Bogota - Day 2

Yesterday we completed our first "official" tourist act since we arrived in Colombia. While we are in a waiting mode, we decided to occupy some of our time. We had a driver take us to a "small" community that is near Bogota. I say small, because that was his term - the actual population is 120,000. He was amazed when I told him the population of our local community was 25,000.

In this town there "The Salt Cathedral". It is located in a salt mine and is considered the first great wonder of Colombia. In essence, in 1958 part of the mine was turned into a large cathedral underground, with things carved out of the rock. They have the Stations of the Cross, a dome room, a choir loft, a chapel area, and the main sanctuary, which has a large cross carved out of the wall that is lit up. The cross is probably at least 70 feet high.

It was an interesting diversion for a few hours. When we returned to Hotel Paris in Bogota, we saw someone in the dining area who looked like a woman we met in Neiva named Kate. When we originally met her, she was in the process of receiving sentencia (the paperwork we are awaiting) and she spent a good part of the day with us. It turned out the woman we saw in the dining room WAS Kate - we had told her about Hotel Paris while we were in Neiva. They decided to move from their previous location to this one until they can catch a flight back to Denmark. We were able to meet her husband and children this time and now we all sit together at a big table for our meals. They are a neat and interesting couple - they are both Americans who decided to live in Denmark. He is a computer programmer and she is an English teacher. They have a four-year old girl and are adopting an 11-month old blind boy. Yamile has taken a liking to their daughter and they have been spending a lot of time playing together, despite the fact that their daughter only speaks English and Danish, and Yamile only speaks Spanish.

Another woman has been here for six weeks now. She and her husband are adopting in Bogota, where the process moves very slowly. Her husband had to leave after three weeks and she's been here, alone with her daughter, since then (although her father has been visiting for the last week). The judge in her court was asking for a piece of paper that did not exist and he refused to budge. After five weeks, they pulled the adoption out of that court and re-submitted it to another court. This could potentially mean starting over again. Amazingly, though, she received sentencia today (only a week later), and she should be able to leave within the next week. So far, we've not run into any similar obstacles. Our adoption coordinator in Bogota called me yesterday to let me know the adoption was submitted to the court and the judge did not ask for any additional paperwork. We just need to wait.

For another family, the wife had to say goodbye to her husband today as he returned to the States to get back to work. As you can imagine, it was a bit of a tearful farewell as she knows she will be here for a few weeks without him. Lenna gave her a big hug, let her know we would be praying for her, and reminded her that it will all be worth it. (She is the person who told me about Hotel Paris on the internet and now, here we are, together with her.)

Each family has a story to tell and it is very heart-warming to be with these people who are giving of themselves to adopt these precious ones who are in need.