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Meet Chris & Raelene

A video message from Chris & Raelene

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A Letter from Chris & Raelene

Hello! We’re best friends who have been married for 10 happy years. We love faith, family, and traveling! It’s been our prayer to grow our family and share our lives with a baby. We believe God has been clear that we’re meant to adopt! Seeing adoption through other families we know, we’re excited to build our family this way ourselves. We’d love to learn more about you, answer your questions, and find out what you picture for your child’s future. Thanks for considering us!

A Little About Us

We met at church over 12 years ago and continue to stay very involved in our church. We both serve as heads of the children’s programs, including teaching Sunday School and running the Wednesday night youth programs. Our faith is at the core of who we are and from our love for God we look for ways to love on others and help where needed.

Together we enjoy:
• Traveling anywhere (We’ve been to 5 continents, 11 countries, and 28 of the 50 states!)
• Talking about almost anything
• Watching old movies
• Playing with our two dogs
• Fishing in the local ponds
• Growing a giant vegetable garden
• Hiking local trails

Meet Raelene

According to Chris: Raelene is a very hard worker, almost always happy, and tries to be kind to everyone she encounters. She loves to make people smile and genuinely cares about others. I know she will be a great mom! Raelene has worked with babies and young children for years and all the parents we know trust her around their kids. As a mother she will be loving, protective, attentive, and thoughtful.

A few of Raelene’s interests:
• Making jewelry for her small side business
• Cooking
• Planning our next vacation

Meet Chris

According to Raelene: I love Chris’ kind heart, his genuine love for God, and his willingness to help anyone he meets. Chris is dedicated, passionate, and hard-working. He will be the greatest dad! He’s great with the children we teach at church and the kids love being around him. Chris is curious and always trying to figure out how things work. He’ll be the kind of father who wants to show our child how to learn new things and work on them together.

A few of Chris’ interests:
• Playing or watching sports
• Hunting and target shooting (he also loves to teach others about firearm safety!)
• Studying history
• Kayaking
• Working on his Jeep

Our Home in West Virginia

We live in wild and wonderful West Virginia! Our home is in a small town that’s just like a Hallmark movie (they’ve even filmed Hallmark movies here before!). We love living here, especially at Christmas time. There are beautiful parks, hiking trails, and landmarks and waterfalls to explore. Our Ranch Style house has a cute red door and shutters on the windows. We live on almost an acre that overlooks a pasture with a lot of deer and cows. The room across from our bedroom will become the nursery, and we’ve already started to decorate it. This will be a great place to raise our family!

Our Dogs: We have two fun and sweet dogs who love people and are very good with kids. Agnes is our Pomeranian who loves snacks; Valkyrie is our German Shepherd who loves her (many!) toys.

Our Families

We come from big, close-knit families: Chris has 3 siblings and Raelene has 4 siblings (one of her sisters was adopted!). Some of Chris’ family live 7 minutes away so we get together often. Raelene’s family is in Oklahoma and we travel multiple times a year to see them all. We rotate holidays, taking turns with each side of our family for Thanksgiving or Christmas each year. Between us we have 3 nieces and 5 nephews. We also have a great circle of friends who all have children. There will be plenty of people to welcome and love on the child we are chosen to adopt!

From Our Hearts

We promise to love and cherish your child so that he or she grows up knowing we’re always in their corner. We will raise your child to know how much love they have on all sides of their story. We will always be grateful to become a family because of adoption!

As adoptive parents we will:
• Be fair, loving, and kind
• Teach truth from the Bible and pray together as a family
• Model how to love God and help others
• Maintain a connection with you, if you’d like, to share updates and photos
• Make sure your child understands how much you mean to our family

We’d love to talk with you or answer any of your questions as you decide what to do. To learn more please call or text Lifetime at 1.800.923.6784.

With love, Chris & Raelene

Learn More About Chris & Raelene

  Chris Raelene
Our EducationMaster's of DivinityBachelor's in General Studies
Our ProfessionsLand TechnicianMidstream Business Coordinator
Stay-At-HomeNo, but I work from homeNo
Our Racial BackgroundCaucasian Caucasian
Some of Chris & Raelene's Favorites
FoodTacos or Indian foodFrench Fries or Italian food
MovieThe PatriotWizard of Oz
SeasonFallFall or Winter
AnimalCheetahDogs
Weekend ActivityWatch footballShop garage sales
Thing About ChristmasTime with family and celebrating Jesus, the reason for the seasonTime with family, the food, ALL of it!
Dream VacationTrip to IsraelMediterranean Cruise
More About Our Family
Fun Facts About Us

Raelene: I’m only 4 foot 10 inches tall! It makes the kids in our church class giggle when they figure out I’m the shortest one in the room.

Chris: Sometimes friends say I’m an animal or baby “whisperer” because pets and kids usually warm up to me quickly.

5 Things We Love on a Weekend

• Attending our wonderful church
• Spending time with family and friends, and of course our Dogs, Agnes and Valkyrie
• Game nights: All the games, card games, dice games, anything!
• Outdoor Adventures: We like to find places we haven't been before, or revisit our favorites. (A spontaneous road trip has been known to happen!)
• Sporting events: We love all kinds of sports (football, baseball, basketball, all of them). We attend college events, professional events and love to go watch our friends and their families play!

Favorite Holiday Traditions

• Enjoying the live nativities and Christmas celebrations around our little town during the holiday season.
• Collecting an ornament from places we’ve traveled (we have ornaments from all over the world!)
• Raelene’s messed up Thanksgiving dressing (one day she hopes her recipe will turn out, but for now she says messing it up is now the family tradition!)
• Our town's annual "Light-up Night" where they shut down the entire town for a festival. All the businesses have booths and hand out presents to everyone who attends. We love to help with our church's booth and make over 500 ornaments to hand out!

3 Things on Our Bucket List

• Travel to Rome on a Mediterranean or world cruise.
• Buy land! We would love to have about 25 acres for our family and dogs, for hunting, hiking, growing a huge garden, and maybe have a cow.
• Visit Dubai and see the tallest tower in the world.

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

Newborn

Twins

Yes

Gender

Either boy or girl

In Closing

Thank you for learning about us and the life we'd love to share with your child! We appreciate this opportunity to be considered as adoptive parents for your baby. If you'd like an open adoption, we're happy to share updates throughout your child's life. Our hearts are ready to share all we have with a child! To connect with us, just ask Lifetime to set up a call or video chat. We'd love to learn more about you, your goals, and the hopes you have for your baby's future. Hope to talk with you!

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