For The Least Of These You Did For Me

Welcome to our family's blog. We are the Duryea family and we have seven children. You might be wondering why we chose this name for our blog. Well, to begin with we have three beautiful biological children and three beautiful children from China. I'll share our journeys to China to bring home our beautiful children later. For now, I'd like to share why we chose this name for our blog. The Lord showed me this verse when we were first seeking adoption. The Lord chose to grow our family through adoption. However, the Lord has also opened our eyes to the needs of orphans , especially in China. We consider "...looking after the orphans and widows in their distress..." James 1:17, as a way of life for us, a calling.

As I read through the many stories in our adoption agency's storybooks, there are countless stories that begin with "...after many years of experiencing infertility, we started the adoption process and are now a forever family"

If you are one of the countless couples that have experienced infertility, let me share with you the wonderful way of starting a family and at the same time providing a home for a needy orphan. God loves you and cares about you. "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11. If you are feeling hopeless, let me promise you that the Lord hears your cries. If you haven't ever trusted in Jesus and put your hope in him, do it now. Your life will be better than you could ever imagine. I never planned or dreamed I would go to China (3 times) and have this wonderful family. My plans surely would have never been as wonderful as they are today.

I had endometriosis for many years, yet I was able to conceive and have three beautiful children. After Sarah was born in 1998, I experienced severe problems and had surgery. However, I was unable to conceive, probably due to the scars left by endometriosis. Like many of you I had emotional scars as well. Even though I already had three children , I still felt called to have a larger family. Many months, tears, and prayers later we considered adoption. I heard about the plight of baby girls in China and the one child policy that left them abandoned. As we were praying about this, David's family in St.Louis was having a first time ever family reunion. I knew this wasn't coincidence, because David's cousin, a single mom, adopted two girls from China. One was 5 years old and the other was 9 months. This gave us the opportunity to meet them and talk to his cousin about adoption. When we came home we saw an advertisement for an adoption seminar in our area. We attended and were ready to start the paperwork to begin our adoption for a baby girl from China. Our lives would never be the same again.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

A Little Update On Our Life ~ By Sarah

Mom has been extremely busy this past month getting ready for Adam's graduation party and preparing for Luke, so she asked me to do a post to update you all.

On May 21, we received our LOA (Letter of Acceptance) and we are now just waiting for our travel date. My parents think that they will be going in end of July. So hopefully we could be getting a call any day now.

Our whole family is so excited about bringing home this precious treasure. I can't wait to hold him in my arms and tell him that he is going to have a family and that he's not going to be left behind.


On Memorial Day Weekend our adoption agency had our annual adoption picnic at the zoo. It was lots of fun being with other families that had adopted from China with us!



Nathan has started baseball and we have been running to his games! Nathan just loves baseball so much! When he finds out he has a game that night, he gets dressed in his uniform in the morning and is preparing for it all day (even though it's just mighty mites)!


Also, on June 9th, 2012 Adam graduated from high school! I'm so happy for Adam as he starts his new career as a Pre-Med Chemistry Major! Love you big bro!

Our whole family would really appreciate it if you guys prayed for us during this time. So I  have some prayer requests!
1. Please pray for our Luke. Pray that the Lord will be with him, and that he will understand everything once he gets here. Also, pray for his salvation.
2. Please pray that we will get a travel date soon. Pray it won't be long!
3. Also please pray for our dear friends who are in Ukraine right now working on adopting two sweet sweet boys. Pray that they will get home soon to there other children (because they were delayed). Once they get home they have to take a second trip to finally bring home the boys. Pray for safe travel for them and for good health. Pray that the Lord will soften the boys hearts and they will be open to hearing the Gospel.

That's all I have for now! Hopefully next time mom will be updating you all. 


posted at 12:47 PM
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