Featured Family
John and Christi
- Home: Illinois
- Number of Children currently in the home: 0
- Hobbies: We have a little cabin near a lake where we often go on weekends to hike, fish, rowboat, have bonfires, and connect with nature. Back home in the city, we love going to cultural music shows, museums, playing tons of cards and board games, riding bikes along the Chicago lakefront, walking to the beach to swim, and eating out at cultural restaurants! We have lots of flowers and plants in our backyard that we tend to and Christi loves to bake!
- Ethnicity preference: We live in a very diverse neighborhood and we are a mixed white and Mexican-American couple. In addition to John’s Mexican family members, on both sides of our family we have close African-American family members and our pastors and their (adopted) kids are also African-American and bi-racial. Also, our church is incredibly diverse and John leads a multi-cultural nonprofit that celebrates all cultures around the world, so we feel strongly that a child of any racial identity would fit in well with our family and that our community will lovingly wrap themselves around them.
- Age preference: 0-1 year, we are very open to a sibling group.
- Adoption type: We strongly prefer open adoption, but will respect any degree of openness that the birth family wishes.
About Us
God brought us together in a very unexpected way. Before we ever met, we had each decided to remain single and had planned to adopt a child and raise them on our own. Even though we lived on opposite sides of the city and had never met, people in our lives encouraged us—around the same time—to be open to dating. Christi agreed to go on dates for one year, and John agreed to go on just three. Christi was one of those three dates… and we fell in love.
We live in a quiet neighborhood, but we’re just a 5-minute walk from shopping, music venues, restaurants from around the world, a movie theater, playgrounds, and even two beaches! The cultural diversity of our neighborhood is what we value most. People from all over the world live here, and more than 60 languages are spoken in our community.
Our home is very special to us—we love listening to music, playing games, and grilling in the backyard.
Near our home, we run a multicultural music nonprofit where we celebrate different cultures and host game nights and sing-alongs. Music is one of our biggest passions! Another passion of ours is spending time in nature. We love living in the heart of the city, but we also enjoy getting away to our cabin in Wisconsin to hike, swim in the lake, and fish.
Love, peace, and blessings to you!
John and Christi
Our Promise to You
We recognize that you’re making one of the most thoughtful and loving decisions a parent can make, and we have so much respect for you.
Thank you for taking the time to get to know us. We are prayerfully hoping for an open adoption, while also wanting to honor whatever level of connection feels most comfortable to you. We would love to meet you and, if you feel comfortable, would be honored to have an open adoption so your child can know you as they grow up. We will pour our heart and soul into raising your child and we want you to always know how deeply they are loved, how well they are cared for, and how joyfully they are growing in their love and knowledge of Christ.
We are praying for you and are truly grateful for you. We would love the opportunity to meet you, but we trust that you will make the decision that feels right for your child. Truly, not a day goes by that we don’t laugh together. Our life is filled with music, time in nature, and so much love—from our family, our community, each other, and our love for Christ. After beautiful years fostering a teenage girl and a newborn boy, we hope to expand our family.
Thank You
Thank you for taking the time to learn about our family and our hearts. We know this journey carries so much weight, and it means more than we can say that you would consider us. Whatever choice you make, we hold you in our thoughts with respect, kindness, and gratitude. Your strength is extraordinary, and we wish you peace and support in every step ahead.