A group of orphans from the Dominican Republic who have been waiting to come to the Omaha area may finally arrive Saturday.
Grace Baptist Church is hosting the 14 children. The trip, initially slated to start earlier this month and last 6 weeks, has been cut short to the month of August.
Members of the church say they can only imagine how disappointing this has been for the orphans who already had their bags packed, but they're excited to finally greet the kids.
Pastor Lou Sloger says the church spent $10,000 on plane tickets.
"Spanish is the language of romance, English is the language of finance," Sloger said. "So these kids become bilingual, they'll have a job. So that's the main thing is to be able to help them with their future, to be able to have a marketable skill and be able to have a decent life."
The children initially ran into paperwork issues, which pushed back their ability to travel to the United States. They were told it wouldn't be addressed until mid-August.
But, Pastor James Tyler says this morning, plans changed.
"After a long day, a long month actually, of trying to make this whole thing happen, we finally got a message this morning indicating they were actually coming," Tyler said.
Now, Melissa Panko says her daughters have a sign ready to go when they pick up their guest from the airport tomorrow night.
"We have a 14-year-old girl who is going to be staying with us, so it's very exciting," she said. "It will be a full, fun household I'm sure."
