Five years ago, Mike and Joan thought they were done having children. Then their church sponsored a baby who was living in a Philippine orphanage.  The boy, Christian, was born with nasoethmoidal encephalocele, a neural-tube defect that required urgent surgery.

The condition causes a hole in the floor of the cavity in which the brain sits.  It
thrust a large mass of tissue forward, off the front of Christian's face, above his nose, and between his eyes, pushing them apart.

"We didn't set out planning to adopt Christian," Mike recalls.  "But the more we worked on raising money for his surgery, the more he got inside our hearts.  Very quickly, we found ourselves heading to the Philippines to adopt him.  Six months after we first learned about him, we were bringing him home."

Christian had his first surgery in the Philippines, but it left a large facial scar and much additional work to be done.  He arrived back in Minnesota when he was 18 months old.  At 20 months, he had craniofacial surgery and neurosurgery at Gillette Children's Specialty Healthcare. 

During the six-hour second surgery, surgeons fixed the tissue, rebuilt a bone and reshaped Christian's forehead.  "He looks like a million dollars now," says Mike. 

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