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Meet Daniel & Dana

A video message from Daniel & Dana

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A Letter from Daniel & Dana

Hi!  We are a family of three who love spending time together, creating new memories, and making each other laugh

We are honored that you have considered us as a family for your precious child. We are so excited to grow our family through adoption again. Our hearts are open to adopt a girl or boy of any race and we promise to surround them with an abundance of love.  We are happy to have occasional visits, phone calls, and share letters, photos/videos, or whatever you are comfortable with.

About Us

We are at our best when we’re together. Home is a safe place and family is our strength. As ministers we share our love for people as much as we can because everybody needs to know they are loved.

We knew very early in our marriage that adoption would be the way that we would share our love with a child. We began taking adoption classes in 2014, and later that year Dana had to have an unexpected hysterectomy. That same year we were blessed to adopt our son, Luca, who was almost 3 years old at the time. We now look forward to growing our family once more and are excited for all the new memories and moments we will share with our next child, from finding out their favorite color to seeing their expression the first time they eat ice cream.

As a family, we love Friday night movies on the couch with homemade popcorn, weekend water parks, apple picking in the mountains, and sharing new experiences with the people we love.

Meet Dana (By Daniel)

Dana is a bright, compassionate, determined, fun-loving woman with a heart of gold. She homeschools our son, keeps a clean and beautifully decorated home, and takes wonderful care of Luca (our son) and me each and every day. Most of all Dana loves to laugh and her laughter is contagious. She always has a new recipe to try and makes the best spaghetti sauce! Dana absolutely loves to plan family trips, bake up some goodies, and draw cartoon characters. She enjoys hosting family gatherings, building Legos with Luca, and decorating for each season inside the house and out. She is an amazing mom and, when not doing school with Luca, Dana likes to do crafts and play video games with him. I know that her heart is longing for the day when she gets to love and cuddle and care for another precious child. She looks forward to making their favorite foods, watching their favorite cartoons, and rocking them and singing lullabies until they fall asleep after bedtime stories with lots of stuffed animals. She is fully devoted to being a stay-at-home mom and making sure that our children have beautiful childhood memories.

Meet Daniel (By Dana)

Daniel is kind, loving, hard-working, and honest. He has a huge heart for others and loves to get his hands dirty working in the yard or making some kind of mess in the garage. He was a Machinist and Mechanic before he went back to school to become a Mechanical Engineer, so he can fix almost anything! Any time there is a group of kids laughing or having fun, you can usually find him at the center of it all. Daniel is gentle and wise, and he always knows how to calm down a difficult situation. He likes to share his enthusiasm with others, loves doing outdoor things like fishing or riding ATVs, and enjoys making homemade Turkey Jerky. Luca is his “little buddy” and sometimes it’s hard to tell who’s having more fun when they play together. He is excited to teach our next baby how to walk, swim, throw a ball and ride a bike; and when they are ready, maybe even build a robot or a dollhouse.

Our Son and Family

Luca is a confident 11-year-old goofball with a mischievous smile and he loves being silly. He enjoys making new friends, laughing, and all things Lego! Luca is excited to share with his little sibling everything he knows and looks forward to teaching them how to dance, make silly faces, do karate chops, and sing his favorite songs. He is excited to read to them, make them laugh, and is thrilled to become a big brother!

Much of Daniel’s family lives out of state, but we all keep in touch throughout the year. Daniel has 1 sister and a brother who has 3 boys. We all get together at least once a year and talk about how big everyone is getting. Our family gatherings are pretty loud, but there’s always tons of hugs and kisses, and family meals. Most of Dana’s family lives very close by, and we all see each other multiple times each week. Nana and Papa pastor our church, and we get together often with Dana’s cousins, aunts and uncles where we play Harper Family Bingo.

All of our family and friends can hardly wait to welcome another child into the family through adoption!

Our Home in North Carolina

We live in a safe community along the banks of the Neuse River where there is a family-like feel among our friends and neighbors. Our 2-story home is clean and welcoming with 4 bedrooms. We like to splash and swim in the backyard pool on hot days and cozy up on the couch near the woodstove when it’s chilly. There is plenty of space in our fenced-in yard for playing and running, and lots of trails in the woods for exploring.

Our dwarf rabbit, Coconut, is sweet and cuddly and our goofy outdoor cat, Mr. O’Malley, can usually be found taking a nap somewhere in the yard with his belly in the air.

We’re a short walk from the river and a playground, and a short drive from the ocean and all the annual festivals and events that take place in the surrounding coastal communities. We have a seafood festival, a chill festival, pig-picking, blueberry festival, mum festival, mullet festival, and so many more.

Our Promise to You

We promise to tell your child all about the story of their adoption, just as we did with Luca. We promise to love your child and to nurture them and provide a safe environment to grow and learn. We will teach them about God and His amazing grace. They will know love so that they can share love with others. We promise to kiss their boo-boos and go crazy when they do something special. We promise to rock them to sleep, sing them lullabies, read them stories, and cuddle them even when they are way too big to sit on our laps.

If you would like to learn more about us, please call or text Lifetime at 1.800.923.6784.

Learn More About Daniel & Dana

  Daniel Dana
Our EducationBachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering, Associate's Degrees in Manufacturing and Machining, High School
Our ProfessionsMechanical Design EngineerHome Maker, Home school teacher, Youth director
Stay-At-HomeNoYes!
Our Racial BackgroundCaucasianCaucasian
Some of Daniel & Dana's Favorites
Super HeroThe HulkThor
Movie CandyTwizzlersPeanut M&Ms
AnimalSea HorsePandas
Classic Car1988-1992 Black Iroc-Z Camaro1980's Chevy Pickup Truck
MealAny kind of pasta with Italian SausageHomemade Vegetable Beef Soup
Outdoor PlaceThe WoodsThe Pool
HolidayIndependence DayThanksgiving
More About Our Family
Luca's Adoption Story

During our first years together, we built wonderful relationships with many children in our youth group at church and we loved being a part of their lives. We knew we wanted children of our own, but when Dana wasn't able to get pregnant after a few years, we began looking into adoption and started learning about the process. Then Dana began to suffer with some medical issues that required a pretty sudden hysterectomy. It was a difficult time, but knowing that our heart was already set on adoption made it much easier to move forward.
Several months later, we received a call about a two-year old boy who was being discharged after several weeks in the hospital and he needed a home that afternoon. We said yes, and a very energetic little boy arrived in our driveway a few hours later. The next few days were an emotional roller coaster, but as time went on, we became more and more sure that this was the way that God intended for us to build our family. It wasn't until a few weeks had passed that we happened to notice that Luca's birthday was the same date Dana had her hysterectomy surgery! God was showing us that He had it all worked out and we just needed to trust Him. We are excited to trust Him again with another adoption!

More about our Faith and Family

Dana's dad has been a Pentecostal Holiness pastor for over 35 years, and we still attend the same church that he married us in. We are both licensed ministers and we lead the youth program at our church, with Dana teaching the younger Sunday school class while Daniel teaches the teenagers. We are very committed to our faith in Jesus, and we believe that He has provided us with a hope that outshines any darkness. We are far from perfect, but we do try to live by God's Word while praying for His strength each day. Our church family is a very close, supportive group where we all worship together, laugh together, cry together and most importantly, pray together.

Plans for Childcare and Education

Dana has been and will continue to be a stay-at-home mom when our baby is growing up. We have a few friends with new babies, and another friend with one on the way, so they will certainly have plenty of play dates together, but childcare will be handled mostly by Dana during the day while Daniel is at work. Once grade-school starts, homeschool will be done with curriculum from Abeka, but in the pre-school years, there are many other opportunities for learning and reaching those developmental milestones. Doing it all through homeschool lets a child learn at their own pace while experiencing all those special things, like field trips to the aquarium without the distraction of dozens of other kids. We look forward to being completely committed to our baby's future from the ABC's all the way to finding out what their passion is and helping them have the resources they need to become the best version of themselves.

Family Traditions

Family traditions make some of the best childhood memories. One of our favorite traditions is Fall apple picking--it is a seasonal must! Every Christmas, we have a big day where we bake and decorate lots of cookies together and then give them to friends and family. We also plan a special day of family fun each year in May to celebrate Luca's adoption, and we look forward to doing the same for our future baby.

We Prefer a Child Who Is...
Age of Child

Newborn to 2 years old

Twins

Yes, double the blessing!

Gender

Either

Race

Any race!

In Closing

Thank you for taking the time to get to know us better. We are looking forward to hearing from you and learning all about your thoughts and desires for your baby. We can't wait to begin this journey of open adoption with you and find the level of contact you are comfortable with. We are open to letters, emails, pictures, videos, phone calls, and or visits.

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