Her Glorious Unfolding

During Laila's adoption I had Steven Curtis Chapman's album "Glorious Unfolding" on repeat.  So many songs on it spoke directly to my heart as I walked in faith during that time.  Perhaps no song held more promise to me than the title song. 

During the hard times as I worried about funding the words of encouragement in that song soothed my worried heart.  As I worried about my little daughter and her state of health in the orphanage, the words were like a promise.

And right as things were getting really close to travel, his organization, Show Hope came through with a $4000 grant for our adoption!

And a couple weeks ago, we got to pay it forward and say "Thank You".  We volunteered to help with Show Hope's booth at the Steven Curtis Chapman concert in Pensacola.  It was so fun to be able to share our story!! It was so awesome to see my little Laila, taking sponsorship packets for kids in Show Hope's healing homes in China to people who raised their hand.  My own little miracle right there, showing people what can happen when we step out in faith... When we take another step...

And after the concert, this happened...

My sweet little miracle girl, who was dying.  Who was without hope.  Who was misdiagnosed.  Who wasn't walking, wasn't growing, wasn't talking only 2 years ago... She walked right up to Steven Curtis Chapman and told him "Thank you for helping me come home from China."  We shared that we'd received a grant through Show Hope and how grateful we were for the support.  In the craziness of that moment, I never even got a chance to tell him how much that album had ministered to me during her adoption too. But that's okay!  Because our whole family, who had been walked to the front of the long VIP ticket line (even though we didn't purchase a ticket- adoption budget and all) didn't want to take up too much of his time with so many people waiting!!  It was also awesome to meet Mac Powell of Third Day who has also adopted from China and Brandon Heath who is bound to start considering it with all of these crazy adoptive family stories around him. :)


And her story has only begun...  What a blessing!!!  And Chengbin has been singing "Soul on Fire" for weeks now!!! Haha!!

2 weeks til takeoff!!!

Okay, we plan to leave in less than two weeks...

We've saved and scrimped and had some amazing fundraising done by some wonderful adoptive mamas on our behalf!!  We've also done a few fundraisers on our own to raise funds.  And we applied for a LOT of grants!!  We've gotten one "no".  We've gotten three that said "yes" but when of them is a special kind of yes...

It's a matching grant from Lifesong.  The granting organization will match the donations in our Lifesong account up to $2,500!!!  BUT if there isn't that much in there, we can't get the full grant.  That means we need one last push... one last fundraiser... and we hope and pray that between the donations received and a few more grant responses, we will have everything we need to leave for China the weekend of Dec 3rd.

This is VERY real guys!!  In the coming week or so we will need to pay out over $23,000!!!  From our own money, prior fundraising, & grants given, we have $13,000.  That leaves $10,000 more to go.  This matching grant could get us to the point where we are only $5,000 away from all we need.  There's a little fun news in this video- so be sure to take a look!!! ;)

https://youtu.be/NvGhVCz2nZE

And if you feel led to make a donation, please donate to our tax deductible Lifesong account and share with your friends & family!!  You never know who might be looking for that end of the year tax deductible opportunity!! :)  We love you all!!

https://mystory.lifesongfororphans.org/stories/adopting-2-wilks-family-grows/

He knows we're coming!!! And other updates!!!

A few days ago, my sweet friend Morgan, who I traveled with on the advocacy trip in April got to meet our son!!

She and Madison's advocacy team met our little guy, took pictures of him for us, and informed us that he is so little and as sweet as he can be!!  Oh, we can't wait to see him with our own eyes!!!  They told him we are coming for him and it's true, we are!!

In fact, things are progressing really, really quickly!  Last week we received our second approval letter from China (LOA), then USCIS approved our I-800 which approves the kids to immigrate to the US.  This week the National Visa Center issued our approvals for both kids and we completed all remaining paperwork on the US side.  Our package will be dropped off at the US Consulate in Guangzhou, China on Monday and we are hopeful it will be ready for pick up on Tuesday.  It will get overnighted to Beijing and delivered to CCCWA on Wednesday.  Then we will be waiting for our Travel Approval from the Chinese government!!  This TA is the last thing we need to be able to schedule our consulate appointment and gotcha days!!

We are so excited!!!  It's almost time!! 

If you are currently praying for us, we ask you to pray for the following:

China's system that they process adoptions in has been down since Wednesday for a hardware issue.  Please pray that this system is back online when they open again on Monday and that it stays working!  Without that system working, we cannot receive our Travel Approval and many other families become delayed as well!!

For clarity in the flights we need to reserve.  As you might guess, getting so close to Christmas, we are anxious to book flights as they will continue to rise higher and higher.  We have been praying about which flights to take and at what point to book the flights.  This isn't an ideal situation to book flights ahead of receiving our approved dates for the adoption, but as flights continue to rise, we may have to, so please pray for wisdom and discernment regarding our travel plans.

Additionally, we ask you to pray for financial provision.  We received an amazing grant from Rollstone Foundation this week and we also received a matching grant from Lifesong for Orphans.  We really need God to move to get the grant matched quickly.  We are also still short by a good amount and have a number of grant applications out that we still haven't heard anything on.  We pray we will receive good news on a few of these too to close the remaining gap.  With potentially less than 2 weeks til travel, we are expectant.  We know that God was faithful last adoption and we know that he will be again! 

Lastly, please pray for our children.  Pray for the hearts of Kate, Chengbin, & Laila as we bring two new children into our family.  Pray for the hearts of our sweet new kiddos as they undergo tremendous change in the coming weeks.  Pray for openness in their hearts and spirits to us.  That they would have a sense of peace in spite of all the chaos and upheaval happening in their young lives.  Please also pray for wisdom, discernment, and peace for Matt & I as we make this family transition and work hard to earn the trust and acceptance of these two sweet babies while continuing to be there for our already home kids.

Thank you all so much for your support, your cheers, your prayers, your good thoughts... we appreciate each and every one of you more than you know.  Only a couple more weeks til we go get these babies!!!  Woohoo!!

WIN before you BUY!!! Christmas is coming!!

Last adoption we did an American Girl fundraiser and it went so well that we have decided to do it again!!  This time the prize is BIGGER!!!  Our hope is that one little girl's Christmas dream will come true when her mom or dad wins this prize pack!!

And these raffle tickets will go to bring our two kiddos home from their orphanages just in time for Christmas!!! (We HOPE, that pesky paperwork is so slow....)

 

So here's how it's going to work:  We will do a raffle for the prize pack. 

The winner gets the American Girl doll of "her" choice and the accessory of "her" choice!!  A few doll examples are in the pictures, but she can truly choose ANY doll ($130 or less). 

 

She will also get to choose one of the beds or tent shown below, or the accessory package of her choosing valued up to $100.  What a great prize right???

 

 

 

How do you enter??? It's simple!!

Make a suggested donation of:

$5- 1 raffle ticket

Click on this link to make your donation!!

https://www.paypal.me/wilksadoption

  Drawing on Orphan Sunday, Nov 13!!