Adoption Ministry letter

Dear Family and Friends,
We are writing you today with a special request that God has lain on our hearts.

As you may know our family has a ministry of adopting orphans from China.  We have three special children that God has blessed us with, Hannah Min, Rebekah Lu and Nathan Gouchang.  Even though, the majority of orphaned children are abandoned in China because of the one child policy or the inability to care for their special need, each has a special gift and a special place with God’s Kingdom.

Hannah, who is 8 years old and our first adopted child, was not excluded from the one child policy. She was one day old when she was abandoned. We know this because her umbilical cord was still attached. She was 8 ½ months old when we adopted her. She is a delight to our family and is very bright.

Rebekah, who is 6 years old and our second adopted child, was 3 weeks old when she was abandoned. She was taken to the Chongyang orphanage where she lived until we adopted her.  We remember the day she was given to us. She cried and cried and her clothes smelled of smoke. She was 10 ½ months old. Rebekah is a joy to our family and is also very smart.

Nathan is also 6 years old and our third adopted child. He is a special needs child. He was 2 ¾ years old when we adopted him and only 19lbs.   We discovered that he had a parasite.  He was born with a cleft lip/palate.  Nathan also has a severe language delay and developmental delays.  Nathan’s speech is progressing but requires a great amount of speech therapy.

The Lord has given us the strength and abilities to minister to our children and the faith to take on special challenges.  The Lord has opened are hearts and eyes to the needs of orphans in China.  On our trip to China to make Nathan part of our forever family, we had the opportunity to visit his orphanage in Luoyang, Henen Province.  This was a special needs orphanage with about 600 children.  We were able to visit Nathan’s room which had about 20 -30 special needs children including one blind child.


The statistics of waiting special needs children in China are staggering. According to "Love without Boundaries", 85% of children in Chinese orphanages have some sort of medical special need. Some of the many needs are heart defect, missing fingers/limbs, club foot, cleft lip/palate, deafness, hepatitis, malformed ears, etc.

The Lord has been stretching, growing and stirring our hearts to answer his call that is found in James 1:27 “…taking care of the orphans and widows in their distress.” (NIV). While we were looking at our agency’s website we noticed a cute little boy on their special focus list. He is deaf. Our first thought was no way this is too hard. But the Lord kept tugging at our hearts and reminding us of what his life is like in an orphanage, being alone in the world and in total silence, without hope, without love and without knowing the love of Jesus Christ.

 The Lord has lain on our hearts to pursue the adopting little boy like this one. “Their cries are heard only by God – if we listen with our hearts, we can hear them, too.” – Children’s Hope International.   During his stay in the orphanage he will be provided with the basic necessities, but may not be able to be schooled or trained in any deaf communication.  Even the best institutions can only do so much because the children are so numerous. By the age of 18 he may be sent on the streets to survive on his own.


Although he has been adopted (PTL), the Lord has used him to stir our hearts and pursue adopting another deaf little boy. We would like you to prayerfully consider joining us in this ministry to adopt this 2 year old boy.  If God has stirred your spirit with our story and you would like to help continue his work, then we are asking you to first pray that God’s work continues and He guides our direction and resources to His plan.  Second, please pray and consider helping us with financial resources to offset the monetary burden of this adoption.

In 2 Corinthians 9:12 God says in “This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God” (NIV).  When God’s peoples’ needs are supplied, God’s blessings will overflow. The cost of the adoption will be $30,000 plus special medical costs for his condition.  We have been blessed that God has provided the funds through employment and tax credits for our previous adoptions and we continue to pursue these sources for this adoption.  However, even with these resources we are experiencing a financial need.


If God has moved you to help us with financial support, we have a special fund set up with our adoption agency, European Adoption Consultants (aka EAC). The funds can be anonymous if requested and the donation is a tax deduction since EAC is a nonprofit organization. 
To send resources directly to EAC: European Adoption Consultants, Inc. 12608 Alameda Drive, Strongsville, Ohio 44149. Attention: Duryea Adoption Fund, Phone#440-846-9300, 800-533-0098. www.eaci.com
For more information about Chinese Orphans you can visit these websites:

Shaohannah’s Hope, www.showhope.org

Half the Sky Foundation, www.halfthesky.org

Love without Boundaries, www.lovewithoutboundaries.com

Allow us to leave you with some scriptures that the Lord has laid on our heart pertaining to adoption:

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” James 1:27.

“I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” Matthew 25:40

Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. Isaiah 1:17

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families. Psalm 68: 5-6

You can also follow us on our BLOG at For the Least of These: http://fortheleastofthese-duryeafamily.blogspot.com/
 This child's life will change forever through adoption. He will have the love and care of our family and his medical, educational, and nutritional needs met and most importantly he will know the love of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
May God bless you and we thank you in advance for all your support and prayers.
David, Laura, Adam, Ethan, Sarah, Hannah, Rebekah, and Nathan Duryea