The End of the String!

Today we had another meeting with our lawyer and it is almost impossible to describe to you. We were greeted with the angriest looking lawyer you've ever seen who announced she wasn't happy with us! She told us that INHFA wanted us to have someone living in the house with us and she was angry because we fired Carla. When we told her INHFA recommended we fire Carla she changed her tactics. It's necessary to understand that since we are extranjeros (not Honduran) she has the "legal custody" of the children and I believe she tries to use it as a club.

Next she told us that someone called INHFA and told them we were mistreating the children, and when I asked what she expected a fired employee to do she didn't bother answering. Now she changed to telling us that some or one of the children also complained telling INHFA that we grapped them by the neck and left bruises on them (not true and we told them to check for themselves)...she also said the alleged child told them they didn't get enough food and they didn't like what they got. I told her that when we got the children we were forced to take them to Medicino Fornese for examinations, including their weight....I invited her to come weigh them now...again no response!

Next she started to rant about our not having our Honduran residency and therefore we couldn't get legal custody. We told her that we'd given her everything she asked for, but that none of it was stamped by the Honduran consulate in the United States, as she required, because there is no Honduran consulate in the United States since the ouster of ex-President Mel Zelaya. Again no response.

Now she went on a long tirade about how she was responsible for these children and if they took them from us she wasn't going to care for them. She didn't want them and only agreed to help us because a mutual friend asked her to help us. She went on and on about the burden she was under and how she wouldn't help if they took the children, so we better do what they ask us to do. I told her, "If you tell us to do 'A', we will do 'A'. If you tell us to do 'B', we will do 'B'." But they don't ask us for anything they only threaten us.

Yesterday the officials loved the house, the kids, and how they were being treated to the point of asking us to take more. Today she says different officials want to remove the children and we better listen to her. She says our only hope is a new Judge, with whom she is friends, and she will have a special meeting with her on Wed. and Thur. (can you read additional charges?).

At this point I was past my point of no return...I told her I needed to explain something to her now. I said the only reason Joyce & I are here is because God spoke to our hearts to help these children and so we came and we're doing all that we can for them. I told her we've literally given our lives for them and we hold nothing back. We told her that everyone who knew the children before and has seen them now knows they are much better off and she knows it; and anyone who denies that is not telling the truth. I told her we have nothing else to give; if this isn't good enough then they will have to take the children. I told her we search our hearts and are satisfied that we're fulfilling God's desires for these children and we will not live in constant fear of someone taking them from us. If they can sincerely tell us they will be better somewhere else, then they need to take them.

We left aggravated and very frustrated! Supposedly there will another group of 'officials' coming to investigate us...we told her she could send new ones everyday if she could find them...I guess that didn't sit too well with her...but at this point it didn't matter.

We are convinced that all this is a ploy to bill us for more money. Nothing else makes sense, but they can and will, out of misguided pride, do what they threaten to do. The longer we're here the more corruption we see here and yet they can't figure out why they don't get ahead. Everybody tries to steal from everybody, and everybody accepts it saying, "That's just the way it is here."

We told the children tonight that we have done all we know to do and now they must join us in prayer if this family is to survive. It may be that this battle will never end; but we are more confident that our God will never foresake us! Please pray!!!