We have BIG news!

We are adopting another child from China and are about to become Patten Party of 8!

We are beyond excited and are doing everything we can to be prepared to welcome a sweet little girl into our home.  As part of our adoption process, we have started a crowdfunding campaign. It may surprise you to hear that adoption related costs can easily total up to $35,000 or more. This is why we have set a fundraiser to help ease some of the financial burden that often overwhelms adoptive parents.

  We have 3 beautiful biological children, 2 daughters who are 9 and 10 years old and one son who is about to turn 7.  We adopted 2 sons from the special needs adoption program in China, one in December 2015, he is currently 4 years old, and another son in August 2017,  he is currently 6 years old. Once our adoption is complete she will be our 6th child. We could have never imagined we would ever have 6 children.  Going to China and seeing the children in the orphanages that needed a family to love and care for them and lack of medical care they were receiving changed us forever.  Our big problems now seemed very small and we really simplified our lives.  We became more thankful for all our basic necessities that we use to take for granted. We realized that we are not called to live a comfortable life, we are called to live a meaningful life.

When we adopted our son from China in December 2015 we had no idea he was so sick at that time. We were handed a very sick baby when we arrived to China. We were told to leave him behind and not proceed because of his condition. We chose to stay and fight for him. He spent 6 days in a China ICU getting well enough to leave China and come home with us to Tennessee. We have been fighting for him ever since. He remains a fighter despite the challenges he faces. He changed us forever!

We had no idea at the time but God was working in our lives and we would soon be returning to China a second time in August of 2017.  Our second son we adopted from China has a genetic disorder called Beta Thalassemia. He needs blood transfusions every 3 to 5 weeks to live because his body does not make part of his red blood cells. Blood is scare in China and he was not getting the blood as often as he needed to live a normal life.  Children with Thalassemia in China do not survive childhood because of this. Most of them end up in orphanages because parents feel they have no other choice or cannot afford the blood transfusions. Here in the US his life span is now 60-65 years or more. He is an amazing little boy and I cannot imagine our lives without him.  He is thriving with the care St Jude's is providing him here in the US. He really opened our eyes to Thalassemia and the desperate need for more families to be open to adopting children with this genetic disease.  

We felt a calling to go back once more and help another child with Thalassemia.  We prayerfully considered a little girl who will be 6 in the Spring. After lots of prayer and talking together as a family we knew we had to return one more time. God really gave us a sense of peace about our decision.  She deserves a family and a life outside of the orphanage.  She deserves medical care that will help her live a long life. Our family will be complete once we bring her home. We knew that we could adopt one more time before we reached our maximum family size per China adoption rules and really what we can handle as parents also. Our family felt complete with our last adoption, but when we saw her face and heard her story, we knew what had to be done. We had to step out in faith one last time and welcome her to our family.    We have enough money to get the adoption process started, but not enough to finish. We are doing our part to be more frugal, and applying for all the grants we qualify for. We are still recovering financially from our last 2 adoptions, but refuse to leave her in China knowing we can become her family and also get her the medical care she needs to survive.

We've started a fundraiser on Pure Charity to raise the funding that we need to complete our adoption.  

Would you kindly consider making a donation? Also, we would appreciate your willingness to share this with others who may want to participate.

Thank you so much for being a part of our lives and stepping out in faith with us to help bring our daughter home.

John 14:18
I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

"We love you before we knew you, even when there was just hope for you we loved you."