Exciting Updates on Bella!

We have some exciting updates on Bella!

A couple of weeks ago our Adoption Agency flew to India to work on the partnership they have with our orphanage and to solidify some other adoption processes as well. In that process they were going to be able to meet our Bella and spend some time with her and the other children in the orphanage. We were so excited about this trip because that meant that we could not only get some new pictures and updates on her, we could also send her some gifts and letters from us!

We were told that she did not know anything about us and that she probably wouldn’t until we received more approvals for her. Also, we were encouraged that our gifts needed to be a little less personal and that the letters would obviously need to wait until she understood she had a family coming for her. So, we went and purchased some girly gifts, got some family pictures of us together and poured our hearts out in letters and put them in the mail to go with our Agency to India.

We had been out of town the same week that our agency was in India. I checked my email nearly every hour in hopes of finding some updates on their visit there. The night that we returned home and we were all together on the couch together unwinding a bit…. the email came! Our Agency had spent the day with Bella! We got some fun pieces of info about her current height and weight and her favorite color. Pink! I was thrilled about this. But the shocker to us came when we read that she did in fact already know about us! Taking that info in changed the way we thought about her entirely. Wow. She knew she had a family. How exciting!

The next day came and we received a couple of new photos of her and a teaser video. She had changed so much already! She looked beautiful….bigger of course and her hair quite a bit longer! But then finally a couple more days later and the long video came of an interview of her. Our Agency asked her questions about things that she liked. It was so cute to see her thinking of the answers. And to our sheer excitement, the orphanage staff translated our letters to her right there all on video. Whoa. It was truly amazing watching her taking it all in, looking at our photos and listening to our words of love. It didn’t take long for her to get very emotional. And of course…..we did too.

When we set out on this journey of adoption our hearts were set on an infant. A baby we thought….we’d love to have a baby! But, we never thought that God would do a number on our hearts and break us over those precious older children….most who don’t have a chance of getting adopted. And now….watching our daughter who is able to take in every word we were saying to her and for her to understand what it meant that she had a family who loved her and would come and bring her home soon just took things to a whole new level for us emotionally. Wow. What an awesome and holy moment.

When our agency returned home, we also received Bella’s sweet birth certificate and her report cards! Our daughter is a straight A student! How cool is that? She is really a smart little girl. We got tickled to know that one of her favorite subjects is Math. Yeah….well maybe she can teach us Wilbanks a thing or two in that subject. That is definitely not our strong point. :-) She is also learning English in school, which is such a blessing for us and her for when she gets home. We’ll all have lots of learning to do.

Remember our cool story (a previous blog) about “Translating and a Big God?” Well our new friends will be traveling to India in a short couple of weeks….and they have already received permission from the orphanage that they can go and meet Bella! Isn’t that neat? So we are in the midst of putting together some more gifts (personalized this time), letters and pictures. We are so thrilled that God would allow this trip for our friends and for us to see pictures of Bella one more time while we wait. Speaking of waiting. We are in need of just a couple more approvals before we travel. We are told that it is still possible to travel this summer. That’s means we are just a few weeks away! We can’t wait to get her in our arms.

Lastly, since we started our fundraising just a couple of months ago, we lack just about half the amount that we set out to receive the estimated $15,000 before we travel and finalize this adoption. We are just about $7,500 away from what we need to get to get this precious girl home. Please continue to pray for us that the LORD would provide the remaining amount needed to get her home and that He would get her home real soon.

I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. John 14:18

For the Fatherless,