Leadership

We met thirteen years ago through a friend who invited both of us to hang out at the same event. When Brian arrived, he called his friend to locate her, and Minela happened to be holding the friend’s phone when it rang which kicked off our journey.

We quickly became friends, started dating, and soon engaged. After a few years of dating and moving around the country, we married in a small courthouse in Texas. We are best friends and use every day to experience life to the fullest. We have always wanted to start a family and when it didn’t happen naturally, we looked towards IVF and now adoption.

Minela is outgoing and loves to be around people and making new friends. She is caring and loving which can be seen when she is interacting with anyone but especially with her nieces and nephews. She loves dogs and animals. She was born overseas and moved from Croatia to the United States when she was 8 years old with her parents and brother and sister. They were all refugees of war. Not being able to speak or understand English, they made America their new home which shows her strength in overcoming obstacles. It took her only 6 months to learn the English language and she is good at spelling but somehow, always gets beat by Brian at Scrabble which we both love to play. We are both competitive.

Brian is also outgoing but also enjoys being home and spending time with Minela and their dog, Harley. He loves watching college football and his favorite team is Florida Gators, which is also why his favorite colors are orange and blue. He loves to stay active with exercise or being outside. He really enjoys his job in engineering and the travel that comes along with it; he has been to Canada, Mexico, New York, California, and Las Vegas to name a few. His favorite weekend activity, besides football, is taking our dog to the park for a walk. It’s become a tradition. Brian is a very courageous, hardworking, loving person. He goes above and beyond in everything he does and does everything in his power to make sure his family is happy and well taken care of.

Together, we have so much love to give and can’t wait to share that love with your child.

We are Cory and Kelsi, with three children, Abe, Hazel, and Riley. We love spending time together as a family doing activities like bike rides, movie and pizza nights, individual and family date nights. We live in a small rural town that is currently growing quickly. Kelsi is a stay-at-home mom, that works part time for the local libraries providing early childhood activities. She has her degree in Early Childhood Education. Cory is a software engineer and gets to work from home two days a week. Cory has his degree in Computer Science. Our children range in ages from 5-10.  With the youngest in morning preschool and the oldest in Junior High.  Adoption has always been part of our plan. We were blessed with our three children, but are ready to add to our family through adoption.

We met in 2008 when Facebook had apps that became the precursors to today’s dating apps. After chatting online for a few weeks, we decided to meet for dinner after church. I (Mindy) spent the whole service praying Clay wouldn’t show up because I was so nervous. But he did show up, and we had a great evening. We talked for hours over queso and tacos. I was disarmed by his lack of pretense, his willingness to show me who he really is and not cover up rough patches in his life. We hit it off that night and began dating exclusively. A few months later, Clay wanted to be baptized at our church, and he asked me to do it. That afternoon was the first time our parents met each other, and it is a wonderful memory. After dating for about a year and a half, Clay proposed and we were married just three months later.

When we met, I had a degree in counseling and was working for Presbyterian Children’s Homes and Services. I felt called to teaching though, and shortly after we began dating, I accepted a position to teach 5th grade at a private Christian school. Sixteen years and so many good memories later, and I am still here and now our daughter attends as well. Clay was working for an accounting firm when we met. He has continued to work in office administration and finance, while also getting his master’s of education.

Our life is focused on our faith in Jesus and love for one another. We are surrounded by family and friends who love and support us and have fun with us. We are active in our church and school, and both of these communities are extensions of our family. We still eat lots of tacos and queso, and we are thankful that we both stepped out in faith through what seemed to be just a chance meeting online.

We met in Virginia the summer after Katie graduated college and had an immediate connection. We started out as good friends and soon after fell in love. We live in a small town in the northern DFW area with our son Josiah, and two small dogs Sophie and Riley. We all enjoy spending time outdoors, trying out new restaurants and going on adventures. We love to laugh and have fun just being together as a family.

We’re Andrea and Nelson! We’ve been together for twelve years and married for eight (this March), and about five years ago we were blessed to adopt our amazing son, Oliver. Andrea is fascinated by a lot of things, ranging from shark biology to crazy celebrity beef. Nelson enjoys working with his hands and BBQing on our smoker. As a family, we love going on adventures together, spending quality time, and exploring whatever is making us curious at that moment (like animals at the zoo, the jellyfish at low tide, or what we can build with Legos or cardboard boxes). Our family believes in open communication, unconditional love, and asking questions. No topic will ever be off limits in our home. Oliver is very excited about welcoming a sibling home and has been praying for it to happen “tomorrow.” We, too, are excited for another little one to join our family. Thank you for considering us!

One of the greatest things we can share as parents is access to our friends and family. We are unconditionally loved and supported by so many people whether they be biological or adopted relatives, or dear friends. We have strong relationships with some special people – some who have been in our lives for 30+ years. Several of our friends live minutes from us, and a few have recently started their own families so are itching for play dates. Both sets of our parents are still married and are wonderful grandparents. Andrea has an older brother and sister-in-law, and Nelson has 2 sisters, 3 brothers and 2 sets of in-laws. We are aunt and uncle to 13 nieces and nephews and combined, we have 10 aunts, 10 uncles and over 60 cousins. Simply put, we have a lot of family and friends! And everyone is beyond excited to welcome home a new member!

Along with our extended human family, we have two fuzzy members of our family - our adopted animals Indy and Obi. We rescued Indy as a 3 month old puppy. And 2 year old Obi chose Oliver. Really! He came right up and head nuzzled him. It's been love every since! These two pets are characters who love us, but most especially they love kids. 

A little about us: we met near the foothills of the beautiful Rocky Mountains at a discipleship school. When we first started our relationship, Brandon (who had never dated before) thought it'd be quite sweet to get Jess a flower. But when he took the carnation out of the car to hand it to her, the heavy flower head fell off! Not quite the impression he was hoping for, but despite the "flower that flopped", the relationship did not, and we joyfully were married less than a year later. 

After 8 years of marriage, we still enjoy laughing together at life's quirky happenings and dreaming big about the future. We love and follow Jesus Christ. Because of that reality, our home is filled with peace, joy (and so much of it!), love, laughter, giggles, excitement, hope ... the list could go on and on! 

To sum it up, our home and our family is a place where Light and Life are found.

Paul and I met during our first semester at Texas A&M Veterinary school in 2012. We formed a study group together and would spend late nights at the library studying for tests. We were fast friends and started to build that foundation before we ever went on a date. Paul is steadfast and calm in life's struggles while Haley is goofy and always ready to laugh. We made a great team. Thank goodness Paul worked up enough courage to ask Haley out! Two years later we were engaged and in August of 2015 we were married! From a young age, Haley knew God was calling her to adopt. When we met, Haley shared this calling with Paul and he agreed but wanted to try for a biological child first and then adopt as a second or third. After 2 years of no luck and a diagnosis of endometriosis for Haley, we knew God had already called us to adoption. We never pursued any in-vitro because we knew God had a child waiting for us that was perfect for our family. God definitely followed through with that promise after meeting our first son, Luke. We know there is another child out there God plans to add to our family and we cannot wait to meet them! 

We have been married for six years. Allison is Oklahoma born and raised. Nate was born in Missouri, but lived in Pennsylvannia, Arizona, Oregon, and California before finally settling down in Oklahoma. We have one wonderful little boy named Adrian, who is three years old. The pregnancy was very hard on Allison, and we were advised to not have any more children.

We are a fairly active family. We enjoy going fishing, hunting, or to the local park on a nice day. For the past couple of years, we have gotten zoo passes. Adrian really seems to enjoy getting to run around and see all the animals. We also really enjoy spending time with our friends. We have been greatly blessed by having several families that attend our church who also have young children. We have made it a habit to have lunch with them on Sundays, so we can enjoy each other's company while our kids run around and be kids.

We have also been blessed by two wonderful sets of grandparents that enjoy being involved in our and our son's lives. Nate's parents live about 30 minutes away. We attend church with them (Nate's father is a pastor), and hang-out with them at least a couple of times a month. Allison's parents live even closer. They are both retired and graciously volunteered to watch Adrian while Nate and Allison work. We see them fairly regularly including when we go on our annual family trip to Branson, Missiouri.

Together Andrew and Hailey are known as the fun couple – always making each other laugh, willing to take a spontaneous trip, or go to a hockey game with friends. We love hanging out with our friends and family – but also value our time at home together. That is a core value in our family – spending time together. We want to show up for the school play, or the sporting event – as a family. We both feel very blessed to have been raised by incredible parents who were there for us and we want to be able to give that to our kids as well.

We met on an online dating site. I noticed right away that Peter was special. He asked good questions and took a genuine interest in getting to know who I was. I was intrigued by him. After a couple of weeks of exchanging long messages, he asked me out to dinner. Our first date was at a restaurant called Smokey Bones. We felt at ease with one another right away and more dates followed, including bowling, a trip to the zoo, going to an indoor amusement park, and trying new restaurants. We enjoyed our second date at a local Thai restaurant where our connection deepened. Later, Peter proposed by setting up a private dinner with food from this same restaurant. He also had a book made that included all of our email messages from when we were getting to know each other online. Since we decided on a small wedding, we had our ceremony at a local park pavilion on the most beautiful fall day. It was a perfectly simple, sunny, and wonderful day. We chose a small wedding with hopes of going on a big adventure for our honeymoon. We went to Ireland, a place I had always wanted to go. Peter had been there before on a high school trip, and had wanted to come back with his wife someday. I guess both of our dreams came true :)