A Thank You Letter to our Village

When we started Chengbin's adoption nearly 4 years ago we had no idea how much it would change our lives for the better in every possible way.

One of those ways is our village.  Some of you have been around long before my constant adoption Facebook posts & some of you came to us through adoption and orphan advocacy & some of you came to us from our Cityhope Family.  Our village is big and filled with amazing friends and family who truly support our crazy God-sized hopes and dreams.  We are constantly blessed by all of you, but today we feel extra blessed.

Why?

Because two amazing friends worked tirelessly to put on this auction to raise money for our adoption expenses and hundreds more donated items and got into some heated battles to win those items!!! Every single one of you who donated or bid or said a prayer are responsible for blessing our family!

Thank you all so much for helping us get what we need to bring home our babies!!!! We are excited to announce that you guys raised over $3,500 for our adoption! That is incredible!!!! We are praising God for his amazing provision through his people.  It's just amazing and we are so very grateful to all of you!!

We have a few more fundraisers set for the weeks ahead.  We'll try to get a few great prizes ready to raffle off ahead of the holiday season and the shirts and Mudlove bracelets will be shipping early next week.  We've also applied for 9 adoption grants.  We received 1 denial, but are waiting to hear back on the rest of them.

We have a ways to go in funding the additional expense that goes along with bringing Little Miss home, but we truly are blown away by the success of this auction and by the support of our village!!!

Thank you everyone! We love you all and are so grateful for your support in helping to bring our kiddos home!! 

Love,

The Wilks Family

Our Progress & Our Girl

Our dossier has made it to China, been logged into the CCCWA's system and is in translation.  This means that, due to our request for expedite because of the kids' medical conditions, we could receive our LOA (approval letter from China) any day. Many families have received approval around 30 days after their dossier was logged in.  Ours was logged in on the 18th, so we are hoping to receive an approval in the next few weeks.  Once we receive LOA we will complete the final group of US approvals (USCIS, National Visa Center, & US Consulate in China) and wait for China to issue our Travel Approval!!  This portion will take between 2 and 6 weeks, but we are hoping and praying its on the shorter end of that.

The biggest reason for requesting an expedite is our new daughter... She was the first child I laid eyes on during our trip in April.  Little Miss is an incredibly special little girl, who is the same age as Laila and has thalassemia just like her brothers and sister.  What makes her situation even more serious is her heart.  Her heart has a couple of issues that come from a life of being undertransfused. While she waits for us in China, she continues to not receive the level of transfusions she needs which places more stress on her heart and her body from the lack of blood oxygen.  Please pray for her health, for her safety, and for God's continued provision in quick paperwork and funding.

We are not allowed to share pictures from her CCCWA file, but since I have met her I have some of my own!!! ;)

This is me and Little Miss in China. :)

I'll tell you all her full story very soon!!  How God turned our one into a two, but I didn't want to wait any longer to share our news and our prayer requests!

Thank you all for your awesome support!!! We are beyond blessed by each and every one of you.

Previous China Timelines vs Now

Adoption Timelines

Chengbin's adoption

• November 13, 2012 Applied to Agency
• December 15, 2012 1st Homestudy Visit
• December 29, 2012 2nd Homestudy Visit
• January 30, 2013 Homestudy Complete
• February 10, 2013 Mailed I-800
• March 2, 2013 Received biometrics appt card
• March 5, 2013 Walked in for Fingerprints!
• March 11, 2013 USCIS Fingerprint Appt
• March 12, 2013 USCIS approval
• March 15, 2013 LOI
• March 18, 2013 Dossier docs to Agency
• March 20, 2013 Preapproval!
• April 15, 2013 DTC
• April 27, 2013 LID
• May 9, 2013 Status changed to "in process"
• May 23, 2013 I-800 to Lockbox (med expedite)
• May 28, 2013 Letter Seeking Confirmation!
• May 29, 2013 I-800 Lockbox to NBC
• June 14, 2013 I-800 Provisional Approval
• June 17, 2013 I-800 reissued due to error
• June 19, 2013 NVC approval cabled
• June 20, 2013 Received PDF
• June 21, 2013 Art 5 dropoff
• June 25, 2013 Art 5 pickup (med expedite)
• July 12, 2013 TA email (med expedite)
• July 12, 2013 Received Consulate Appt
• July 29, 2013 GOTCHA DAY

Laila's adoption

• Nov 10, 2013 Started 2nd Adoption
• Dec 8, 2013 1st Homestudy Visit
• Dec 21, 2013 2nd Homestudy Visit
• Feb 22, 2014 Applied to Agency
• March 20, 2014 LOI
• March 26, 2014 PA for Laila
• April 7, 2014 Homestudy Approval!!
• April 7, 2014 Supplement 3 overnighted
• April 30, 2014 Walked in for Fingerprints!
• May 9, 2014 Supplement 3 approved
• June 4, 2014 Dossier To China
• August 14, 2014 LOA
• August 15, 2014 I-800 approval (expedite)
• August 22, 2014 NVC approval
• August 26, 2014 Art 5 dropoff
• August 27, 2014 Art 5 approval
• August 29, 2014 Dropoff at CCCWA
• September 22, 2014 GOTCHA DAY!

We received our log in date (LID) yesterday!  So now it's time to start our latest timeline on the sidebar of this blog! :)  Things have changed quite a bit with China's system since our last adoption, so now our caseworker will be able to track our dossier as it goes through the process at CCCWA.  We are very excited to see some progress and hope you'll all pray with us for expediency in the process and for HJ & Little Miss's health & well being while we wait!

Thanks for following along!

Breaking News in the Wilks House! :)

We want to thank everyone who prayed and sent positive thoughts our way on Monday.  Now we can tell you what you were praying about.

On Monday our agency held a committee to review our request to adopt two children concurrently in this adoption.  This is something that our agency does not take lightly, and neither do we.  

We have been praying about this, researching the logistics of this, and much more for a couple months now... As our dossier neared completion we began to really, really seek God's perfect plan for our family.  Adoption is a blessing but it's also really hard ya'll.  And we know that bringing home two at once will most likely be more than twice as hard.  We also know that these two children are worth every bit of hard and stressful and beautiful and everything else that comes!

So we prayed on Monday, not that our desire would come to fruition that day, but that God's desire would.  After all, he loves these two children even more than we can imagine!

And Monday evening the news came- we are approved to move forward for this special second child!! 

We are blessed beyond measure to announce that we are bringing two sweet children home!! Our son AND our daughter!!!

As soon as we have approval for her in China's system we will share more.  Thank you all for your prayers and we ask for your continued prayers for God's perfect timing over this adoption, for their health (they both have very serious medical needs), and his financial provision.  We are hoping we will be headed to China sometime in November for our kids!!

Update!!!!!

THIS just happened!!! We are DTC guys!!!

Our dossier is headed to Beijing where it will get logged in with the CCCWA and our adoption paperwork will be processed. 

We're one great big step closer to Hongjie!!!!

Praying for a fast log in date!

And requesting additional prayers for a behind the scenes thing... Please pray not our will but God's will over the entire thing.

Thanks everyone!!!