First, and foremost, we have a passion to follow God's will for our life. We feel we are the best version of ourselves when we are seeking to become like Christ. We love to attend our church, be a part of small life groups and serve our community through God's love. We sponsor a child from Indonesia through our Church's global outreach.

Joe is a passionate golfer. He loves to play in golf tournaments with his dad. The most important golf tournament is a fund raiser for a local organization that supports and services our special needs community within our city.

Heather is passionate supporting local children's activities including sports. We both regularly attend the sporting events of our students throughout the community. We are both passionate about supporting local animal charities. We both support and donate to local food drives and are passionate about the Angel networks at church and the local schools that provide holiday gifts for those families in need.

Our biggest joy in our leisure time is spending time with family and close friends.

One of our favorite activities is going out to eat. Our city offers a ton of options! We also love to go to movies and to the theater. We enjoy reading and listening to music. Country music is our favorite.

We love taking our two dogs on walks around our beautiful neighborhood and to the dog park. We enjoy going to local festivals and seasonal attractions around our city. We love going to our city's football and baseball team games.

Heather loves to cook and to bake. We have a large Sunday supper every week after church and she bakes many treats to share with her school community and the neighbors. Her favorite is the Christmas cookie swap she started on our block.

Once a week we get together with other couples from our church to study the Bible and fellowship with one another. Most of all we simply enjoy quality family time.

Our promise to you is to hold you in the utmost and highest respect. Words cannot describe our deep gratitude to you. We promise to create an environment of love and support for our child. We plan to be open, and honest about how our family came to be with our child. This will include undying respect, love and gratitude for adoption. When we got married, we participated in a unity ceremony. We filled a mason jar with three colors of sand. The colors represented Joe, Heather and God. By intertwining the different colors of sand together, it demonstrated our new family as one. When we bring the baby home, he or she, will have a similar jar with two shades of pink or blue sand and white sand to represent God. One shade of blue or pink will represent us and the other shade will represent you, demonstrating how our wonderful family came to be united. This mason jar will sit in their room as a constant reminder of the great love that began their life. We promise to constantly pray for you and thank God for you continually.

We live in the great state of Kansas. Our neighborhood has been established for decades and we have many tall beautiful trees lining our quaint streets.

We have an amazing four-bedroom home with a formal dining room and living room area, along with a family room where we spend time together. We also have a finished basement that is ready to be a playroom. We have a big back yard that includes a tree swing, nice outdoor seating, and a large fenced area awaiting a play set for our future child.

We have a wonderful pool in our community that has a great area for children. Many of our neighbors frequent the pool on sunny summer days and we love to join them for a swim.

We have a wonderful and extended family! Joe is an only child but both of his parents live nearby in Kansas. His mom, Tricia, enjoys spending time with the two of us in celebrating any and all of life's joys. His dad, Joe, is a retired teacher. We enjoy spending time with him and his girlfriend, Ellen, doing the many fun things Kansas City has to offer.

Heather's mom, Chrys, lives five minutes from us. We see her and Heather's aunt Lani, regularly as we attend church, go to brunch and go to movies together. Heather's dad, Gary, and sister, Alycia, live in Houston, Texas. We travel to visit them a couple of times a year in Texas. While in Texas we love to swim at Gary's house and spend family time together. Alycia is married to Turner and they have two daughters, Kira (age 14) and Hannah (age 2). We love spending quality time with our nieces. Kira comes to spend a week in Kansas City with us every summer, and we enjoy taking her to festivals, amusement parks, and having game nights.

Heather's dad's side of the family has a farm in Oklahoma and we spend the Fourth of July and Christmas's there with our cows, horses and donkeys. Family is the number one priority in our life and we spend every opportunity we get to have quality time with them. We look forward to having a child to join in our family fun.

We would like to first begin by expressing our deepest gratitude for your consideration. Please know that we are praying for you and that we believe God is in this situation guiding the steps. Words cannot express our appreciation for being able to be a part of this process. We entered this adoption process with love in our hearts and open arms. We believe that this is such a monumental blessing from God and we are so appreciative for the opportunity to be chosen.

We have been married for seven years and because we both have an education background, we love being surrounded by kids. We believe kids bring light, happiness, and joy to our lives. Although Joe now works in sales, he was an educator for ten years and still volunteers at Heather's school. We feel honored to be a part of our students' lives and continue relationships with many of our previous students and their families. We find ourselves often commenting, while we are out and about, how much fun it will be to have our own kids to do life with.

We are unique in the fact that Heather will have the same school breaks as our children and Joe's job offers him the flexibility to work from home. This will allow us to be able to spend quality family time and take trips together. As educators we understand how to raise kids by supporting their academic needs, teaching social and emotional skills, and supporting their personal growth. Our future child will attend a nationally ranked school district that not only has top academics but also a multicultural environment. We are also unique because we are fortunate to live in one of the best places in America to raise a family. We also can give our future child a country life experience when we travel to our family farm through out the year. This will help to teach them city and country life skills.

Parenting is the most important job in this world. We look up to our own parents and pray for guidance to be the best parents we can be. Our faith and the church will be a huge part of our parenting journey. We will model ourselves through Christ's teaching and we'll strive to instill the morals, characteristics, and values that Jesus has shown us. The best way to do this is to love deeply and we already love the baby that will come to be a part of our family more than we could ever say! Our church has just received a prestigious award from an organization in our city recognizing our church's ministry for families that have gone through the adoption process and/or foster care. Our church has a large heart for families of all types.

Being surrounded by family members and great friends that feel like family is the foundation of our daily life. Everyone is so excited to have a new addition to love, support, and cherish. Heather's mom both of Joe's parents are retired. They will provide child care while we are at work. This is such a blessing to us and to our future child!

Again we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your consideration. We promise to be the best and most loving parents that you could hope to find!

Love,

Joe & Heather