Hello! We are Helen, Jesse, and Ben, our son. It’s so nice to meet you! Thank you for taking time to get to know us a bit. We are a loving, committed, fun family and are so excited for another child to join us. We don’t how you are feeling, but we deeply admire your courage in pursuing adoption. We look forward to learning more about you and we hope to provide you and your baby with the care and support you need on this journey.

If you decide our family is a good fit, we promise to raise your child with unconditional love
and encouragement in a joy-filled home. We will always support and encourage your child so that they can thrive and grow up to be a kind, mature, and loving person.

All our love,
Helen, Jesse, and Ben

We first met on a hot, remote airstrip in East Africa. Helen was arriving on a small plane to begin her work running a health program, and Jesse was waiting to board the plane to fly home. We became friends from there, working together for the same aid organization. After six years of friendship and moves that took each of us to different parts of the world, we reconnected in 2016 and started dating. After Jesse proposed to Helen on a beautiful beach at sunset, we were married in May 2018.

We’ve traveled the world, but our roots are in our hard-working, down-to-earth, loving families.
Our shared Christian faith and values, our love of adventure and other cultures, and a desire to prioritize our family have been foundations to our marriage and life together.

We have always desired a joyful and loving family, with a home full of the sound of kids playing and growing up together. After having one biological child we haven’t been able to have any more. We would love to welcome our next child into our home and our lives through adoption – we love how adoption births hope and joy out of difficult situations. As we have been on the adoption journey, we’ve learned that many of our closest friends have been involved in adoption in some way. We’ve also met many new friends through this journey who we can rely on for support and encouragement!

Helen is caring, wise, intelligent, faithful, and kind. Helen is patient, resilient, and persevering. She truly is someone who thinks first of others - a trait you don’t find very often nowadays. As a young girl, Helen wanted to work with elephants on the African plains. That didn’t quite work out, but she returned to Africa as a doctor to selflessly serve people in need. Underneath her kind and humble exterior, Helen is very witty - quick to make a wry joke, if the moment is right. Though she’s a doctor with an additional Master’s degree in Public Health, Helen now works very part-time so that she can prioritize our family.

She is an incredible mother, blending sacrificial heart, love of learning, and doctor’s experience to care for Ben, and sharing her wisdom and experience with other mothers in our neighborhood and church. Helen loves taking Ben out on little adventures around the city, spending time with other moms, and enjoys running, hosting friends and family, and painting.

Jesse is smart, hard-working, adventurous, and always ready to help others. Jesse is one of the most dependable, kind, funny, and thoughtful people I’ve ever known. He trained as an engineer and then used those skills to serve people in need as an international aid worker. He has worked in Central America, Africa, and the Middle East for aid organizations including the United Nations, and now works for the U.S. government, leading their programs to provide aid all around the world. Jesse is a passionate cyclist and also keeps fit running a half marathon each spring.

When Jesse became a dad, he discovered the role in life that he loves best of all. I love how he cares for our family so well, is endlessly patient and gracious with Ben, and loves taking Ben on creative and fun adventures.

Ben is our sweet-natured and joyful three-year-old son who can’t wait to become a big brother!

Ben loves the friends he’s made on our block, at church, and at his pre-k. He also loves trucks, our dog Winnie, and animals of all sorts – but especially elephants, giraffes, and crocodiles! He really enjoys reading, and discovering the world around him.

Ben is known as a gentle, kind friend to other kids. We know this will make him a wonderful big brother, not only when the kids are young, but when they grow up, too.

We live in a beautiful, historic neighborhood in Washington, D.C. Our three-bedroom home sits on a beautiful, quiet street in a diverse neighborhood. We live close to playgrounds, parks, schools, and lots of other young families. We are just blocks from the nation’s Capitol Building and world-class museums.

Our large basement is great for hosting our friends and family. We have a sunny front yard and a shady backyard with a large deck, which is wonderful in the hot summers. We have lots of fun in a large sandbox out back, playing in the front yard, and riding scooters down the sidewalk with other kids on the block. We’ve found wonderful community and stability in D.C. and are blessed with diverse and kind friends. We have created a warm and welcoming home and can’t wait for a new family member to join us.

With both of us living around the world for many years before we were married, finding community and stability was a priority for us when we got married and settled in D.C.

We love living in D.C., with its tree-lined streets, historical monuments, amazing museums, and green spaces. We love walking our dog around the neighborhood, hiking or biking along the beautiful riverside parks, and taking the short drive to the beaches or mountains nearby. We’re so
thankful for our great community of friends, neighbors, and a very supportive church family.

We share our home with a lovely black Labrador, Winnie. We both grew up with dogs, and Winnie’s gentleness and patience is perfect for little ones to grow up alongside.

We love getting together with good friends for a BBQ or dinner whilst the kids play, or biking along the river bank to a coffee shop or playground. We enjoy being active and out in nature – Jesse usually on a bike and Helen jogs with Winnie. Other times, we love simply being at home, making food, playing or reading in the living room, and chatting with neighbor friends.

We love to visit new places and experience other cultures.

Jesse: I have lived and worked in Central America, East Africa, Nepal, the Middle East and more! While living in Guatemala and Panama, I learned to speak Spanish and made life-long friendships.

Helen: I grew up in Kenya, and worked in both Kenya and South Sudan – where I met Jesse! I love the energy, beauty, and diversity of the African continent, and have a deep love for animals – especially those you’d see on a safari!

We love to go on adventures as a family and we hope to give our children a sense of wonder and respect for the amazing world we live in.

Our families are excited and waiting expectantly to welcome a new member into the family!

Jesse’s Family: I grew up in Arizona. I am the oldest of two boys and I spent my childhood surrounded by cousins, uncles, aunts and grandparents. Each year, we travel back to Arizona to celebrate Thanksgiving or Christmas. We love that we get to continue joining in on big family gatherings and traditions. Family traditions were a big part of my family growing up and something I’ve introduced into our family too. My parents are now retired and love to visit us or
to host us in their beautiful home in the Colorado mountains.

Helen’s Family: I grew up with three brothers, and spent many happy hours exploring our big backyard and playing with our many dogs, rabbits, and tortoises! My early childhood in Africa gave me a love of wide open spaces and embracing other cultures. When I was ten, my family moved to England, where they are based now. We love visiting England each year to gather with our family, including ten wonderful nieces and nephews. We’ve also enjoyed introducing English traditions (like ‘Christmas pudding’) to our friends back in D.C.!