About Us

We are just an ordinary family who happened to take an extraordinary journey. Twice. Where did it start? Ironically enough, it may have started with M*A*S*H. You know, the TV show. I remember the finale when medical team said goodbye to each other and to Korea. One of the characters missed his daughter's birthday, so they placed a beautiful Asian girl of about three years old on his lap and celebrated her birthday. I never forgot it. I just wanted to scoop up that little girl. Maybe it started even earlier than that.  One of my two favorite childhood dolls was a Fisher Price doll called "My Friend Jenny."  She was Asian, and I thought she was beautiful.

Fast forward a few years, and the articles started appearing all over the place about the orphan problem in China. My heart stirred. An impossible dream formed. I was the one who started marriage firmly believing, insisting even, that I would not have more than two children. Oh how God must have laughed. I fell in love with my firstborn and with motherhood itself. I had a great mom who taught me how to be a mother, and I may have trained my whole life for that for role.

So the articles started appearing, but you had to be 35 to adopt from China, and with seven years to go to that milestone, it seemed a long way off. You could only adopt a special needs child if you already had children, and I was busy raising two children already. Even so the dream did not die, and just a few years later when I was still shy of 35, the requirements changed. You only had to be 30, and you could have up to four children in your home. We were convinced that God was calling our family to this.

Thus began the grueling process of paperwork. The hope and anticipation, the fear of raising a bi-racial family, and our most amazing journey with God to this day began. Into our lives a little girl who wore every emotion on her sleeve came, and even before we met her, we knew we would take this journey again. She was not destined to be the only adopted person in our entire family including our extended family, and she would not be the only one of a different race. Three years later we landed in China again and met a little boy ready for adventure. An older child with a special need took us on quite a ride.

We all fell in love with another group of people and a culture, and from time to time, we dream about returning to China to live (or at least Andy and I do).

This story has heroes, but I am not one of them. The real heroes are Zach and Savannah. They have never complained about the sacrifices they have made for these additional siblings, and they have sacrificed. We could have been more comfortable. They could have had more of us to themselves. However, I would not be surprised if both of them adopt when they are grown.

That is our story, and it continues to be told on this blog as I chronicle our sometimes funny, mostly crazy, absolutely imperfect and rarely boring lives.