Leadership

Hi, we are Austin and Hannah and we met the summer of 2019 in the college group at our church. I (Hannah) still remember walking to the patio of the building where Austin was grilling tacos (the location of our proposal a few years later). We both thought the other was cute but neither of us said anything at the time. We became friends and hung out in group settings throughout the summer. Following graduation from college I returned home to WA to stay and at the end of the summer he asked me out and we enjoyed our first date getting some tacos and going to a Mariner’s game! We introduced the topic of adoption early on since we both had a desire to grow our family through adoption. Austin's mom was adopted from Korea and Hannah saw adoption firsthand when her youth pastor adopted when she was younger. We both knew that we desired a partner who had the same passion for adoption.

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 have been married for 12 years, and we have two amazing, biological daughters. Kenlee is 8 years old, and Taylor is 6. We have always dreamed of having a house full of kids, but when we tried to conceive our third child we began suffering recurrent miscarriages. We have endured 7 miscarriages in the last 2 years with the latest being at 14 weeks gestation. We’ve sought treatment from fertility doctors, but the cause of our losses remains a mystery. Our infertility journey has been heartbreaking, but we believe God has good plans for our family (AND FOR YOURS TOO)! We feel strongly that God has led us to adoption to grow our family.

Hello, we are John and Alisa Rachan.

We met in Spanish class in college at Olivet Nazarene University. We were acquaintances at first, but reconnected after graduation. John reached out to Alisa to get together since he worked at an engineering company close to where she lived. During college, she had a crush on him from afar, so instantly accepted the invitation to dinner. We spent 3 hours talking that evening and felt as if we had known each other for years. Alisa then went to live in Mexico City to do missions work with her nursing degree for a year. God was always working during this time, however, and we reconnected once again after she returned. We started dating a few months later, were engaged after 6 months of dating and married 9 months later. 

We have 2 children: Eliana, who was adopted, is 4 years old, and Ava, who is biological, is 3 years old. We have always desired to have a large family and first considered building it through biological means and later through adoption. However, when we struggled getting pregnant and were diagnosed with unexplained infertility early in our marriage, we decided to pursue adoption instead of extensive medical treatments. Eliana’s name means God has provided, and we truly feel that her life was an answer to our prayers in many ways. We have an open adoption with her birth family, and we are so blessed by this relationship. Ava was a surprise gift from the Lord as well, when we did not think that we could conceive. She was born to us about 6 months after Eliana was born. Her name means breath of life, and we are thankful for her life and for the friendship that our two daughters have with one another. They are truly best friends. We have been trying to grow our family for a few years now and are feeling led to pursue adoption once again because of secondary infertility and because of the joy that adoption has brought to us already. 

Together as a family, we enjoy playing in our backyard, going to parks and meeting other young families, going on walks/bike rides, exploring the outdoors, doing bonfires, playing board games, and hosting friends and family in our home regularly. 

In our lives, there have been both trials and joys. Through it all, we have seen God's faithfulness to provide for us and give us His peace. We are eager to participate once again in the beautiful gift of adoption because we also have been adopted as children into God's family. We hope to provide the best possible loving and caring home for another child, and will strive to teach our children to love the Lord, to be kind and compassionate to others, and to cherish every moment that God gives us. 

We recently attended a “marriage night” at our church, and we were asked to define our “superpower.” We chose the word “perseverance.” We have been through a lot together, but our faith in Christ has been our firm foundation through it all. We have been incredibly blessed in ways would could never have imagined, and we have also leaned on God for strength during times of loss, waiting, and unexpected difficulties. But through each season, we are so grateful for the love we have for each other, and even more for our faith in God, who is strong when we are not.

When we were first introduced by a mutual friend at dinner one night, little did we know all that God had planned for us. We recently celebrated our 10th anniversary. We have supported one another through late nights of studying as we were completing our degrees and celebrated graduations and job offers. We have danced together at many weddings, but we have also cried together at funerals. We have held hands in hospital rooms and nursed each other back to health. We have been isolated together in quarantine (and as it turns out, we really do enjoy each other’s company!). We have poured each other more morning cups of coffee than we can count. We have laughed together almost every single day. We have prayed through it all, and we cannot wait for the next adventure.

Hello!

Thank you for taking the time to get to know us.  It is truly an honor to introduce ourselves to you and we hope that this gives you a small glimpse into our lives.  We are Dan and Rebekah and we met at a camp that we both worked at in Wisconsin.  Rebekah was immediately drawn to Dan's smile and fun personality.  Dan was attracted to Rebekah's beauty and kindness.  We were married in March of 2006 on a chilly, spring day surrounded by family and friends.  Throughout our time together we have been growing and helping each other to be better people. 

Our journey to parenthood has not been easy. It has always been our desire to have children, and we prayed for this for some time.  We knew that we wanted to adopt one day and when we weren't able to get pregnant, we decided to pursue adoption rather than infertility treatment.  After 12 years of marriage God blessed us with our daughter Eliana through the gift of adoption.  Adoption has blessed our lives in more ways than we could have ever imagined!  Not only did we gain a daughter, but we also feel like we added to our extended family with our daughter's bio family.  We are so excited to be adding to our family through adoption again! 

If you choose us, know that you will always be an important part of your child's story, and your child will grow up knowing just how very loved they are by you.  We would love for you to continue to be a part of their life as well if that is something you would like.  You are in our thoughts and prayers, and we hope to meet you soon! 

We are Blake and Steph! We are very happy to share our life with you. We have 4 children, 2 boys and 2 girls. We adopted our youngest son in 2019. We are high school sweethearts and have been married for 17 years. We knew we wanted to grow our family through adoption before we were married. Our home is Christ-centered surrounded by people who are loving and supportive. Having Christ as our foundation is very important to us. We know through Him all things are possible. Our kids are very involved in church and school activities and we love to spend our time supporting them. Steph is a school nurse at the same school the kids attend and Blake works in agronomy and farming. We have several other activities we enjoy doing as a family which include, golfing, fishing, playing games, and having bonfires. We also enjoy boating in the summer and trying new foods. We look forward to learning more about you! 

We have been married for over 9 years. It feels like just yesterday but also like we have been together our whole lives! We fell in love with each other because of each others' passion for Jesus and for this generation to know Jesus. Together, we have felt called to serve and make disciples of Jesus specifcially with kids, students, and young adults. We absolutely love spending our days walking along side families and serving the church. Our home is always open and full of families spending time together.  Our whole marriage is built on bringing glory to God together. 

SInce the beginning, It's always been our desire to grow our own family. When we first got married, we decided to grow our family biologically and through adoption. We truly believe that adoption is a beautiful display of God’s love for all of us.  While we have experienced so many wonderful life adventures, we know parenthood will be our favorite one. 

We first met in college when Jenn was a freshman and Jon was a junior. We were both on the track and field team together. We fell in love hard and fast and made our relationship work despite living in different states, multiple surgeries, medical uncertainties, finishing our degrees, and all of life's other surprises. We truly consider ourselves a team and our relationship continues to gain strength everyday we are together. Most importantly, Adeline, Charlotte and Eleanor are the lights of our lives and we can't imagine what we used to do before their first moms chose us to be their parents. They make us laugh, make our worst days better, make us want to be more loving, and challenge us to be the best parents we can. Our girls have changed us in all the best ways and make us want to be better people. 

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.