To Our Dear Friends and Family,

As we approach the two year anniversary of officially deciding to dive into growing our family via adoption,  we are happy to announce that we'll soon be traveling to China!!! (Finally)

Our family has hoped for, and dreamed about, adoption for many years now, and it has become a part of our girls’ vernacular. Dwight and I first discussed this beautiful idea while on a family road trip across the rugged Southwest United States, Gracie was only about 5 years old at the time. I knew (and Dwight was open to it), that when the time was right to expand our family we would proceed in a less traditional fashion and welcome into our home, and hearts, one of the 65 million orphans currently in the world.

Our faith has taught us that adoption is an amazing representation and imitation of our relationship with God, who has adopted us into His family through Christ’s redemptive work on the cross and victory over death by His resurrection. The Bible clearly advocates adoption in passages such as John 14:18 (“I will not leave you as orphans, I will come for you.”), Isaiah 1:17 (“Learn to do good, seek justice, rebuke the oppressor, defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.”), and James 1:27 (“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”)

We plan to post updates, prayer requests and document our reflections on our trip here regularly.  At this point we're simply waiting for Travel Approval, so we've started the packing process.  It is not going to be easy to pack all that we will need in as few bags as possible. We'll be visiting both Northern and Southern China so we've been told to pack as if we're traveling to Minnesota and Florida!

We sincerely appreciate your prayers and support during this process. Please do not hesitate to ask us questions.