Little did we know that when our friends decided to host a 6 year old Chinese boy w/ medical needs in the summer of 2013, that it would radically alter what we thought our family would eventually look like.

We love adoption and the story it depicts of how we've been adopted by God. In a perfect world, Yuan Li would be living w/ his biological family and be loved, nurtured, and encouraged by them. But our world's not perfect and God created a Plan B, and by his grace, he interrupted our lives in order for us to be part of that plan. We didn't anticipate being called to international adoption, especially to China, but we have been and so here we go.

We don't believe this journey is about the Stepan family doing an adoption and "saving" a child. We don't save anybody. But we are beyond humbled that God's choosing to use us as part of Yuan Li's redemption plan through the role of being his parents. We desperately pray this story is about Yuan Li being made physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually whole in Jesus Christ alone. And we hope to have many, many, MANY of you advocating for him right along w/ us by sharing his story, and maybe even financially supporting.

We are humbled to tears through the support we have through family and friends- you're as much a part of this story as we are. The fact of international adoption is that it takes innumerable people and their time to push paper and navigate red tape- and those people have to be paid. The $ we will pay our agency alone is in the neighborhood of $30,000. We've seen God provide right on time, over and over, through friends, family, and even strangers.

Thank you in advance from the bottom of our hearts,

Jon, Sarah, Magnus and Elliott