Everything Is As It Should Be

Everything is as it should be. Literally. And always.

This past Friday, we had a very scary meeting: our first court meeting with one of our boys to potentially go back home with his parents. This was the first time this had happened to Heather and I in the eight months being in Guatemala.

It was something that we expected, especially after seeing so many kids come and go. We know with a lot of the kids it is always a possibility. And if the child were to go into a great and loving home, that would be some of the best news we could get. But this wasn't one of those cases: this boy and his three sisters would have went back into the same abusive household that they were taken away from. I don't know all of the details, but from what I do know, literally no change at all. Which is horrible.

Our boy and his sisters were all, for the most part, excited though. They wanted to be with their own family, see their own siblings, and be out of the children's home that a couple of them have a hard time being in. For more reasons than I care to go into, this decision to go home or not is potentially largely left up to the child. If they want to go home, usually it is taken into consideration.

Late Thursday night, we talked to our boy and tried to make him understand what was going on and what would happen. We tried our best with his sisters as well. Everything seemed to work against us though. It seemed that we would just have to watch the kids to go back into a bad home situation.

Come Friday, we went to court with the kids and waited for everything to go through. They started the process of talking to the family and kids while Heather and I had to wait in the waiting room until they were finished. Twenty minutes later or so, the kids started walking down the stairs. My heart literally sank as, after all, it was goodbye.

But that never happened. The case never even happened. The case was denied almost immediately. Our (fearless leader) Director gave her opinion on the matter and the Judge listened to every word and delayed the whole case.

We worried for weeks leading up to this. Thinking of everything we could do to change what would happen. Some of us prayed in front of the court house for a good outcome. But it all turned out exactly as it should have been. Literally.