Chris, the kids and I are so excited to be growing our family through adoption. Throughout our journey with infertility, we were often asked why we didn't consider adopting. While we have always wanted to adopt internationally, we also wanted to grow our family in the traditional manner first. We had faith that God would call us to adoption eventually, it wasn'™t until after the surprise birth of Ezra that we truly understood God's destiny for our family. We have been matched with a beautiful 4-year-old girl from China. She was the literal answer to Luella'™s dream and you can read more about how God orchestrated this amazing blessing for us on Melanie's blog at http://sunshinepraises.com/category/adoption. Our sweet Lydia is profoundly deaf and is noted to have mild cerebral palsy. We know that she has lived many years without any language and we expect that in addition to physical and occupational therapies, her largest need will be undoing the damage done by five years of language deprivation. Fortunately Lydia will be surrounded by ASL from the very beginning. We can not express how much we already love Lydia and look forward to bringing her home. The total cost of of our adoption is $35,000 and we plan to reach this goal through a combination of our savings, grant dollars and personal fundraising. By donating through this site, your donation is 100% tax-deductible and will help us bring our daughter home. Even more important than financial support, we covet the prayers of our family and friends. We can do nothing in our own flesh but only in the power of our one true God.