The Bourland Family Home Page

All about us and how we recently became a family of five!

Our family consists of Todd (husband and "Daddy"), Amy (wife and "Mama") Elizabeth, our first daughter from the People's Republic of China, Emmeline, our second daughter from China, and EasterAnna, our youngest daughter from South Korea. We traveled to Jiangxi province, China in March of 1996 to adopt Elizabeth and to Jiangsu province, China in September of 1998 to adopt Emmeline. EasterAnna was escorted to us from South Korea in July of 2006. We only had to travel from Florida to Atlanta to meet her. To read about each adoption journey and see pictures, see the links at the bottom of this page. Our photo pages for 1996,1997 and most of 1998 can be accessed below. I am working on getting lots of updated photos uploaded soon (I hope)!
*This past summer, our big news was that we would soon become a family of FIVE because we were adopting a baby girl from the Republic of Korea. Well, EasterAnna Joan (Korean name) Bourland is HOME, as of July 21, 2006! Below shows one of her referral pictures, and below it is a picture of our little sweetie soon after coming home, and next to that one is a picture of her now (with the pink hat on):<

Our Agency for this adoption was Children's Home Society and Family Services in MN. Our home study agency was Florida Home Studies and Adoptions. Both agencies were wonderful! To read all about our journey to EasterAnna in South Korea, you can soon click on her page below - it will be updated soon with her story. It was a totally different experience than our China adoptions, but it was absolutely miraculous and wonderful!
Now for more about us:

How Our Family Was Formed
Todd and I met in Microeconomics class at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee during August of 1987. We were married in May of 1989 and moved to North Florida in 1990. We have lived here in North Florida ever since. It's nice here, but we REALLY miss Tennessee!
Besides our daughters, China, Korea and international adoption, our interests include (click on the bold titles to view information about each item):

The Great Smoky Mountains
We love to hike in the mountains and stroll the streets of Gatlinburg, Tennessee. We took Elizabeth for her first trip there when she was a baby, and we hope to return soon.
Bicycling
Todd loves to bicycle, and he rides in many organized rides in Florida.
Madame Alexander dolls
I collect them - I received my first one when I was nine years old. We have also begun a collection for our girls. Todd is wonderful about searching out special dolls for my collection.

Growing Our Family
The first six years of our marriage were spent doing whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted. Yes, life was good, but - in July of 1995, we decided that our family was not quite complete - so, we investigated both domestic and international adoption. For several reasons, we soon knew that we would adopt a child from another country. Earlier that year we had saved an article on adoptions from China. We felt a tug at our hearts at that time, even though we were not yet seriously considering adoption. I happened upon the article again one day in July while I was cleaning the house. We read it over again and immediately began to call international adoption agencies. Todd found Christian World Adoption on the WWW - and when we received their packet, we knew they were our agency. They proved to be a wonderful choice, and we highly recommend them.
After much prayer and consideration, we decided to adopt a baby from China. We considered three other countries, but we strongly felt God's call to choose China. Other reasons for choosing China were the relatively good health of the babies, the beauty of the people and of the culture, and the fact that we had always spoken of someday wanting a little girl in our lives. We chose our first daughter's name while we were still dating, back in 1988 - she would be named Elizabeth, which is my middle name. Her middle name would be Sue, after my mother. We never considered also adding her Chinese name - until we received our referral. Emmeline's name was also chosen while we were dating. Emmeline is a family name, and Mae was my Nana's name. We also added her Chinese name after the Mae. Easter was my great-great grandmother's name (she was called "Grandmammy"). The Joan is after Todd's mom, and we are adding part of her Korean name after Joan. Below are some very recent pictures of Elizabeth and Emmeline - how they've both grown!!

Our girls are such delights and are so loving and happy. They have very sweet personalities and are extra special to our relatives and friends. We can't imagine what our lives would be like now, had we not taken that "leap of faith" and followed our hearts to China and South Korea. God is so good to us.
We keep in touch with many of the families in our first and second adoption travel groups. In fact, we met with our first travel group for a one-year reunion in New York in May of 1997. It was so special to see the "cousins" together again.
For more information about our experiences with Christian World Adoption, Harrah Family Services, Florida Home Studies and Adoptions or Children's Home Society and Family Services in MN, please contact us via email. We're also ALWAYS happy to answer any questions about international adoption - and if we don't know the answer, we'll definitely find someone for you who does.
We praise God for giving us three beautiful girls to love. He has been faithful!
Click here for our 1996 Photo Album
Click here for our 1997 Photo Album
Click here for our 1998 Photo Album
Click here to read about our first adoption journey to China (March 1996)
Click here to read about our second adoption journey to China (September 1998)
Click here to read about our third adoption journey - to EasterAnna in Korea

© 1997 bourlandfamily@yahoo.com

This page has been visited times since July 9, 1998

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