Our adoption story begins before we even met. Over our years growing up, God placed a sensitivity towards children without families in our hearts. We met in college, and as our relationship grew from friendship to dating, one of the unique ways we connected was that we both felt called by God to grow our family through adoption.
We have been married for eleven years now, and we have not been able to have biological children. We have never despaired over this, however, because of our call to adopt. We have seen our heart for adoption grow over the years as we have worked with teenagers, many from unstable homes. Our work has been motivated by God’s passionate love overflowing out of us, and this in turn has further fueled our heart for adoption.
Also, early in our relationship we realized we shared a heart for China despite having no experience with the country or its people. Over the last several years we have traveled to China twice. Our fascination with and love for the people and culture grows deeper with each visit. China is now a place of lifelong friends and a place that feels like a second home.
Based on these motivations we began the adoption process in 2015 with Dillon International. We applied for the Open Options program choosing not to select a country. Instead, we wanted to be open to a child from any country for which we qualified. A few months after submitting our application in the fall of 2015, we were matched with a waiting child, a seven year old boy from China. We have worked for the past year through the mountains of paperwork, and now we are eagerly awaiting approval of all the travel paperwork so we can bring our boy home.