Our Family Journey

Not flesh of my flesh, Nor bone of my bone, But still miraculously my own.
Never forget, for a single minute: You will not grow under my heart, but in it.

We have been blessed to have four wonderful children that we affectionately call the "Zoo Crew". Our house if filled with alot of noise, moving parts, love and laughter. So in the fall of 2015, we started down that adoption journey again. We were drawn to a photo of an adorable boy soon to "age out" of his orphanage in China. This has led us down another whirlwind paper chase to bring home our boy. We are so close to making the trip to China, and can't wait to make Matthew the newest Zoo Crew member. Follow along on our journey to bring home Matthew by visiting our Zoo Crew + 1 Adoption Blog.

In July 2011, we were drawn to a posting by our adoption agency of a little girl that was soon to "age out" of the orphanage in China, and they were hoping to find her family before her birthday in February, when she would no longer be eligible for adoption. After reviewing the information, giving it alot of thought and prayers, we knew she was to be our daughter. So we started the paperwork chase to bring her home. But God had a bigger plan in mind for the Himsels. Along the way, we decided to pursue adopting a little boy, and that journey actually led us to two little boys, who are 18 months and 14 months old. All three children are located in the Guizhou province. We are excited to be so close to bringing home Ella (Jinglan), William, and Ethan, and we hope you follow along with our journey. Follow along on our journey to bring home our three new children from China by visiting our China Adoption Blog.

In February of 2004, we made the decision to embark on a journey - one that would take us to the other side of the world. We decided to adopt internationally and after much research determined that Russia was where we would find our child. After mountains of paperwork, fingerprinting, blood work, and answering more questions than we could ever imagine (along with a few obstacles - mainly Deb's car accident in May) we submitted our dossier on July 2. We found out that our dossier was being sent to the Rostov region, and we began the next phase of waiting. We were told that it could be 2-4 months before we would receive our first travel dates, so the wait began. On Tuesday, September 21, we got "the call". To read about our journey to bring home Andrew, and to see updated photos, visit our Russian Journey.