Dear New (and Potentially Life-Long) Friend,

WE ARE LETTY AND RICHARD, because we cannot have children biologically, we have chosen to build our family through adoption. It has been an amazing experience, and each of the three children that has arrived in our home has done so in a way that has been so miraculous it cannot be called coincidental.  We truly believe they were always meant to have the incredible opportunity of knowing and being loved by two families - the family of their birth, and the family that has the honor to raise them.

OPEN ADOPTION  is very important to us. Through each of our adoptions it has been a privilege to witness the ferocity of a mother's love for her child first-hand - the tenacity to which they clung to their conviction that their child deserved the very best life they could give them, through medical trials, family opposition, and their own personal heartbreak. Our children pray for their birth mother's by name each night, you hold a treasured place in both theirs and our hearts, and we work every day to help our children to understand the depth of your love for them. Although we understand that some women, like our oldest son's birth mother, need to have a closed adoption, we have loved the richness that growing our extended family through each new set of birth parents has allowed for our last two children. 

WE HAVE THREE CHILDREN, we were blessed with our first miracle, Jack in 2014. He is the world's best big brother, endlessly patient, kind and loving to his two younger siblings. His sister, Juliette, joined us in 2015, and the two are the very best of friends. Late in 2016, Jack began asking us for a little brother, he was very specific that it was a boy, and that "He has curly hair just like me!""Did you find him yet?" was a common bedtime question. In early 2017 we got a phone call from an old friend of Letty's from Springfield, Illinois, asking if we knew of a local family who was ready to adopt soon, for a birth mom who wanted a very open adoption. And we just knew - it was supposed to be us. Sure enough, Jack's little brother, Isaiah, arrived shortly afterward. And he DOES look just like Jack, sharing his partial African American heritage. However, we feel our family is not yet complete, that there is another special little soul out there who is just right for us

OUR HOME TOWN of St. Louis is a great place to raise a family! We have memberships to the Science Center, Magic House, St. Louis zoo, Six Flags, and have every splash pad park in town memorized. We also love that St. Louis is ideally located such a short drive from lots of other fabulous cities! We regularly visit SLC, UT (Family),  Nashville, TN (food and music), Branson, MO (Family and theatre), Bentonville, AR (Family), Huntsville, AL (Family) and Atlanta, GA (Friends and vacation) and Florida (Disneyworld and beaches!). Our kids are all GREAT travelers.  

WE ARE GRATEFUL for Richard’s success in his career first at a top consulting firm, and recently with Wells Fargo Advisors that has created the opportunity for Letty to be a full-time mom, household CEO and official adventure-planner, as well as enabled us to stay close to family in the South and Midwest. 

EDUCATION and RELIGION are very important to us. Letty has a BA in Secondary Education and Richard has an MBA in International Business. We both served as missionaries, Letty in Hong Kong and Richard in Paraguay.

WE MET WHEN WE WERE 12 YEAR OLDS in Iowa, working our first jobs delivering newspapers when we met. From our first kiss at the top of a Ferris wheel to the children's storybook Richard wrote to Propose, laughter has filled every moment.

    

WE HAVE BIG FAMILIES – and we love it! Letty has 5 siblings and Richard has 12. Our kids have 33 cousins and counting!

OUR HOBBIES and ADVENTURES include rappelling, zip lining, white water rafting. We also enjoy fishing, camping, and swing dancing together. Letty loves making documentaries and desserts, and Richard collects cactuses and scuba dives. We have some truly crazy stories from our love of traveling - but you have to check out our travel page for info on dare-devil donkeys, castles, sewers, monsters, and Scottish ghosts. All of our kids are great car travelers, and we drove all the way to Utah AND Disneyworld (twice) in 2017!

HOME IS WHERE OUR HEART IS, regardless of the all the exotic places we have visited, we love returning home. We just recently bought a bigger house with enough bedrooms to accommodate our growing family and room for a play stage in the basement - we hope to be blessed to grow even more!

MOST IMPORTANTLY we are committed to raising strong, confident children who know and love Jesus Christ. Sure, we want them to be smart and sporty – but we care more that they are kind and brave. It is important to us that each of them knows that they are loved unconditionally, by all their parents. We hope they feel secure in the demonstrative love their parents have for each other, and grow up knowing and honoring the woman who gave them life. Thank you more than words can say for your bravery; we would love to explore an open relationship with you.

With Love, Richard and Letty Goering