Leadership

We are potential parents who love living life and want to share that love with your child. We have love in our hearts for God, first - family, next and from there it extends into our community. Marriage, to us, means working hard daily showing our love to each other. It helps that we both share a deep faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ. We exist with Him at the center of our lives. One of the things for which we pray daily is that God would bless us with a child. It does not look like this will happen biologically but, with God’s help, it may through adoption. We look forward to pouring our love out to a baby boy or girl, sharing all that we have with them. We especially look forward to helping them grow up knowing how much God loves them and the wonderful things He has in store for their lives.

We want to grow as a family through adoption. We respect all children’s uniqueness and believe that each has been created intentionally by Our Lord. The two of us often find ourselves in lively interaction with the children of our extended family and in our circle of friends. During these conversations, we both learn from the youngsters as well as share lessons we have learned in life..

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 both went to college at Texas A&M University. Claire majored in mathematics and Jeffrey in Industrial Engineering. We both joined the Baptist Student Ministry our freshman year. In 2015 we were both Bible study leaders of different groups and slowly got to know each other over the year. We began dating and most of our dates consisted of studying, getting coffee and snacks, and taking breaks by driving around exploring our town. We got engaged October of our senior year (2017) while finishing school, applying to jobs, and student teaching. It was a wild year but God was oh so faithful in each moment. We graduated from college and three weeks later got married! We moved to McKinney on a whim – about 30 minutes from each set of parents – and fell in love with the city. We absolutely LOVE doing life together and getting to explore the DFW area!

A primary factor of who we are as a couple is quality time spent together! We find lots of joy in time spent together, or with community even in the mundane things. We are avid board game players, coffee shop visitors, and amateur food enthusiasts. Some of our favorite moments with friends and family have happened just on a couch in deep conversation or over a cup of coffee!

We have been so blessed to have friends who live close by and that we get to see often! They are our chosen family and who we get to do life with. Our community has comforted us and rejoiced with us and we hope to continue walking with them as we get older! We have found a lot of joy in prioritizing our community and growing it! They love Jesus and us so well!.

In 2023 we adopted our son, Eliezer, and are absolutely obsessed with parenthood. He is in full toddler mode which has been the sweetest season of our lives (even with the hard tantrum moments). We are so incredibly thankful for the way God has blessed us in our marriage and are very excited for the years to come. Parenting has definitely been our favorite adventure yet!!

We couldn’t believe we sat near each other in nursing school for 2 years and never shared more than a few words with each other. After going on our first date, almost a year after graduation, we realized how much we had in common and we were instantly attached to each other. We realized we grew up with similar beliefs and enjoyed the same hobbies. We love sports and going to events together, cheering on our favorite team. We both love trying new restaurants and exploring new cities. We love to ride around looking at mountain views and just enjoy each others company. We love to plan vacations with the kids and surprise them with new adventures. We truly are best friends. We love each other so deeply. We respect each other and stand behind each others dreams. We make sure to put each other first and continue learning ways to grow our relationship with each other and the Lord. Having children was always a dream of ours, even before we were married. We love parenting together and we are so grateful for these special blessings that God has given us.

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.

We are each other’s missing piece, extremely different but alike in so many ways! We met through a dating app when Daniel gave it one last shot before deleting the app and coincidentally was Rochelle’s first match. The timing was meant to be! We hit it off immediately and started dating in early 2019. Daniel proposed in 2020 in Florida at Marco Island when we were walking along the beach. He had asked a kind stranger to take a picture of us on the beach but quietly asked her to record everything. After posing for the picture, Daniel got down on one knee. We were married a year later right after everything open up after Covid. It was a small intimate wedding on the beach in Key Largo, Florida. Rochelle’s Grandma was the flower girl and our pup was our ring bearer.

Getting married when we were older helped us start our relationship strong because we knew who we really were. Our life experiences helped shape us into adults who know to communicate effectively and appropriately. We are able to truly understand each other and tell each other what we need in our relationship. We are both hard workers and love to have fun and enjoy each other’s company.

We are a loving, stable, and joyful family of 3, who whose prayer has been to be able to share these gifts with more children. Genuine, hopeful, friendly, and fun are a few words to describe us.  We're that family that likes to play guitar (we practiced during the pandemic) and sing praise songs around a bonfire, carry a picnic blanket and kickball in our trunk just in case, read aloud to eachother on car long and short car rides, and have Christmas lights up in our patio all year round because they're pretty.  I'd like to say we are serious when it comes to our faith, morals and work ethic, but live these out in joy and flexibility.  For example, Matthew bikes to work listening to Catholic podcasts, and I have a "Cleaning with God" playlist to help me stay motivated.  We love our God, Church, family time, and friends. 

We met at church and started playing board games with our friends and we often flirted across the table. We had the same sense of humor and we were both very competitive. After a year, we had our first date, a perfect picnic at the lake! A few months later, we flew to Liam’s hometown to meet his family. During that trip a blizzard began and our flight home got canceled. So, we did the sensible thing to do, and rented a small car to drive 20 hours through a blizzard. We tested our relationship on that long drive home while sliding on the road and running on no sleep. We realized from that trip and other dates that we were made for each other. Which led to our marriage. Then, we discovered we were pregnant! Kensi had a difficult pregnancy. We knew we wanted another child, but we wanted to look into other ways. This brought us to adoption. We know the love that Christ has for all his children. We are very involved in our church and close to our small group. We often are with them playing board games, roasting s’mores, or playing with our kids together. We love to go hiking, camping, anything outdoorsy, traveling, eating and making good food, and spending time together.

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 :)

We are Mark and Allison! After secretly liking each other online for years, we finally met in Colorado and knew right away that this was meant to be. We’ve been married now for 12 years, and although we don’t have any children yet, we both come from loving families where children are cherished, so having children has always been a desire close to our hearts. We’ve talked about wanting to adopt ever since we were dating! While our path to get here hasn’t always been fast or easy, we're so excited to be parents and welcome a precious baby into our lives. 

Mark is a Hardware Engineer and loves lots of outdoor activities like biking, hiking, taking care of our yard, grilling, and golfing. He really cares about our neighbors and community and will jump in to help someone out wherever he can. Allison is a Proofreader and enjoys jogging, hiking, reading, getting together with friends, watching classic 90s Disney movies, and cooking. We volunteer on Sundays at our church and are involved with a weekly life group. We live in Texas, close to Mark’s family and Allison has family in Michigan. Both of our families are super supportive and have been praying for us and you!