Welcome to our story...

God has richly blessed us with a big, fun family...
We have 10 children... 3 homegrown & 7 born in our hearts!

Blake... our oldest is 25 and has a heart for the Lord. He enjoys; church, family, mission trips, making music, playing guitar & drums at church, and writing.

Brianna Faith... is 21 and has a compassionate & tender heart. She's a wonderful big sister. She began talking to us about adoption when she was 11 yrs old. She is "Faith in motion"

Brent... is 17 - he's an awesome guy! He's in highschool. He has a special heart for family and God. He loves sports! Brent loves to laugh & is full of life!

Bethany Lidia... now 15, joined our family in August 2006 at 9 yrs old. She's from the beautiful country of Guatemala. She started school for the very first time (at 9 yrs old) and is now in 9th grade. Lidia's passion is sports & dancing!

Benjamin Ross... 15 yrs old. We first saw his picture in April 2007 & came home in May '08. Ben is deaf, but his special need is that he needed a family. Ben loves making home-runs & hanging out with family & friends. Ben is from Tianjin, China.

Briella Xiyao... our beautiful 15 yr old daughter from Fujian Province, China. She joined our family in July 2009. She's always wearing a big smile! She has a passion for the deaf & very proficient in sign language. She loves basketball!!

Bellamei Ying... our Inner Mongolian princess. Bellamei is 14 yrs old and held my hand for the first time on July 18, 2011. She has melted into our big family seamlessly and it is truly an honor to be her mommy.

Brinley Grace FuChuan... is 9 years old and joined our family in July 2007. She's from Jiangxi Province, China. She has the most gentle, sweet spirit... she's an angel!

Bayla Shea Chao-Yu... our youngest. She's 9 yrs old, 5 months younger than Brinley. Bayla's from Hunan, China & came home at 11.5 months. She's bright, funny (and spicy!) We can't get enough of her hugs & kisses.

and our caboose... Braxton Emanuel Jordan - 8 yrs old? (see post below) He's from Guangdong Province and is now officially our son!

This 1 min video shows how we've GROWN!

Pastor Bo


How can we be double-blessed with 2 churches? The Refuge is our home church and Pastor Jay is awesome -and- for the last several months, we have also been attending Parkwood Baptist because they have a deaf ministry there. It is led by Pastor Bo and his wife Glenda...two wonderful people. Their work there is nothing short of amazing and we have felt very welcome there. There are many people there that have been praying for Ben, and are anxiously anticipating his arrival. We've been attending the deaf Bible study every Wed night, and a class on Sunday evenings. This morning we attended the Sunday morning worship and here is a little clip of video I took. I apologize for the over-exposure...he was right under a spotlight. This part of his message was about worry. I definitely have been struggling with worry these past couple weeks. Worried about leaving behind 5 of my children and about traveling without my husband. Worried about my 2 littlest ones...worried about how Mike will handle everything. I also worry about how Ben will react or transition to us, as well as worried about my signing proficiency. Even though my ASL is totally different than his CSL, I still want him to see that I have been learning and that I am dedicated in my desire to communicate with him. My heart's been trying to convince my head to stop worrying. God has already performed miracles to bring Ben to us...surely all of the details will work out. This snipit is just a minute long...thank you Bo for reminding me that God is in control.

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