International Adoption Application

A quick snapshot of us: 

• We live in rural Iowa. 

• Bryan is a pastor of a Reformed Presbyterian Church.

• Olivia is a homeschool mom.

• We value: faith, joy, and love.

• In our home, kids are safe, wanted, guided, and deeply loved.

 

How we met:

Bryan is from Southern California, and Olivia grew up in Ohio. We met at a Christian student conference in Virginia while Bryan was serving in the Navy.


Why Adoption: 

It's been a long-held desire since we were both kids. 

We want an expectant mother to be able to choose adoption with real hope, knowing her baby will be safe, cared for, and deeply loved in a stable home with open hearts and open arms.

Our faith shapes this deeply. In the Gospel, God welcomes those who were not His children and makes them His beloved children through Jesus. We see adoption as a reflection of that love. 

 

We both attended Oklahoma State University and started dating after we graduated and moved back to our hometowns, in September 2011. On our second date we had a pizza baking competition, since Matt is the pizza connoisseur! Other favorite dates included going to museums, taking the dogs to dog parks, Thunder games, annual trip to the State Fair, and going to the local drive in movie. 

We were engaged in December 2013 on a ski trip. After discussing with Shae's mom how to do it, Matt decided he just couldn't wait any longer and proposed while our group was playing cards - right after Shae ate a blue sucker and had changed into her comfy clothes for the night. Shae's blue sucker caused her mouth to look like a Smurf, but love is blind! 

We were married on May 3, 2014 in the church that Shae grew up in and where we are now members. We asked our guests to wear orange, black or white and had Pistol Pete as a surprise guest at our reception!

Karsten was born in the crazy year that was 2020! Her birth mom choosing us to be her parents is truly a gift and an honor. Some of our favorite things to do as a family include going to OSU football games, visiting the zoo, and playing outside! 

Thank you for taking time to look through our family's profile. We know the magnitude of the decisions you're making right now, and although we do not know your name, we are praying that you are safe and healthy, and that you feel loved, supported and at peace.

With love,
Matt and Shae

We met at a church Christmas party and got to know each other through game nights and dinner outings with friends, leading to our own friendship and more conversations between the two of us. We realized we had a lot in common and both felt very comfortable being ourselves with each other. We had our first date in 2017 and were married at our church in 2018.

As a couple. we love exploring new places and sharing experiences together. We like to go for walks in nature and especially enjoy exploring different national parks. Our quest is to visit them all! The theme parks at Disney and Universal Studios are also some of our favorite places to unwind and play. We enjoy exploring abroad and closer to home as well.

We are Daniel and Vanessa Bittner. We are a normal couple who live in rural Indiana. We farm crops, have chickens, a small dog named  Parker, and we like to grow produce in or garden. We live a very stable and predictable lifestyle. Daniel works 8-5 everyday as a tractor mechanic for John Deer. Vanessa makes her own hours as a Ministry Director. 

Daniel loves gardening, puzzles, and spending time with his family. 

Vanessa enjoys reading, embroidering, writing, and archery. Vanessa is also a public speaker and published author who writes under a pen name for privacy reasons. 

We love children and have 9 nieces and nephews. We spend as much time with them as possible. Our families are both so excited to have a baby. This child will be adored by everyone. 

We have been trying to have a baby for over 6 years and we have known adoption was our path for a while. We are patiently waiting for our chance to be parents. 

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 are Angel and Breanna! We’ve both felt called to adopt from a young age. We initially met in high school and our paths reconnected after college. It became clear that God had brought us together for a purpose — our mutual desire to grow our family through adoption. After experiencing infertility, we felt God leading us to begin this journey sooner than we had planned, but we trust in His perfect timing and plan for our family.

Adoption holds a special place in our hearts because it is a beautiful reminder of how God has adopted us into His family. Just as we have been chosen and loved by God, we long to provide the same love, care, and belonging to a child through adoption.

We’ve been together for over six years and married for three. During this time, we’ve grown closer as a couple, spending time with family and friends, and enjoying life with our playful mini Goldendoodle, Teddy. Breanna is a passionate teacher with a deep love for children, and her role with her students fulfills her heart’s desire to one day raise a child of her own. Angel works remotely in sales, which gives us a great work-life balance and allows us more time together as a family.

Our faith is at the core of everything we do, and we are both deeply involved in our church community. Breanna serves in children’s ministry, and Angel serves as a greeter, offering a warm welcome to all who visit. We promise to provide your child with a loving, safe, and faith-filled home, where they will always know how deeply they are loved by us and by God. 

We are Monica and Peter and we are so grateful you've taken the time to glance into our lives. Many years ago, we were longing for children but struggling to get pregnant. After several rounds of fertility tests, we ultimately received a call from our doctor confirming we would not be able to get pregnant without fertility treatments. We were devastated at the time, felt peace about pursuing fertility treatments, but also felt strongly that the Lord was calling us to welcome a child into our home through adoption. We went the fertility treatment route first, and by the grace of God, we now have two young boys. We're crazy about our kids. Throughout all these years we have continued to feel the pull toward adoption, and now, here we are! We cannot wait to come alongside a birthmother and offer lifelong, unconditional love to her child with an open adoption if that's what she desires. We have been praying for this future adopted child for a long time, and now we pray we get to meet them soon.

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.

Hi! We're Darrin and Rachel. We first met in 2006 and started dating in 2009 right before I (Rachel) moved to college out of state; so we were long-distance for 3 years. We found a mutual love of comics, card games, adventure, and music. After getting married, we also enjoyed playing volleyball together and watching Seahawks games. We both grew up in the greater Seattle area and after our daughter Ellie was born in 2016, we bought a house here, near family and friends.

Some details about us: Darrin is a former truck driver, who now works in a school district. Rachel is an Aerican Sign Language (ASL) interpreter. Our daughter loves making friends and playing with every kid she meets, and her second grade school year is off to a great start. We have a 4 fish and 6 chickens, and our daughter would love a cat someday.

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!