Infertility to Adoption – Part 5 “Ordained Friendship”

Do you ever look back and realize your relationship with certain people changed the trajectory of your life? Well that is exactly what happen to us in 2011. I would call these ordained friendships. You often become like the people you associate with, and we associated with adoptive and foster parents, so there ya go!

To refresh your memory, we had found a great church in our new town of Mooresville, NC. We became friends with a particular family in our new church. We hung out with them and a handful of other couples Sundays after church. Every Sunday we would have what’s called small group. These groups have meals together, get to know each other and discuss the sermon and how to apply it to our lives. It’s a new version of Sunday School. So these people became our close friends.

Ordained. What does that mean?

Getting to know a foster family took the fear of becoming foster parents down a notch.

I’m sure that Ashleigh and her husband Chris could see the curiosity I had in their family. Not only did they have an adopted daughter through private adoption, they also had a biological child, and two foster children.

She invited us over, the first time I think was after her children’s bed time, which was early (7:00 p.m.), and then we came over a few times during dinner. I’m not gonna lie, sometimes it was loud, a little crazy, but that’s life with lots of littles. They engaged us in conversation and really opened our eyes to fostering. They got to know us, and encouraged us to look into becoming foster parents. I believe God used their willingness to have us over and befriend us, as the catalyst to check out the foster system. Knowing someone who is doing something scary or intimidating helps to take fear away. We would have long conversations over coffee after their kids went to bed and I was sold, hook, line and sinker.

My husband needed some time to warm up to the idea.

But my husband needed more time to wrap his head around this whole idea. I remember being at a women’s conference our church held in Spring of 2012 and asking ladies to pray with me that the Lord would change my husbands heart and give him a desire to become a foster parent.

The next year at the 2013 conference, I was able to say that Brent was ready!

By the time the next class was offered it was the following Winter. January 2014 we began our official licensing process. I’ll share the details and all that is required in my next blog.

Can you look back and see ordained friendships in your life? I’d love to hear how these friendships have enriched your life. Please comment on the blog post!

Thanks for reading friends.

Monica

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