"We tried starting a family 5 years ago but had fertility problems. We tried lots of treatments but God just kept saying no. It was a really sad time and, one Sunday, we were looking at the church bulletin and saw that the Call had a meeting to learn more about foster care. We decided to go and check it out. We were ready to have a family and had the resources and the love to give. We went to the meeting and pretty much immediately knew this was something we wanted to pursue. So we started that process in the summer of 2019 and were officially certified in January of 2020. 

Our very home call was for 2 sisters, AJ & Jada, who were ages 2 and 1. We got the phone call Friday afternoon and they were with us Saturday morning. Foster care is really hard and it was hard for us, but there is a lot of heartbreak in the process that God has really protected us from. Our story has a happy ending and that's not the case a lot of times. We had them for a month and then Covid shut everything down. So we were not only first time foster parents but first time parents with 2 under 2 in Covid. It was a hard season but God provided. 

We had them for about 20 months before we adopted them at the end of September. Then a month later we got a phone call that the girls had a little brother that was just born. We got that phone call at 9:00pm on a Tuesday and at 4:00am we had a 3 week old. I look at my family all the time and I praise God because not only did these three babies need a home but I needed them too. I didn't know if I was ever going to be able to be a mom or what that would look like for us and then he gave me AJ and Jada. He's been way abundantly sweet to us in this process. 

Foster care is hard because you see what the kids have gone through and the court and DHS is a pain. Overall, though, we’d had a happy ending where others have not. I'm a planner and I like to be in control. I feel like God has used all of my struggles to remind me who is in control. Foster care is the ultimate feeling of not being in control. I have to trust God with these little kids that I love so much and trust that he loves them more. I have to trust him with their lives and their future. I’m going to do all I can right here, right now to be obedient and love them while I can, because you don't know what their futures will be. So it was an everyday surrendering my plans, my dreams, and their future into God's hand, knowing that God cares for them deeper than I could. 

Something I try to tell everyone who says, ‘I couldn't’ do it. I’d get too attached’, is that these kids need someone to get too attached to them. It is hard and you do get too attached. I had the same thoughts before we decided to foster, but there are so many studies about how healthy attachments can transform a child's future. You just being obedient and loving a child for 2 months, 6 months, or 1 year, can totally transform their lives. God can use even the briefest time periods to change a child's trajectory. So, yes it’s hard, but it’s the ultimate sacrifice of your own happiness and your own heart for the better of a child. Jesus calls us to sacrifice ourselves daily and this is one way that God has asked our family to do that."