Jeremy and Ashley are one of the most precious families I’ve had the honor of serving over the past year.
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They work in Christian ministry, and took a huge leap of faith with following God’s call to adopt as a means of growing their family. Ashley shares their testimony below, about how one call changes everything! And how God has a plan, and is working behind the scenes.
“God called us to adoption three years ago through viewing adoption videos during a youth camp where we were serving. He spoke to Jeremy and me both at the camp but we did not discuss it together until the last night of camp. We went home excited about our word from God.
Fast forward three years later… We were trying to add a child to our family, but were growing discouraged after a year of medical intervention and no explanation of why we had not conceived another child together. After prayer, we remembered our time at the camp, and the promise that God had given us at that time. We felt strongly that it was God’s plan that we adopt.
So we made a call to a local adoption agency to find out how to start this journey. Our appointment was set to meet with our social worker at the same exact day and time as an appointment with our doctor to discuss what our options were as far as the next step for fertility. Of course, we felt so much peace after meeting our home study worker, also named Ashley, and decided to go for the adoption.
While we were there Ashley mentioned that a domestic adoption could cost as much as $30,000 …. We had no clue how we could afford that, but we knew that if this was His will, that He would provide…. That alone was a very big step of faith for us because we had no clue how we would ever get that amount of money, but we weren’t worried.
We got the ball rolling with the home study and fundraising…. We had all the initial expenses covered through donations and fundraising.
After our home study was complete we applied at four agencies recommended by CAC. Our home study worker and consultant also recommended that we contact a local agency in our home state as well. This agency only works with families in our state.
Five days later we got a call from our home study worker sharing a case with that exact local agency, for an expectant mom due in a few months. We told her we would consider that case.
A few minutes later, Gretchen, our consultant with CAC called me, just as we were arriving at a friends’ home. So I stepped out to answer the call.
She said “Ashley, there is a situation that we just got word of in your state.” At this point I thought she was speaking of the same exact situation I had just gotten off the phone about… But no, she continued, “There is a newborn baby who was just born, and she is at the hospital I believe close to you. She needs to go home with a family by the end of today.”
WHAT ! !….
My phone was beeping!! It was the local agency!!
Clicked over…
“Hi this is Debbie, we just got a call there is a baby at the hospital that needs to go home today… Are you able to get this baby?”
Which meant, do you have your home study? Do you have a placement fee? Do you have a room ready? A car seat? Diapers? Can you come right now? Do you have your paperwork ready to come?
I could only say yes to two of these questions … That was I am home study ready and I can come right now…. Because we were still fundraising! Lord, how can we do this with minimal funds? And we didn’t have any paperwork with us because we were out of town with friends.
I ask if I could make a few phone calls…
Within 30 minutes I was able to get all the money borrowed from family members and together in our adoption account …
Next up — how to get to our paperwork? Between our consultant and our home study worker, our home study and security clearances were emailed to the placing agency — because we were 45 minutes away from home where all our paper work was — and we were 45 minutes closer to our baby!!
Overall – that was the longest 30 minutes of our lives … We were between phone calls and texts with our consultant, agency, family, and home study worker. We were feeling nervousness, scared, worry, excitement, and many other feelings all at once.
Was this it? Was this what God wanted???
After everything was together we called the agency and was able to say “we are ready!!”
Their response was “wait.”
WHAT ! Wait!! What did this mean ! Did mom change her mind after all this? … Was there another family… What is going on … This was all the thoughts crossing our mind as we sat in our friends’ living room thinking of so many things at once… It was silent… Just a room filled with thoughts…
Then the phone rang! “Come on to the hospital!!”
The call! We ran out to our car, and without anything “baby related,” at all we were on our way!!
We made a list of items to buy at Walmart… See God had this all worked out. Jeremy had just gotten paid… It was an extra pay day that I was going to use to get Christmas presents… We would work that out later… Right now it was for baby stuff…
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| ?(Our loaded shopping cart at Wal-Mart!) |
We went to Walmart and got everything we needed to get by for a few days… We then went to the hospital and just a few hours later we were on our way home with our sweet baby girl who was only three days old! We were able to meet her birth mom and have a sweet visit with her, and her mother. We told them that we were family for life.
Wow! Is this real ! We couldn’t believe this was happening!!
God is so good! This baby girl is who He had planned for us since the beginning of time:
During the next few days we learned of many other mysterious things that God had done to make this happen…
There were texts that were supposed to be sent that were not sent because of all the business and haste of the situation, but somehow they got to the recipient, GOD did it.
We are still learning of things that God did throughout this entire process of Adelynn coming home… There is no question at all that this is what God wanted. It is apparent from all the work that He done to bring us together.
For now we are thankful for the family of four that God has made us and we pray that He will use us all for His glory.
Congrats Ryan and Melissa!
Adoption Story: Charles + Ryan