Sharla Kostelyk, shown here with Sedaya, her newly adopted daughter from Ethiopia, talks to reporters after she returned to Edmonton Thursday. (CBC)

An Edmonton-area couple who were among the Canadians left in the lurch by the bankruptcy of an Ontario adoption agency returned home from Ethiopia Thursday after picking up their new adopted son and daughter.

Mark and Sharla Kostelyk were greeted by cheers from friends and family as they arrived at the Edmonton International Airport with Sedaya, 3, and Elijah, 7.

"It feels amazing to be home," Sharla Kostelyk said. "We're really happy to be home. We can't wait to start our life as a family."

For more than a year, the couple was working on the adoption with Imagine Adoption, an agency based in Cambridge, Ont. But the Kostelyks' plans were thrown into limbo after Imagine filed a bankruptcy notice on July 13.

The Kostelyks had been already matched with the orphans, who were living in a transition home in Addis Abada.

The government advised parents not to go to Africa themselves, but Mark Kostelyk said word that staff at the home wasn't getting paid and concerns about dwindling food supplies prompted him to make the trip to Ethiopia. Days later, he was joined by his wife, who helped him get visas for the children.

"We weren't really comfortable with what the long-term plans were there, so we just decided it was better safe than sorry, and now they're safe," he said.

Once the visas were secured late last week, the family headed back to Edmonton — a journey that took nearly three days. Elijah and Sedaya have now been able to meet their five new brothers and sisters.

Older brother Mackenzie has already made plans to help his new siblings learn English.

"We are buying a bunch of books just to help with the language barrier," he said.

Kids Link International Adoption Agency, which ran Imagine Adoption, had posted the bankruptcy notice on its website. For two years, it had helped Canadian families adopt children from Ethiopia, Ghana and Ecuador.

About 400 families have been affected by the bankruptcy and were listed as unsecured creditors in the bankruptcy documents. Some had already paid out as much as $15,000 for the adoptions.

In late July, families voted to work with the bankruptcy trustee to restructure the agency so all pending adoptions could be completed.

The fraud division of the Waterloo Regional Police launched a investigation into Imagine Adoption after two members of the three-member board of directors of Kids Link International expressed concerns to police about the agency.