Elroy's Family

We got married in 2012 and Maryland for Emily to serve on Young Life staff. Part of her role on

staff was to be the director of Capernaum ministries. Capernaum is a Young Life ministry

directed towards teens and young adults with disabilities. Getting to lead this ministry together

gave us both a passion for people with disabilities. When we were called away from Young Life

staff, Sean and I knew that we would revisit this God given passion to serve this community in

some capacity in the future.

Alongside a passion for special needs ministry, the Lord also placed a desire to either foster or

adopt a baby in our future. When we decided to stop having biological kids after our youngest,

Avery was born, we prayerfully considered if it was the right time to begin the adoption process.

After seeing friends at church and in our community go through the Foster/Adoption process,

and understood it would be an investment of time and money, we had peace that it would have

to be whenever the Lord truly brought it to the forefront of our minds and hearts.

After attending a local Down syndrome association event in January 2022, it was instantly

clear that the Lord was calling us to adopt a child with Down Syndrome. As we looked further

into what this calling would look like for our family, we found NSDAN and it felt like an answer to

prayer. We were “all in”! We started the home study process a couple months later and were

officially on the NDSAN registry in June 2022.

We went into the process praying for 3 things:

● We prayed that God would give us the opportunity to meet a need - to provide an

option to a family who felt that they could not meet the specific needs of a child with

Down Syndrome. We prayed that God, in His sovereignty, already knew our child and

would give us the chance to adopt a child with Down Syndrome.

● We prayed for an opportunity to not just care for the needs of a child with Down

Syndrome but also that adoption would be an opportunity to invite an entire family into

a relationship with hopes to share the gospel over time.

● We prayed that our kids would catch the same vision that we had for this adoption. We

wanted them to have eyes for the marginalized, to be inclusive, and to be genuinely

excited for a sibling with unique needs and different abilities.

We waited for 10 months until we were matched with Elroy on March 22nd, 2023. God

answered all of these prayers in very specific ways by bringing us our sweet, Elroy Kai.

● Elroy was born on January 9th in Taiwan. His diagnosis of Down Syndrome came as a

surprise to his mom and dad about 6 weeks after he was born. His parents had

already made arrangements to move from Taiwan to Southern California once his

mom received her Green Card post the birth of Elroy. Elroy’s dad is a first-generation

Taiwanese-American man, who had moved from Taiwan to the US at the age of 13

and was the only one in his family (both immediate and extended) that spoke English.

Elroy’s mom would be moving for the first time from Taiwan to the US. Upon receiving

the news of Elroy’s diagnosis, his parents tried to imagine what their life would now

look like with a newborn with Down Syndrome. As they researched and pondered this

idea, they came to the realization that amidst also caring for their 18-month-old son

and transitioning to a new country which involves overcoming language barriers and

adapting to a new culture, they may not be equipped with the right resources to raise

him. They wrestled for a month or so before they made a decision to create an

adoption plan and soon after found the NDSAN which led them to our family. Elroy’s

parents were searching for a family that had the desire to come alongside them to

lovingly care for and offer resources they felt they couldn’t offer. They love him deeply

but felt based on their research of Down Syndrome, that if Elroy could have better

access to the correct resources, be valued and included, and be given opportunities to

grow - he would without a doubt, be successful in life.

● We had the privilege of going out to California to spend an extended weekend with not

only Elroy’s parents and biological brother, but uncle, great-aunt, grandparents, and

great-grandparents. The time gave us the ability to get to know them and their story,

earn their trust, and get to share our heart for adoption with them. It really was a sweet

time, in the midst of a difficult situation, that felt God-ordained. Conversations with

their family, despite cultural and language barriers felt natural, uplifting, and insightful.

It was clear in the big and little details of our time together that the Lord had gone

before us to merge our two families together.

● After spending the weekend together with Elroy’s family, his first parents signed

relinquishment papers that Monday and transitioned him to our care. The Lord made

this process seamless. We received the call that Wednesday afternoon that we had

permission to leave the state with Elroy and bring him home. This meant we could

surprise our kids, get to spend the last half of their Spring Break together, and

celebrate our daughter’s 8th birthday as a new family of 6! Elroy was greeted by our

kids with warm embraces and genuine celebration. The kids have decided that “Elroy

is perfect” and “he completes our family”. We have seen Avery step into her role of

being a big sister with great pride as she looks for ways to be helpful. Hudson has

taken on a new leadership role as he finds ways to play and engage with Elroy every

chance he can. Harper Grace has always been our nurturer, but she has taken this to

another level as she is able to help feed, dress, and watch over her new baby brother.

Our kids have created a rotating schedule for who gets to sit next to Elroy in the car as

well as who gets to pick out his outfits each morning. What a joy to see how quickly,

genuinely, and deeply they already care for their brother. The Lord has answered our

prayers.

We have had Elroy in our home for 4 months now and we couldn’t be more in love. We have watched

him persevere in therapies and already make progress physically and socially. In PT, Elroy has been

continuing to work on his neck control and we have seen tremendous improvement! We can tell

he is eager to start moving, especially when he sees his brothers and sisters moving around

him, but he can't quite figure out that part yet. He will start to kick his legs as if he wants to take

off crawling, yet is still right where he has been laying on his tummy the whole time. He

continues to work to strengthen the position of his arm extension to move toward crawling. We

are impressed by his ability to be pushed to his limits, persevere, quickly learn new skills, and

engage with her exercises for the entirety of our sessions.

Elroy began eating solid foods and continues to be on a consistent schedule with napping and

eating. So far he has tried broccoli, green beans, and carrots. The feeding therapist has been

impressed with his ability to manage new textures with his mouth and start mastering the

movement of using his tongue to eat off of a spoon. We will continue to work with her on this

and feed him meals during our lunch and dinner meal times. We are also working with her to

start to teach him 'baby sign language' - starting with the words "milk" and "more".

Some of Elroy’s favorite things include: playing on his water tummy time mat, interacting with

people (babbling, smiling, and giggling), and chewing on his teething toys. He is obsessed with

watching his older sisters and brother play around him and gets excited when he meets a new