Letter(s) of Acceptance

We just signed and overnighted our Letters of Acceptance (LOA) for Peter and Rebecca! We had to sign 6 documents, two of which were solely in Chinese. I accidentally got the papers out of order and almost put the wrong child's name on each of the Chinese documents, but I was able to figure out the characters and straighten it out! Those letters are now sent off to our adoption agency and will be sent to the CCCWA (China welfare organization), so that we can get Travel Approval (TA)! We are so close now. The USCIS has the electronic copies already of the LOAs, so we should get our letters of approval from them in the next day or two. After that, I think we get a GUZ number and fill out a really long form called the DS-260, then I think that is all we need for TA!

I wanted to share that we just applied for a grant with an adoption grant agency. We're only applying for one since our time is so short and each grant costs between $25 and $50 to apply for. I see a lot of people who do not get accepted for these grants, but hopefully we will! That could mean $5000 towards our travel fees!

If we are not able to raise the $20,000 still needed, I (Kristin) may have to go to China alone to get Peter and Rebecca. We were really hoping to have the entire family go (including our two bio kids), but we would have to get another credit card to make that happen, if the money doesn't come in, and that does not seem like a good way to start as a family of 6!

If you would like to help us with the adoption expenses, please buy a shirt at www.christianwarriorwear.com. You can also give a tax-deductible gift through our account with the Reece's Rainbow Family Sponsorship Program: http://reecesrainbow.org/85271/sponsorrobinson-6.


On a side note, as I was rummaging through the garage the other day, I came across a large bag of Emma's size 2 clothes that I had intended to give away. The clothes are in almost new condition, since she pretty much skipped size 2 and went straight to 3! These should fit Rebecca perfectly, at least for a few months home, since she is so tiny. Small blessing!

Distressing first update on Rebecca

When we began the adoption process, we received one medical report on Rebecca (Yana). It was from April of 2012, just two months after she was abandoned at the orphanage at the age of two (her estimated age). She is now five years old.

At the time, she seemed to be doing pretty well, considering she has athetoid cerebral palsy. She was making sounds and we learned that she could sit up and grasp things. Her weight was 9kg or about 20lbs, and 86cm.

Since that report, we have learned additional information about Rebecca's health. Over the past five months of the adoption process, we were blessed to come across a wonderful woman who visited Rebecca's orphanage last year. From this woman's information, we knew that Rebecca is, sadly, not progressing in her development. She is now in a wicker-basket wheelchair- sitting over a bucket potty- muscles atrophying, hardly socializing, and drooling. The woman also said that Rebecca is very quiet and shy. Other than that, she did not have a lot of information.

Three days ago, our adoption agency let us know that they just received a medical update on Rebecca, so I thought I would share. The update was very brief. It states:

4/28/2015 Update

Medical/Development:
Due to her special needs, local clinic could not give her immunizations.
She had fever recently and is treated in the hospital.
Very delayed, she cannot sit on her own, cannot stand or walk.
She is not potty trained.
She cannot make sounds or say any words.
She often puts out her tongue even when eating.

Personality:
(Gives Chinese name)
Introverted, is not affectionate and has stranger anxiety.

General:
She is in the orphanage.

The report included her vitals and current measurements. Her weight was listed at 12kg (26.5 lbs), which is only 3kg or 6.5 lbs more than she was 3 years ago. Her height is now 88cm. She has grown only 2cm in 3 years, so she is barely growing! On the Chinese growth chart, she is not even on the chart (http://www.infantchart.com/chinese0to18weightforage.php).

As for the hospitalization, I had a bad feeling that she was in the hospital a month or so ago. I had been following updates on her orphanage by an organization that supports certain foster children around China (I believe that 13 of the 60 children at Rebecca's orphanage have sponsors- Rebecca is not one of them). The organization had said that some of the more malnourished children from her orphanage were hospitalized recently because of high fevers, and I was concerned that she might be one of them- sadly, I was right. I do not know if she is still in the hospital, but our agency is asking for an update from her orphanage.

Here are the two photos that were sent with her update. You can tell in the first one that she had an IV port in, so I assume that these were taken at the hospital.

Such a somber update.

I don't know if Rebecca knows that there is a family racing to get her home. I don't know if the orphanage workers have told her, or if she could even understand if they did. I doubt it. But we are here and we are getting every piece of paperwork processed as quickly as possible to get her home. Thankfully, we got through three major steps (DTC, LID and LOA) in just 4 business days...God is at work in this process! We MUST be in China by July 1st, in order to finalize the adoption of Peter (Pang Pang) before he turns 14. Isn't it such a blessing that we get an expedite for his adoption, since she is also in so much need of love and care?

Please pray for little Rebecca- that she will stay healthy while we work to get to her, and also that God would fill her with His peace when she does meet us. If you would like to help with the remaining $28,000 needed for both adoptions, please purchase a shirt at www.christianwarriorwear.com. All profits go towards the adoptions. Thank you.

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"It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed." Deuteronomy 31:8

Christian Warrior Wear

I'm so excited to share that we started a company to help fund the adoptions, Christian Warrior Wear (www.christianwarriorwear.com). Not only do we need extra funds for the $40K that we need to bring home Peter and Rebecca, we also wanted to start a company that would challenge Christians to be bold in their faith.

With Bill working on another start-up, time and resources were a huge consideration for us. Regardless, we felt God's leading and, after much prayer, Christian Warrior Wear is ultimately how we saw God directing our funding efforts for the adoptions. Neither of us have experience starting a t-shirt company, so we were glad to connect with the guys at Grunt Style who really went out of their way to get us going. You can read more on our "About" page: http://christianwarriorwear.com/about.

Bill designed the nine shirts on the site, as well as the entire website (he even made the intro video)! He had never done a website before, so he chose to use Squarespace, which pretty much guides every step. I was surprised that Squarespace made it so easy. The trickiest part for Bill was learning Photoshop to design the images and logo!

As for the shirts, here are some of the styles he came up with (the first two are my favorites because they are about adoption!):

There are a few other shirts on the website (www.christianwarriorwear.com), so be sure to check them out. All of the shirts are $22 and we make about $13 off each shirt after production costs and related expenses.

As for the adoptions, our dossier is now official on its way to China! We are DTC! Next, China will log it in and give us Provisional Approval (PA). Mid-week last week, we sent our I800 to Texas, where it has to sit for at least two weeks before heading to Missouri. Hopefully, the PA and I800 will be processed at about the same time, then we can apply for a GUZ number for Peter and Rebecca's visas! After that, we get Travel Approval and can plan our journey to China! We are hoping for this entire process to be completed within 40 days- by June 1st. That gives us one month before Peter turns 14!

For those who missed it, please check out our intro video that shares our adoption story! Also, please like our Christian Warrior Wear page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cwarriorwear?fref=nf and Twitter: @cwarriorwear.

Compiling the Dossier

I realized that almost an entire month has passed since I last posted. It has felt like a week has gone by! The truth is that there has not been a lot happening over the past month, as we have been waiting on our USCIS forms to process and to get final approval.

One hiccup occurred in the approval process that caught us off guard. There was a question about the necessity of a child abuse clearance for Burkina Faso, a country in West Africa that I traveled to years ago on a mission's trip. This is a third-world country, so I thought it strange/impossible for them to have any such registry (it turns out that they have something like this for child labor abuse issues, but not anything like we need). The funny part was that I actually had to pull out some 10+ year-old french to communicate with the Burkina Faso Embassy in Washington D.C. (though they did not understand exactly what I was asking for and I had to resort to email)!

For standard adoptions, the USCIS approval process takes between 60-90 days after the 2-week wait for biometric fingerprint appointments. However, once it was clarified that I did not need a child abuse clearance from Burkina Faso, we requested an expedite (since Payton will be 14 on July 1st so we must have the adoption finalized prior to that date) to reduce the wait for formal USCIS approval.
After receiving the approval in just four business days(!), we notarized, then overnighted, the document to the Secretary of State for authentication. It is still not back to us yet, but we hope to have it in a day or so. It will then head to the Chinese Consulate for final approval.

After we have the Chinese Consulate stamp of approval on the USCIS form, we will overnight all our dossier documents to our adoption agency where they will be compiled for express mailing to China! This can take about 2 weeks, but, again, we are hoping for an expedite. Upon arrival and submission of the documents in China, we will be given a log-in date (LID) where we wait for a Letter of Approval (LOA) for both adoptions. After that, the National Visa Center (NVC) sends a letter to the US Embassy in China. Then we get the Article 5, where the US Consulate reviews Payton and Yana's travel visas and gives Travel Approval (TA) to buy tickets to China! Yippee!!!

With all these steps, we are shooting for about June 1st for travel. That leaves less than 60 days to raise the remaining funds (~$28K) for the adoption! It is a hectic time with lots of paperwork to look after, as well as final plans and preparations to make, but we are feeling at peace with everything. (I have been overwhelmed by the support in the adoption community, as well as our wonderful friends!)

(Here is a fun photo from our trip to the zoo today with the in-laws!)