We Have New Roommates

Well, our prayer to make our house open to and to be used to bless others is already happening. Goes to show that you should take care in what you pray because you just might get it! In this case we are both happy and sad to report that our home will now be shared with another family. Why is that a happy and sad thing? To answer that means I have to share a bit of their story...

There once was a family who lived in the Dominican Republic and their names were Jason & Mandie Speegle. They were living in Santo Domingo serving the Lord through the ministry of Crown Financial and one day they met the Burge family who also lived and served the Lord in the Dominican Republic. After spending a little time together they became very good friends sharing so many things in common like... enjoying eating icing right out of the container, enjoying the gift of living in the DR, but finding the driving in the DR a stressful chore, and of course that 2 of the 4 are life-long Cowboy fans. hahaha They enjoyed several Sunday dinners followed by the watching of the Cowboys and whoever they were playing on t.v.

One day the Speegles shared their desire to adopt a child from the Dominican and asked the Burges to pray with them that God might lead them to the right child. He did...and sooner than they ever expected Edwin David entered their lives and they were hooked from the moment they saw him. The Burge family was overflowing with joy in celebration with the Speegles and they enjoyed watching him grow over the next several months. Secretly they also enjoyed being called Tia Melynda and Tio Greg (that's Aunt & Uncle). =)

One evening, Jason & Mandie shared with the Burges that they were praying about moving back to the US and to pray with them about God's direction. Jason was offered his "dream job" of working at the college he once attended and they were praying about accepting the job. While this made the Burges a little sad...

**Side note** One of the hardest things about living on the mission field is making friends who then leave and move on to the next adventure with God. **

...they also were joyful and expectant on what lay ahead for the Speegles. A few weeks or so later Jason accepted the job and they began their preparations for the move which included training someone to take Jason place, selling items, getting paperwork filed and the adoption finalized so that they could all leave as a family.

Well...this is were it gets hard and sad...while Jason and Mandie had done everything the legal route to adopt Edwin (such a cutie) the paperwork was slowing down and included very important paperwork being lost, fraudulently signed by an impostor (unknown for weeks by Jason & Mandie and their lawyer) and the money that went with the paperwork stolen by the impostor (he posed as a government official and signed the paperwork but ran off with the money). So, they had to refile paperwork and pay more money to get that processed. Luckily Greg and Melynda had a friend who was able to get the paperwork pushed through for them. Go God! While all of this is going on Jason and Mandie were running out of time before they would need to leave for the US.

With less than a month before their departure date they were working to get Edwin's adoption finalized so that they could get his Dominican Passport and apply for his US Passport or Visa when they were told that would would not be possible because they had not followed the guidelines for an International adoption. True they had not because they had applied for adoption as Dominican residents (remember the lost paperwork? that was their residency paperwork that was being made current) so those rules were not supposed to apply to them. They had to halt the finalizing of the adoption and talk with the US Embassy and other government agencies to find out what to do next. Long story shorter, when the date came for them to leave for the US Mandie had to stay behind with Edwin to finish the process of trying to get a way for Edwin to go to the US. They had already sold most of what they owned, turned in their notice to the landlord that they would be leaving and sold one vehicle so when the Burges heard that they were looking for a place to live they offered for them to live with them. They, Mandie and Edwin, are moving into the Burge home and praying that the Visa will come through very soon so that they can be reunited with their husband/daddy in Kansas. Looking for that "happy ending".

Now you see why this is a bitter-sweet scenario. We are blessed to have them stay with us but hope and pray for them that it will be a short time before they are reunited together as a family and all live in a cute cottage-style home in Kansas. No, really they rented a cute cottage-style home that wasn't just part of the fairy-tale ending. *smiles and laughs*

Please pray for them to have favor with the US Embassy, US government and Dominican government to solve this and allow his adoption to be finalized, and Passports issued so that they can be together again. Thanks!