord has planned.
So, here we go! Another adventure in adoption! Please keep us in your prayers as we seek the Lord’s will and direction each step of the way. I will try to keep this blog updated with the latest information. Please check back often.
God Bless!
Awaiting His Coming,
Patrick, Mary Ann, and Cameron
