Care Packages!

Update: We finished our home study interviews and are now waiting for the home study packet to be finalized. Once that is complete, we can send it with an official form to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services Department (we will be including a cover letter requesting that the approval is expedited since both children are in a dire situation). Once we receive approval, we submit the full dossier to China and wait for it to be "logged-in." From the official Log-in Date (LID), it may be only 2 months before we receive Travel Approval to go to China!
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Once we received pre-approval for Yana, we started putting together our care packages for both kids. Typically, orphanages are not "officially" notified that the child has a family until after Travel Approval is issued. Sending a care package before that gives the orphanage (and our children!) a heads-up that we are coming!

It was such a huge thing to pick out items for both kids! For Yana, we decided on a long-sleeved shirt and pants, two pairs of socks, some warm booties, a digital camera (so her care-givers can take photos of where she lives and her friends), a plush owl with rattle, a stuffed toy lamb, and four Lara bars. It all fit just perfectly in the shoe box, which is the size needed to avoid customs issues!

For Payton, we decided on an Under Armour hoodie, two pairs of socks, two matchbox cars, a digital camera (the same one Bill took to Afghanistan 6 years ago- it is rugged!), a recorder (since he loves music) and four Lara bars.

We are also including laminated photos of our family and the kids' rooms.  We can't wait to get Travel Approval and bring them home!


Not everyone can adopt, but everyone can support adoption. Please help bring Payton and Yana home by giving via the links at the right. Even $5 or $10 helps meet our goals and makes the adoptions possible. Thank you!!!

Pre-approval for Yana!

Sorry for the delays, but we have just gotten pre-approval and are finally able to share information about Yana!

The reason for the delay is a bit complex. Yana was on the shared list, meaning that any adoption agency we wanted to go with could acquire her file for us.  However, we want to adopt Payton and Yana, specifically, and at the same time. The adoption agency that we went through was the only agency that had access to Payton's files. Thus, we had to first get pre-approval from that specific agency for Payton, then get approval from the social worker doing our home study to adopt two children, then we had to begin the process again with Yana (submit a Letter of Intent, pay fees, etc.)! We have finished those steps and now have pre-approval for Yana! So, without further ado, I am so happy to share photos of our beautiful daughter!

(Taken approx. September 2012)

Isn't she lovely! When I first saw Yana's photo and bio on Reece's Rainbow, I felt like I knew her. Bill felt the same way. There was such a clear leading on our hearts that this was our daughter!

In reading the Reece's Rainbow summary (http://reecesrainbow.org/47081/yana), we were both very hopeful about Yana's prognosis. When we finally got a copy of her medical file, the report matched the RR bio and included some additional details- such as the fact that her speech was not well developed at the time of assessment, which was done in May of 2012. Since over two years have passed since that evaluation, we were confident that Yana would be progressing and likely even walking and talking now!

On a whim, I decided to "Google" her and incredibly came across the this post from September of 2012: http://martinsinchina1.blogspot.com/2012/09/waiting-child-yana.html. The woman who wrote the post was highlighting Yana as a Waiting Child and gave some more information about her health. She stated that Yana has a form of cerebral palsy called quadriplegia with an athetoid component (highly spastic). The woman's post also states that Yana has decreased head and trunk control. This was very devastating and disappointing news, since we were so hoping to hear that Yana is thriving and able to move about!

I reached out to the woman who wrote the blog post and she graciously provided even more updated information. Tragically, Yana's orphanage has very few resources. There are not as many staff as some other facilities. In addition, Yana is not likely receiving therapy. Since she does not have a foster family (like Payton), she is also not receiving any specialized care for her needs or development. In fact, during this woman's visits in 2013 and June of 2014, Yana has been in a stroller with a hole for a bedpan both times (see photo below)! It makes me so sad that they don't even have a decent wheelchair for her. The woman who wrote the post said that the children at this orphanage mingle and play together in the hallway (unusual for a Chinese orphanage), and that someone has brought Yana out with the other children both times that the woman had been there.

(Taken June 2013)

The one ray of light in this whole thing is that Yana's orphanage, along with many others in China, participates in Hugging Grannies. My prayer is that one of the three hugging grannies has been giving Yana some love and attention each day, even though the ratio is about 10:1 of children to grannies. I have seen pictures of these grannies taking the kids outside, so I hope that brings some joy to our sweet girl.

Obviously, this is one of the worst scenarios that we could imagine. Bill and I cried as we heard this news, but still felt God's leading in her adoption. Though her needs are great, we believe that she will thrive with love, therapy and quality medical care. When we bring her home, I plan to baby wear her for a good deal of time to help her bond with me, and learn to trust us to provide for her physical and emotional needs.

Here are baby pictures of our sweet girl:

    

We desperately need help with the remaining funds to bring our kids home. Please consider giving- even a small amount. We have already raised almost $2,000 of our $32,000 goal between Reece's Rainbow (http://reecesrainbow.org/85271/sponsorrobinson-6) funds and our Youcaring page. If we can get 3,000 people to give $10, we will be there! 

We've also been putting together an idea for a Give-away, so we could use donations of a time-share or something else large to give... Again, anything helps! Thank you!

Reece's Rainbow

We are now live on the Reece's Rainbow website! To give a tax-deductible donation, please follow this link:

As of this weekend, we are locked-in with our daughter! We cannot share details publicly until we have pre-approval from China for the adoption, which will come in about two weeks. I can't wait to share her sweet face with everyone!

Also, we will be doing a Give-Away from January 14th, 2015, through Valentines Day to help fund for the adoption! More details to come, but we are hoping to get 3,000 people to donate $10 through the Reece's Rainbow link. Please be praying for these efforts and feel free to start giving now! 

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Trusting in His provision:
Genesis 22:14, "So Abraham called the name of that place, "The LORD will provide"; as it is said to this day, "On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided."

Funding the Adoptions

Adopting internationally costs a lot of money. In fact, China adoptions often cost the most financially, for a number of reasons.

One reason that China adoptions have so many fees is that China is part of the Hague Convention. As a part of this convention, there are stricter standards in place for which children are eligible to be adopted, as well as for the family that desires to adopt. The additional regulations mean that the cost associated with adopting a single child from China is roughly $30,000.

Since we are adopting a boy and a girl at the same time, we will not have to pay many of the fees twice. This should reduce our cost from $60,000 to about $40,000. In addition, both children that we are adopting are in the Special Focus program because of their significant health needs, which reduces some fees. Here is a breakdown of our total adoption costs:

1800 + 350 = $2150 Homestudy Fees

$250= Adoption Agency Application Fee

$7100= Adoption Agency Other Fees

$125 = CCCWA Service fees (child one)

$790= CCCWA fee (child one)

$855= Additional fees by CCCWA (second child)

$1200 = Special focus fee (second child)

$442.19= Passport fees- expedited

$60= Birth cert and marriage license fees

$890 + $720 (second child) =  $1610 USCIS Filing

~$1200= Dossier Prep (includes second child)

$200= Additional child Doc sealing

$6000 + $6400 = $12,400 (China Gov/Orphanage Fees)

~$1500 x 4 = $6000 (China Flight)

~$5000= In-China travel and Accommodations

~$800= In-China food

=~$40182.19

We have already paid roughly 17% of these fees:

$2150 (Home Study Fees) + $2600 (First agency fee) + $250 (CCCWA fees for two kids) + $1200 (Special Focus fee for second child) + $442.19 (passport applications) + $60 (marriage cert/birth cert requests)= $6827.19

Though $40,000 is a lot of money, Bill and I trust that God will provide the funds. That is why we are hoping to raise 80% of the money through various methods. We will be utilizing direct giving (http://www.youcaring.com/adoption-fundraiser/help-us-adopt-a-teenage-boy-and-a-girl-with-cerebral-palsy/278760), fundraising efforts (we'll be having a Give-Away soon!), and Reece’s Rainbow (http://reecesrainbow.org/85271/sponsorrobinson-6). Through these avenues, we have already raised almost $2,000. What a blessing!

We also recently were introduced to Touchstone Essential vitamins, so we are hoping to supplement our fundraising efforts by re-selling these products. To be honest, I had not heard of Touchstone Essentials until about two months ago, when a friend of mine suggested them for detoxing and pain relief. Since that time, I have been so impressed by these organic supplements. There are currently nine different products from this company and I have been using them all daily for the past mont. Not only do they use only organic ingredients, but they do not use strange methods to make their vitamins that other companies use (for example, the source of D3 in most vitamins is irradiated sheep's wool- ewe! (haha)). In any case, I love how my skin is looking younger and clearer, and how their “boost” supplement is giving me energy and burning calories. They also have awesome probiotics (Supergreens +D), which are helping with my wheat-sensitives. To more about Touchstone Essentials, you can visit my page at:

http://teamrobinson.mytouchstoneessentials.com

I make a 5% commission on these supplements (15% if I have 10 new customers in one month) and every penny will go towards our adoption to bring these two kiddos home. Also, any purchase of products from me in the month of December qualifies me to earn an additional 15% in all future months!  If you are local, I can also buy wholesale and sell to you retail, so my portion goes up to 20%. 

Here's our son, again! We can't get enough of his sweet face!

Thanks for reading and sharing! I will be sure to keep the blog updated to let everyone know how our fundraising efforts are going.