I will be glad when we get this court date thing worked out so that I can start blogging about more fun and interesting things! But, I promised to keep everybody up-to-date, so here is the latest:
We showed up at the courthouse early yesterday morning to "remind" our judge that he made a court date for us for Tuesday at 4 pm. We arrived with a letter to him (in Spanish) telling him how important it is that Andy return to the States for work. We also had our sweet translator, Jenny, with us. El Senór Judge wanted nothing to do with us, waved off the letter (wouldn't even look at it) and told poor Jenny in no uncertain terms that he only told us the date would be on Tuesday because he felt pressured last week, and that he had no intentions of honoring that date. He also told Jenny that he is a good judge and a fair judge and that he wanted to take his time to review our case. (I guess he didn't say he was an HONEST judge...!) Needless to say, we were all speechless. He dismissed us with a growl and said something about Miercoles (Wednesday). I dissolved into tears--right after I called him a few choice words (in my head, of course).
We made a quick call to our in-country rep who basically said that there is nothing that she or anyone else could do. Well, we believe that there is a LOT that other people can do....so we put out calls and texts to our prayer warriors. We received a lot of encouragement throughout the day and went to bed a little more hopeful, praying that the God of the Universe would be the One putting pressure on that judge!
Right after we went to bed Jenny called to say that our in-country rep found that our case had been posted on-line; that means that it was actually entered into the system (a good sign). Jenny said that we should be ready early in the morning just in case we got a call to go back to the courthouse. I set the alarm for 5:30, but woke up before then. Andy and I got up and got some work done around the house and on the computer, but we didn't receive a call until 8:10...when we were told to leave immediately, get copies of our passports, and be at the courthouse. We hailed a taxi, stopped at a copy shop, and arrived at the courthouse 20 minutes later....only to wait again.
Apparently we were at the courthouse to verify our signatures. (The signatures on our passports, dossier, and adoption application papers must all match before our court date.) We waited in a cramped office in front of a desk absolutely covered with papers (ours was somewhere in that mess!) and twiddled our thumbs while trying to get our breathing back to normal after literally running to the courthouse. As we were waiting, the song "All Out of Love" by Air Supply came on the radio behind us. I was trying so hard not to laugh that I ended up crying. Here we were, sitting in the midst of South American chaos with a girl at the next desk tying up documents with string (yes, string) and one of my all-time favorite songs from high school took me right back to good old Oklahoma. It was surreal. After I got done singing along to Air Supply and a few other 80's soft rock hits, we finally signed a paper and were dismissed. The secretary said she thinks that our court date will be tomorrow (have I heard that somewhere before?) but we won't find out until tonight. So, I will call American Airlines yet again and re-schedule Andy's trip back home one more time. Maybe Thursday? At this point we would really like him to get home before Jamie leaves on Saturday because she needs the suitcases that he will be bringing back home! She will be filling them with the presents that Andy was supposed to bring when he returned for Christmas. (Hint to Jamie: plan on packing light for yourself!)
Stay tuned....!
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