We hope you are doing well and appreciate you taking the time to learn more about us. We are Jonathan and Claudia and in the following pages we will try to give you a picture of who we are.
We have a strong desire to build a caring and fun home for a child and hope this documents helps you decide if we might be the adoptive parents you are seeking for your baby. Thanks for going through this process to find the best family for your child. We admire your courage and wish you all the best.
Sincerely,
Jon x Clau
Here’s us in Brussels in September 2023, visiting friends from Claudia’s high school years.
A Little About Us
We are an international, multicultural, multi-racial couple and we live and work in Hong Kong, where we are permanent residents. Claudia is a video journalist and producer and Jonathan works in digital marketing for a hotel chain. We have family in the US, Taiwan, the Netherlands, Austria and Portugal and we frequently travel to visit our families and friends. We have lived and worked in Hong Kong for more than eight years and consider it our second home. It is a modern, safe, diverse, and dynamic city with so much to offer. If we are fortunate enough to be selected as adoptive parents, we expect to make it the most important jobs we will have in our lives.
Claudia relaxing at our home in Hong Kong.
Us at the beach in Hong Kong tossing around the frisbee.
Jon shielding his ears from noisy traffic in Delhi, India.
A Love That Grew Out of Similar Interests & Experiences
When we first started dating, we were amazed by the similarities we shared. We both love the outdoors and new experiences. We both lived and attended school in multiple cities and were exposed to diverse cultures. We both have run our own businesses for multiple years and experienced entrepreneurship. We both love to eat good food out as well as cook at home together.
We also both came from +10 year marriages where had respectively tried unsuccessfully a string of IVF procedures. Both our attempts to become parents in the past were unsuccessful, and both exes were not interested in adopting. So when we found each other, and understood how strong our connection was, we very quickly discussed our child-wish, and soon after began actively pursuing this path of adoption. Since starting our adoption journey, we have been excited and humbled at the possibility to pour our love and energy into a new family member as we believe we both have so much love to give.
Jon and I preparing Chinese Hot Pot with some friends on our roof.
This is me night-hiking in Hong Kong last year.
Me with my closest friends from my high school years.
Me with my nephews and my brother in Holland almost 12 years ago.
Meet Claudia
I am Dutch and grew up in The Hague in the Netherlands and in Brussels in Belgium. My mother was a strong, caring woman from the Netherlands, where I was also born, and my father was from Austria. My parents have sadly both already passed away. I grew up with my older brother Marcus and for a time my three older step-brothers also lived with us. I’m close with my step-father who came into my life when I was six years old. When I was eighteen I lived one year in Japan and I did my M.A. study in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam. My own upbringing sets an excellent example for how I would like to raise a child.
Claudia giving some bicycling support to our friend’s daughter Mia in Kenya earlier this year
What’s Claudia like?
In Jon’s Own Words
“Claudia is curious, adventurous, and can make friends with anyone. She is highly intelligent and believes that people are kind and also in the importance of doing the right thing. She is the type of person you would be happy to share a laugh with or comfortable sharing something difficult or painful. I feel so lucky be in her orbit and I know she has so much love to give as a mother.”
Why Are We Hoping to Adopt?
Jon: “The older I have become and the more I have seen the joy that my close friends derive from their roles as parents has made me realize that this is a desire I wish to fulfil and thankfully am in a loving and caring relationship as well as working for a stable company. Thus, I believe I can provide a stable and loving home to an adopted child and that I will have a richer and more fulfilling life as a result.”
Claudia: “I believe that a child will add to our journey and happiness as a couple. I want to become a mother through adoption because I’m not able to carry a child myself due to subfertility (and after experiencing two miscarriages). I am up to and look forward to the challenging task of preparing someone for living in this world. Jon and I will not be young parents, but we love to sport and eat healthy, and we are in very good physical shape with strong genes in our respective families.”
Claudia taking a ride in Amsterdam with the son of longtime Dutch-Mexican friends.
In Hong Kong with our BrazilianAmerican friends at the beach.
Claudia setting up a science experiment In Miami with Jon’s best friends’ kids before bedtime.
Meet Jonathan
my
I’m American and my parents moved to the US from Taiwan when they were in college. I was born in Ohio but raised in Rochester, NY until I was nine-years-old. I lived overseas twice when I was growing up. The first time was from age nine to 13 in Luxembourg, Europe, and the second was in Singapore for my senior year in high school, before returning to the US to study Political Science at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Both my parents were very supportive and present throughout my childhood. They always made me and my younger brother feel looked after, loved, but also I was pushed and encouraged to work hard and do well.
Me and
mother, Sheree, in Taipei inTaiwan this past summer.
Me and my younger brother Ben when we lived in Europe.
Me and Claudia enjoying a park on a lovely spring day inTokyo, Japan
Me on safari in Kenya with Mia, the daughter of our local friends.
What’s Jon like?
In Claudia’s Own Words
“Jon is confident, active and really positive in nature. He’s very authentic, super smart and sweet and relentlessly patient in explaining things and helping others improve. He’s very sportive which is great because we both love the outdoors. I’m so happy to have him in my life and am convinced he’ll be an excellent father.”
Jon with Lilly, the daughter of his best friend Anton in Miami.
We Love Kids!
We both enjoy being around kids in many capacities: playing, exploring, teaching, laughing.
Being around kids gives us tremendous energy and joy and we believe that the best thing we can do is help them feel safe, supported, and comfortable.
We plan to share with the child in his or her early years about their adoption journey and how they came into our lives.
On a six-day trekking in the Italian Alps with the children of Claudia’s best friends from high school, including her godchild Zoe.
Claudia occasionally works with underprivileged youngsters in Hong Kong.
Jon at a Christmas event for underprivileged children in Hong Kong.
Jon doing funny selfies with the son and daughter of one of his childhood friends in Washington DC.
My parents instilled in me values of honesty, morality, and hard work.
Me with my folks and brother at a museum in Las Vegas in September 2023.
Meet Jonathan’s Family
I had a very normal and blessed childhood growing up in upstate New York.
Claudia and I in Taipei with my
My father worked all his adult life and my mother was a homemaker for most of my childhood.
My brother and I got along well and both participated in school sports and extra curricular activities.
We would all eat dinner together nightly.
I have enjoyed discussing the prospect of adoption with my family and how they might best love and support our new family member.
godmother and mom.
Me posing with my cousin at the beach in Taiwan in July 2023
My father was from Austria and always proudly shared that I could ski before I could walk.
Meet Claudia’s Family
Me with my brother’s oldest, my godchild Tijmen.
With my late father’s girlfriend, she’s like a surrogate mum.
At home in the 1990s, during one of our daily family dinner.
My stepfather came into my life when I was six and we remain very close.
Me with my nephews and their mother in Holland.
I had a happy upbringing and family life, despite the divorce of my parents at an early age. I loved to go to school and in my free time my family would go on walks, visit museums, travel, and attend music and cultural events. I remain close with all my family, most of whom live in Holland and are excited at the prospect of welcoming another (grand-)child into their lives.
Our Professional Work
Financially, we are fortunate to be quite experienced and successful in our respective fields.
Our professional work gives us joy and confidence that we have the means to provide for a child without significantly sacrificing our quality of life or life aspirations.
Claudia has a twenty-plus-year career working in visual journalism (photography and video) as well as journalism education.
Jonathan similarly has a twenty-year-plus career working in digital marketing. He currently works in marketing and strategy for a large global hospitality company.
Jon works with colleagues from all over the world; here he is during a meeting in Hong Kong.
Claudia filming on location in China.
Claudia working with Nigerian multimedia journalists.
Jon visiting with some colleagues in Seoul, South Korea.
Hong Kong: A Unique and Fantastic City to Raise a Family
Hong Kong is one of the safest and economically prosperous cities globally. It is also a great place to raise children! Our home is located on an island called Lantau. We can be on the beach with just a quick bike ride and there are also several playgrounds within walking distance.
Down-town Hong Kong, where we work, is just a 30 min ferry ride away. Our neighborhood is home to many young families, both local Chinese as well as expats. Road traffic is minimal as we live in a small village that does not have busy streets and the community would be supportive of an adoptive family. There are many schools and facilities nearby. Wherever we will end up living, good education for our child will always be a priority. Hong Kong has great (international) schools and kindergartens.
In our village, tame cows and buffalos roam around, as do many stray dogs
We both work in the city over 7 million residents of all nationalities. We have the best skyline in the world!
The view from our kitchen, we both love cooking and baking healthy dishes.
How Do We Like to Spend Our Time?
We love spending time with friends at the beach near our apartment.
Claudia has played hockey for much of her life and is part of the Hong Kong league.
We enjoy cooking together and trying new recipes.
We enjoy playing games, together and against each other!
We both like reading the newspaper and books.
Jon with his dad in 2021 enjoying some mountain biking.
We enjoy relaxing on our roof and taking in the views.
We enjoy hiking, camping and trail running.
Thank you for considering us !
We hope we were able to provide you with a glimpse of us as individuals and as a couple and how we might be as parents to your child.
Both of us are excited to take on the responsibility of being parents, and our one wish for our child is that it grows up to be a happy and healthy person with a rich life.
If you accept us as your child’s adoptive parents, we would be happy to honor any level of contact you might like to have throughout the years.
We believe that family is the result of creating a persistent and strong connection with another person, committing to and supporting them, especially in the most difficult moments. We do this every day in our relationship, and will do the same with our child. We know it won’t be easy and there will certainly be many challenges, but we feel ready and committed to face them – together.
We hope that you feel confident about our commitment to love your child completely and unconditionally.
