We have been married for 25 years. Since the beginning we have both had a strong desire to share our lives with children and have a house full of love, laughter, and teaching. First Lorrie gave birth to our oldest boy, then another boy and then a daughter– three altogether. These three brought so much joy it can’t be articulated in this brief write up. But Lorrie’s pregnancies while beautiful were also very difficult for her. We longed for more children to share the love of our growing family that God had given us. This led us to pursue an adoption of a little girl from the Philippines. In January of 2010 we were so blessed with another beautiful daughter Naomi. She needed us and we needed her –she brought another beautiful melody into our home. And later with Naomi’s enthusiastic blessing we went back to the same orphanage and adopted her best friend -Jacob - in 2012. You can read more about Jacob's adoption by visiting our blog emptytheorphanage.blogspot.com

Jacob and Naomi brought so much life and love to us. We camped, climbed canyon walls and had adventures all over Colorado. In 2014, Jacob was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. It was devastating news. We came together as a family and walked with Jacob through a deep valley. Sadly, he passed away on January 3, 2015. Jacob was only 14.

Adoption is our family’s story it's who we are. What we’ve (the whole family) found is that we have even more room to love now and we want to share it with others. We’re not finished loving and providing a family to orphans. We found out about a sibling group of three brothers ( ages 9,8 and 7) who have spent their entire life in an orphanage in the Philippines. So, after talking with the children and much prayer, we have decided to pursue the adoption of these three brothers. We are in the process of bringing them home to join their forever family.

This will make the third adoption for our family. 25 years ago when we married, we had no idea what the future would hold and how blessed we would be simply because of adoption.

We have been talking about adoption since we got married in 2008. Over the last 9 years, we have had 3 biological children, moved overseas, come back, talked about adoption, lost our sweet 4th child before her birth at 18 weeks with Down Syndrome, and have felt God finally confirming the timing for us to pursue adoption. Because we have lived among the nations and felt particularly drawn to South Asians, India was a natural and exciting fit for us.

We have completed our home study and hope to be registering in India for a 2-4 year old girl with mild to correctable special needs - but we are open to God's leading! We will be waiting for our paperwork to be approved by the US government and when that comes back (probably around mid November) we will need to have raised $6500 to get registered as a prospective adoptive family in India. When we do get matched with a child, we will need $6000 at that time. This could be very quick, if our child is on the waiting child list.

So our fundraising goal is $12,500 by December 1st! We would love if you would prayerfully consider being a part of our adoption story. We can't wait to find out who God has in store for our family!

Adoption has always been on our hearts but on a mission trip to Nicaragua our hearts broke for older orphans that would likely age out of the system without ever knowing the love and stability of a forever family. Already having four biological children we prayed hard to see how God could use us to make a positive impact in the lives of these children. We know that having a large family comes with some obstacles and also that older orphans come with their own set of issues, but we felt God calling us to be open to up to a sibling group of up to three children and to be open to any age child. We have been blessed with so much and know that our hearts and home are ready for this new challange.