Well as many of you know we have been married going on four years in December. Time really does fly! We met right around New Years five years ago. A year later we were married. That was a great year. We decided to start our family right away due to our ages. But as everyone knows life sometimes has plans of it's own! Three days after we got back from our honeymoon I came home from work to find Rick home, in the middle of the day. At first I thought "what a nice surprise", but then I saw his face. He told me he had been layed off at work.

    So unlike most newly weds we got to know each other real good real fast! It really did have an up side, we got to spend a lot of time together, we just didn't have a lot of money to do much of anything. Really, there is a lot of things to do in Houston that are free. Rick found jobs here and there and kept us afloat. As most of you remember we ended up staying in Boston for a while working. It was really great getting a chance to see all the history in that area of the country.

    Then in 2002 Rick made a career change. Once again we were back on track! We bought a house near Rick's work in Atascocita near Humble Texas.  Because of our ages  we  feel adoption was the way we wanted to go. We began to pray earnestly to God for spiritual guidance and a peace of mine in the direction he wanted us to take. We started researching adoption. There are so many children out there who need a home. In some countries their chance of surviving without adoption isn't very good. We felt more peace in this direction than we had when we were considering getting pregant. So the next step was choosing the country our child would come from. Not a easy one. After much pray and searching, we felt God tugging at our hearts at the plight of the little girls in China. To date there are over a thousand orphan homes in China. They still can't keep up with the demand the 1.5 million abandoned little girls a year places on them. So here we are! We know our path is adoption, our country is China and our baby will probably be a little girl. We are hoping for twins. We are ready to began our journey. We are so excited that the family we have dreamed of is so close. Yet we also feel a little scared (this is a big step for us), over whelmed, frustrated( that the process takes over a year).  We are very busy getting ready.

    We were very troubled to find how much an adoption cost. $21,000 is the cheapest you can adopt a baby for. Cost is definitely a concern for us after our year of being unemployed. We found out China is the cheapest country to adopt from. So since we felt drawn to China this confirmed to us this was the direction we needed to take. Also the baby's that are adopted from China are known to be the healthiest of all the countries. The number of abandoned girls in China is so overwhelming. Orphans are looked down on and are never treated the same as other people, even when they grow up. The future is very bleak for these baby's. The trip there is very safe and the cost to travel in China is very little. The adoption process is very regulated and clear cut. China only requires 1 trip of around 12 days to get your child. Most other countries require 2 to 3 trips, up to three weeks at a time to adopt from them. With Rick on commission this was a concern for us. Also China only requires one parent.  The other countries require both parents. So with China we have felt that God has prepared a way when there seems to be no way. Now all we have to do is find the finances.

    Because there are so many Americans adopting daughters from China, the number of support groups that give support and guidance to prospective parents are great. In Houston along, there are around 100 play groups for children adopted from China. Also as many of you know Sean is part Chinese. So we feel our child might feel more at home with a big brother that shares the same heritage. We feel our daughter is waiting for us in China, and we long to go there and bring her home. There are other smaller reasons we feel drawn to China but I think these are the main ones.

    Yet $21,000 seems so far away! But we are not giving up that easy. God has placed adoption on our hearts and we are going to continue forward. We are hoping to start the home study in January 2005. That's just three months. So our journey to bring baby Alana home is about to began.  We are so excited to finally embrace our dreams. To be a family, to have a daughter. Sean is excited also. He is hoping to be able to come with us to pick up his sister. It all depends when we get the call for our 'Gotcha Day' which is your pickup day to get your child. If he is in between classes we are hoping he can come. Some of you know that Sean taught himself the first year of Chinese. and took the second year at Baylor University. Then he signed up for the foreign exchange program last year. He spent the semester at Beijing China University . He made a lot of good friends and had some wonderful experiences there. Dipti his fiancee went the following semester. They both enjoyed the country and assures me that the beauty has no words to describe it.

    I like to think about our daughter out there somewhere in this beautiful land, just waiting for us to find her and bring her home. Whatever help that any of you can provide will be deeply appreciated beyond words and cherished for the rest of our lives. We would be thrilled to have you share a part of our journey. If any of you have ideals on how to raise money, grants that might help, knows anyone on a board of a foundation, information on adoption, stories, advise, encouragement ect.... please feel free to share.

    I know the road before us is not going to be a easy one but it will definitely be a rewarding one, of that I am sure. We feel very strongly about what we are getting ready to take on. One of our greatest regrets is that we can only bring home one or two of these children. If anyone has ever considered adoption, it is a journey that God himself took. The bible tells us God himself adopted us, and he says in James 1:27 "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress...." The need is there. These children are just waiting for the heart that will show them mercy, as God did us. So on that note I will close. Thank all of you for taking the time to read our story and share our dream. Please join us on Our Journey Of Adoption!

We love and appreciate you,

Rick and Debby