Break My Heart for What Breaks Yours: Reflections on Our Orphanage Visit

Five weeks ago today, my heart was broken in the most radical way. The breaking took exactly twenty-four minutes, but I’ll never view the world the same way again. Five weeks ago today, I pulled up to a dilapidated building in the middle of a rundown city in China in a silver van, accompanied by

China: Days 11-13

Our final two days in China were spent relaxing and praying that our visa would come in time for us to catch our Hong Kong flight!  We woke up Wednesday morning, our final day in Guangzhou, and decided to make the best of it despite the unknown visa situation. We spent the morning walking around

China: Days 7-8

Happy Sunday, friends! Before I dive into my weekend recap, I wanted to answer a few questions I’ve gotten since I started posting about our adoption process… 1) How old is Brooks? He turned one on 9/16, the birthday he was assigned at the hospital, so he’s now roughly 14 months old. 2) What is

China: Days 3-6

Hey, friends! Happy Friday from China! We are wrapping up our time here in Hangzhou today and headed to the second destination in our trip – Guangzhou. Here’s what we’ve been up to! Tuesday morning, we had breakfast and then headed back to the Civil Affairs office to finalize the adoption in Brooks’s province and

China: Days 1-2

Well, heyyyyyyy, from Hangzhou, China! (What in the actual world, y’all?!!) I cannot believe we are over 7,000 miles away from home right now. This trip has been quite the adventure so far. Here’s what we’ve been up to since Friday… We left DFW Friday afternoon and flew 14 hours to Beijing. Neither Blake nor

Answering the Hard Question: "Why Go All the Way to China When So Many American Kids Need Loving Homes?"

So, I’ve written quite a few posts now about our adoption and how the process is going, and I am thrilled to see so much interest from friends in hearing about how we got to this point. I’ve had questions about what the process looks like, the financial obligation, the children’s care prior to adoption,

"But There Aren’t Any Boys in China…"

A lot of my conversations regarding our adoption lately have gone a little something like this… Friend: So, I read on your blog that you guys are open to either gender. Doesn’t everyone who adopts from China get a girl? Don’t the Chinese families keep all the boys? Me: Well, actually, by not specifying that