Hi, we’re Jim and Audra. Thanks for checking out our profile. We’re so glad that you are interested in considering us as prospective adoptive parents!
We’ve been married since 2017 but have known each other for about ten years. We first met while both working together at our church. At the time, Jim was married to his now late wife, Victoria, so we never thought of each other as anything other than friends and co-leaders in the youth group. However, in 2015, Victoria passed suddenly due to brain cancer leaving a big hole in Jim’s heart.
After serving as a worship volunteer at another church, in August 2015, Audra was asked to come back to our home church and serve as the Interim Worship Director. At that point, we reconnected as friends and not too long after, in the fall 2016, we started dating. We spent every moment we could with each other. In December of 2016, on New Year’s Eve, Jim surprised Audra with a special engagement proposal. We were married the following year on July 22, 2017. Now, we work together at the church with Jim as Senior Pastor and Audra as Worship Director.
Having children has been a lifelong dream for us, yet we weren’t sure it would ever come true. After four years of marriage, we weren’t able to conceive. So, we prayed about it, and sought advice from friends who have adopted. We truly believe that adoption would be the best image of God’s love for us and a great way to grow our family.
Audra is a great friend who cares deeply about everyone. She truly listens to you and never judges. She’s always encouraging and affectionately cheering on those she loves. Audra’s presence is calming and confident whether she’s leading a worship team or the kid’s choir at church, who all think she’s pretty awesome. She loves organizing and planning fun things for us like our vacations to Disney World. She also has an entrepreneurial spirit. Audra makes and sells candles, bible and prayer journals, homemade cards, and gifts in order to fund our adventures.
I know Audra will be an amazing mother ready for anything. She was a teacher for nine years, camp counselor for sixteen years, and she essentially helped raise her sister who is eleven years younger than her. She will definitely help our future kids succeed in whatever they choose to do.
Jim is a big kid at heart, and also a kid magnet! Every Sunday, it warms my heart to see the junior and senior high boys come up to him after church and talk about the latest movies or comic books. All of the younger kids make it a priority to seek him out too. They often give him a high five or wave at him across the room. Last year, at our church’s Trunk or Treat event, one of the younger boys even preferred to hang out with Jim instead of staying at his parents’ car. He and Jim were both dressed as Stars Wars characters, so it was really adorable!
It’s no surprise that Jim is a kid magnet. He is always smiling and encouraging, and full of dad jokes. Plus, he was a youth pastor for fifteen years and has four nephews, so being with kids is nothing new to him. There is no doubt that he will be an absolutely wonderful dad!
For the first few years of our marriage, we lived in an old farmhouse that needed a lot of work. After a lot of labor, we decided that country life wasn’t for us. So, we moved to town into a newly constructed bi-level house with four bedrooms, an awesome eat-in kitchen for Jim to cook in, a large great room, and a cozy living room where we love to play games and watch movies. We’re so thankful for this clean safe house where we’re able to decompress from work and enjoy life together.
Our house is in a beautiful and friendly neighborhood near the main street of our small lakeside town. There are always plenty of families with kids out playing, riding their bikes, or walking around our block. We have some great families from our church who live nearby. We also have several law enforcement officers in the neighborhood, which make us feel really safe.
We really like the small-town atmosphere here. We can always go to the grocery store and see people we know. A lot of them are part of our amazing community of people who love and support us at our church. We’re in walking distance to both the library and the local ice cream shop. The schools are great, and we already have some great relationships with some of the teachers. One of the best aspects of living here is that we’re five minutes to the beach where we can play, relax, and enjoy food from local food trucks.
We live at the midpoint between both of our families. Three hours in one direction is Audra’s family, and three hours in the other direction is Jim’s family. This has worked out perfectly so that we can see each of our extended families equally. Audra has a rather large yet very connected extended family with many aunts, uncles, and cousins in addition to her mom, dad, stepmom, brother, and sister. Jim has a much smaller and close-knit family with one sister, brother-in-law, four crazy nephews, his mom, and stepdad.
Both of our families are so excited to welcome a new child into the family. This will be the first time Audra’s parents will be grandparents, and the first time that Jim’s sister will be an aunt. We also have an amazing church family nearby. There will be many honorary grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins who will probably spoil our future child, but will be an encouragement every step of the way. Any child that God places in our arms will truly be loved and cherished by everyone in our family!
Creativity and family time are two main themes in our home. We both love to be creative! Jim paints, draws, sculpts, and pretty much anything else artistic in his free time. He even enjoys using his artistic skills to create Star Wars ships and models. Audra loves to make cards, candles, and write music. Both of us have an aptitude for computers, so we like to make videos for church and social graphics for upcoming events. We look forward to encouraging our future children to explore all sorts of creative expressions, discovering what they are good at, and providing them with the tools to excel and learn.
We may have our separate creative interests, but we absolutely love our family time! Every night, we make sure to spend time together whether it is watching a movie, playing Mario Kart or board games, or playing music together. When we adopt, we will continue this tradition and every night will be family night! We will always want our future child to know that no matter how their day went, we will come together as a family each night to rest, recharge, encourage one another, and simply have fun.
Holidays in our home are unique since we work at church. We work hard to make Christmas and Easter extra special for our church family, but we prioritize spending time with our extended family as well. When we are with our families for holidays we love to eat big meals, laugh a lot, play games, and cram in the living room to watch movies together.
Thank you so much for taking time to learn more about us. We are looking forward to getting to know you as well. We cannot thank you enough for choosing to bring this baby into the world. We admire your bravery in this difficult decision, and we promise to be the best parents that we can be.
If we get the chance to meet you, we would love to hear your hopes for openness in the adoption. We want the child we adopt to know from the beginning about their adoption and how thankful we are that you chose us to be their parents and take care of them.
We wish you all the best as you decide which path is best for you and your baby. If you have any questions or simply want to get to know us better, don’t hesitate to reach out.
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