Jamie Jackson, who works for Sierra Health Services in Las Vegas, talks Monday about his six adoptive children, seen in the photos. Photos by Clint Karlsen. Neal and Jeanne Binsfeld, left, who have adopted five children and have three of their own, talk on Monday in Las Vegas during their tour of the West to promote adoption. From left, the children are Ben, 9, Becca, 14, Jenna, 11, Sarah, 19, Hannah, 5, Jess, 4, Mikaela, 15, and Marissa, 13.

Eight kids, one van and 5,200 miles.

Not the typical family vacation, but the Binsfelds of Minnesota are not the typical family.

They have five adoptive children, and they want the rest of the world to know how rewarding it is. So they piled their children into a 15-passenger van and hit the road for an 11-city tour across the West to promote the joys of adoption. They stopped in Las Vegas Monday after two weeks on the road.

"What a gift for a child, the rock of a family," said Neal Binsfeld, who noted there are 120,000 children waiting for adoption nationwide.

When Neal and Jeanne Binsfeld married 22 years ago, they never intended to have such a big family, never mind adopting. That changed when they were told they couldn't have children naturally. Their first child was Sarah, whom they adopted in 1988. She has spina bifida, a birth defect that creates paralysis in the legs.

"It really was a leap of faith, on many, many levels," said Neal Binsfeld, a disability specialist for Allina Health Systems in Minnesota.

Since then the Binsfelds have adopted four more children, each with a variety of health problems and disabilities. They also were able to have three children of their own.

The Binsfelds know that older children, especially those with health or emotional problems, have the hardest time being adopted. But they said parents who take a chance will be surprised by how the children overcome their disabilities.

Now 19, Sarah played in national wheelchair basketball tournaments and earned a wheelchair basketball scholarship to the University of Arizona in Tucson.

"You learn to love who they are," Jeanne Binsfeld said.

Last year Clark County launched a campaign to recruit foster and adoptive families for the growing number of children in state custody. In about a year the campaign brought in about 200 families, but the majority were only interested in taking in children they could adopt.

Many of the children in Child Haven, the county's overcrowded children's shelter, are on track to reunite with their families, so adoption isn't an option. In recent months, the county's Department of Family Services has stopped licensing families who are only interested in adoption to focus on licensing homes for short-term foster care.

The Binsfelds hope potential adoptive parents will open their homes to children who would otherwise be left wards of the state.

"It's such a gift to give a child, and they have so many gifts to give you," Jeanne Binsfeld said.

One local man has discovered that for himself.

Jamie Jackson and his wife, Sherrie, had two children of their own, but when they couldn't conceive any more they turned to adoption. In three years they have adopted six children. All of the children share the same biological parents.

Jackson, who works for Sierra Health Services in Las Vegas, said the children's eyes glow now that they have found a stable home with plenty of love.

"You won't find the perfect child," he said, "but you will find your child."