Adoption And Fostering Pathway
Welcoming a child into your heart and family through adoption and fostering is a gift. It provides a tangible reminder of how God chose each of us to be a part of His family. And while a beautiful expression of love and a wonderful way to build a family, underlying it all is grief and loss. How do you step into the mess of past trauma and a story that undoubtedly includes pain? How can healing come for both parents and child? In this Adoption and Fostering Pathway, you’ll hear stories of those who don’t sugarcoat the complicated beauty of a family that is built through adoption or fostering. From those who themselves endured the foster care system as well as from parents who are navigating their child’s trauma and heartbreak after adoption, this pathway will encourage you in your own journey when it comes to adoption and fostering.
Podcast Episodes:
How do we make sense of the pain others have caused us in light of the choices we’ve made? What do we do when we find ourselves somewhere we never intended to be?
Christian recording artist Nicole C. Mullen opens up about the pain she endured in an abusive marriage. As she reflected on her journey, she came to understand that while she was never responsible for the abuse or betrayal she suffered, some of her own decisions contributed to the painful paths she walked in her life. Rather than allowing that realization to trap her in shame or despair, Nicole discovered a deeper truth: God offers fresh mercy and the power to choose what is right, no matter our past. She shares these lessons in her book, It’s Never Wrong to Do the Right Thing: Courageous Stories to Inspire Godly Decisions.
In this hope-filled conversation, Davey and Nicole talk about the reality that healing is a process, the lasting impact our choices can have on our lives and the powerful role other people’s stories play in helping us navigate our own.
If you’ve ever felt like your life has drifted too far off course or that your decisions have taken you somewhere you can’t return from, this episode is a reminder: it’s never the wrong time to do the right thing.
How do we model the way God brings each of us into His family? How can we faithfully support families who choose to grow their families through fostering or adoption?
For Pastor Andrew Hopper, adopting a child with special needs has opened his eyes to a deeper understanding of what it means for each of us to be adopted into the family of God. Through navigating complex medical needs, the pain often associated with adoption, and the work of shaping a church culture that actively supports adoptive and foster families, Andrew has seen firsthand how God reveals the gospel through adoption and foster care. In his book, Chosen: Building Your Family the Way God Builds His, he offers a practical and compelling framework for how churches can become places of genuine care and support for families who foster or adopt.
In this conversation, Davey and Andrew explore what it looks like to give our children what they truly need—even when it doesn’t align with our expectations, the unique challenges of parenting a child with medical needs, and how the church can learn to be “rope holders”: people who provide meaningful, practical support to those walking the road of adoption and foster care.
If your family has been built through adoption or fostering, or if you want to learn how to better care for a family that has, this episode offers practical insight into embracing adoption and foster care as acts of faith, mission, and ministry.
How do you engage with the Word of God when your world is falling apart? What does Scripture offer us in our deepest pain?
Pastor and author David Platt has built his life and ministry on the foundation of God’s Word—through his own personal struggles, challenges, and questions. As an adoptive father, David has witnessed firsthand the power of Scripture in guiding him as he shepherds the hearts of his children through trauma and hurt. As a pastor, he’s experienced the necessity of coming to the Bible with a heart longing for deeper intimacy with Jesus. And as a follower of Christ, he knows it is God’s Word that continually draws him into a fuller understanding of who God is. Out of this passion, David wrote How to Read the Bible: A Simple Guide to Deeper Intimacy with God, to help others engage Scripture in meaningful and transformative ways.
In this episode, Davey talks with David about the call to adoption and what it looks like to lovingly shepherd the hearts of hurting children, why Scripture is indispensable in the life of every believer, and how to respond when God feels absent in seasons of pain.
If you’ve ever wondered why Scripture matters—especially when you’re walking through suffering—this conversation will help you see how foundational God’s Word can be in revealing who He is and sustaining you in your most difficult moments.
How do you move forward after a life marked by trauma and pain? Can looking back be the very thing that helps you discover your purpose in God’s plan?
As a young orphan in war-torn Liberia, Jackson TerKeurst could never have imagined the path his life would take. After years in an orphanage surrounded by the devastation of conflict, Jackson was invited to join a group of children on a tour across the United States—sharing stories of resilience and hope born from unimaginable suffering.
But in the midst of that journey, Jackson received heartbreaking news: he would not be returning home. His country and the orphanage he once knew had been overtaken by violence and chaos. Stranded and grieving, Jackson faced an uncertain future.
Yet God was writing a greater story.
Through a series of divine appointments, Jackson met the TerKeurst family, who would eventually adopt him and his brother. Today, Jackson is an entrepreneur, a husband, and a father. He reflects on his journey and how God's hand was evident through it all in his new book, The Only Way Forward Is Back: A Story of War, Adoption, and Finding Your Purpose in God’s Plan.
In this powerful and heartfelt conversation, Davey sits down with Jackson to explore the deep wounds of growing up in a war zone, how revisiting the past has been key to Jackson’s healing, and why serving others plays such a central role in his story.
If you’ve ever been hesitant to look back at your own pain, this episode will remind you: sometimes it’s in looking back that we find the very path God has prepared to move us forward.
How do we help kids build resilience, especially after facing trauma? How do we teach kids the skills they need to persevere after pain?
Dr. Nicole Wilke had a front-row seat to the impact trauma can have on a child's development. Her parents had a heart for kids with the hardest stories and welcomed seventy children through foster care and adoption. This experience had a profound impact on Dr. Wilke as she watched her siblings grow and struggle after experiencing pain. It was out of her own experience that she was drawn to the work she does now through the Christian Alliance for Orphans Research Center, where she is on the front lines of discovering how we can best help kids who have experienced difficult things find a way forward.
Her latest book, which she co-authored—Overcoming: What Scripture and Science Say About Resilience—offers practical wisdom backed by science to help kids take whatever challenges they are facing and use them as fuel to build resilience that will carry them throughout their lives.
In this episode, Davey talks with Dr. Wilke about how God is in the business of redeeming our kids' stories of difficulty, why our vision matters when it comes to the trauma kids experience, and how to build a child's resilience so that they can move forward through whatever may come.
If you are a parent or love a child who has experienced challenges and difficulties due to trauma or pain, this conversation will encourage you that God can take the most painful moments and use them in our kids' lives so that they can become resilient overcomers.
How can we help a child who may not have the words to express their own grief? How can communities be support systems to those who have adopted?
Cameron Lee Small's story began with loss. At the age of three years old, he was adopted from his birth country of South Korea and placed in a home thousands of miles away in America. As he grew up and began to understand the complexity of emotions that can arise as an adoptee, he realized the need for support and care for others who shared his journey.
Through his practice as counselor and his interactions with other adoptees and their families, Cameron has seen the impact loss and trauma can play in the lives of those who have walked this path. And because of his own personal experience, he has been able to help adoptees and their families navigate a way forward towards healing. In his book, The Adoptee’s Journey: From Loss and Trauma to Healing and Empowerment, Cameron shares glimpses of his story and search for his birth mother as well as practical ways adoptees can regain their sense of agency and identity in the complexities of their story.
In this insightful conversation, Davey talks with Cameron about the kinds of questions that can come in an adoptee, how parents and caregivers can help children regulate who have experienced trauma, and why it is so important for churches to be adoption informed so that they can best serve families who adopt.
If you are an adoptee or an adoptive parent or you know someone who is, this episode will help you understand the nuances of the emotional experience many adoptees feel and how you can love and serve those who have welcomed children into their home through adoption.
What does it look like to answer God's call in our life? How do we step into our calling when there is suffering that we never expected?
For author, ministry leader, wife, and mom of 15, Katie Majors Davis, she could have never imagined all the ways in which God would call her into the unexpected places that He has over her life. As a young woman, Katie answered the calling of her life and became a missionary in Uganda. Through that time, God called her to start a ministry called Amazima and adopt 13 girls from Uganda. While many have marveled at her inspiring story of faithfulness, it was often met with unseen difficulties and trials as she cared for the poor, walked her children through their own stories of trauma and suffering, and faced the unrelenting challenges of life and ministry. Her most recent book, Safe All Along: Trading Our Fears and Anxieties for God's Unshakable Peace, offers readers her own reflections on how to find peace in a world full of fears.
In this deep conversation, Davey and Katie talk about how calling looks much different than we anticipate it to, the ways in which wrestling can lead us to more intimacy with God and why pointing our kids to Jesus in their pain is the most loving thing we can do.
If you've ever found yourself in the midst of suffering after answering what you thought was God's call, this episode will remind you that even in the middle of God's invitation there can be both pain and joy coexisting as you step out in faith.
How can music help us heal? What role does worship play in our most difficult seasons?
Songwriter, worship leader and singer Mack Brock has written countless songs that have helped people connect with God. But there is one song that became a rally cry for Davey Blackburn after losing his wife, Amanda and their unborn child in a home invasion. It was the song Nothing is Wasted by Elevation Worship. Mack was one of the songwriters and the singer on the release of that song. Mack could never have known that the words he penned years ago, would become a glimmer of hope to Davey in his darkest moment and a living reminder on which he would later build a ministry.
In this full circle conversation, Davey and Mack talk about the impact of the song Nothing is Wasted had on Davey personally, how God can use worship and music in our healing and why it is so important to take small steps of faith into a bigger, unforeseen purpose.
If you've ever been impacted by a song in your journey towards healing, this episode will teach you that God will use even the music that we hear to speak to us in our pain and remind us that nothing is wasted.
What do we do with all of our limitations? How do we begin to reframe the limits of our bodies and our lives in a way that allows God to use the boundary lines He has placed around us?
For speaker, author and mom of seven, Sara Hagerty, it was the many limits of her journey with infertility, motherhood, walking her kids through their own pain and grief after adoption, and the daily reminders of her finite ability to deal with all the challenges she was facing that led her to look at what God may be doing in her limitations. In her latest book, The Gift of Limitations: Finding Beauty in Your Boundaries, Sara explores how our limits may actually be the grace of God rather than a withholding of something better.
In this insightful conversation, Davey and Sara talk about what God may be doing in our limitations, how we can find the beauty in the small, and the power of naming our limits.
If you've ever found yourself discouraged by the very things that reveal your humanity, this episode will encourage you to reframe the way you see the boundaries in your life and find beauty in the gift of your God-given limitations.
How can you believe that God's good work will be done in a story that begins with so much loss and tragedy? Where can you find miracles in pain and life's difficulties?
For author, Bible teacher, and ministry leader Joyce Dalrymple, opening her eyes to the way the Lord was moving in her own life and through her daughter's adoption required intentional attention. By starting to notice the way God was bringing redemption into their stories, she began to experience a deeper understanding of how God is always at work. Seeing her daughter practice empathy birthed out of her pain was a reminder that even our greatest wounds can become a well of goodness if we allow the transformation to come from the power of the Holy Spirit's work within us.
In this insightful conversation, Aubrey sits down with Joyce to discuss how adoption involves so much loss and grief, the importance of learning to rest in your belovedness as a parent, and how to practically help foster and adoptive families. In addition, they touch on how to navigate church hurt with a wider perspective that can help you see the good in what the global church is doing and how that can keep you connected to a community of faith.
If you or someone you know is an adoptive or foster family or if you've ever struggled to see the good in your pain, this episode will encourage you that miracles are always beyond the surface of our hurt if we can learn to see them.
How do you navigate living between two completely different worlds? How do you honor the culture of a parent while being a part of another culture that doesn't always do the same?
For author Tasha Jun, learning to love and embrace the culture of her Korean mother while finding a place to belong in American culture left her feeling caught between two worlds at times. Being biracial, Tasha struggled with a sense of belonging, but even more so, with her own identity in feeling too much and not enough at times. Learning to love who God made her, including the different parts of her culture, helped her to fully experience the love of God in the messy middle of understanding and embracing who she was. As she became a mother, she saw the sacred gift in her own heritage and give that gift to her children.
In this raw and honest conversation, Davey and Tasha discuss what it is like to feel "othered," how writing can be a tool for healing, and seeing God meet you in your identity while learning to grieve the ways we feel like we don't belong.
If you've ever felt like an outsider in any sense, this episode will encourage you that you belong in the beautiful kingdom tapestry that God is weaving together and your unique makeup is exactly what God intended.
How often have you found yourself stuck in the past? How is looking back keeping you from moving forward?
Best-selling author, speaker, and founder of A21, a worldwide anti-trafficking organization, Christine Caine knows how pain, trauma, and tragedy can keep a person stuck. Having experienced abandonment, being adopted, abuse and trauma as a child, Christine is well acquainted with the schemes of the enemy to hold her back from the purposes of God. In her latest book, Don't Look Back: Getting Unstuck and Moving Forward with Passion and Purpose, Christine explores Jesus' words in Luke 17:32, "remember Lot's wife," and how looking back kept her and how it keeps us from experiencing the fullness of God's promises, especially in our most painful moments. When our eyes get stuck on our circumstances, past or present, we can miss the invitation from Christ to look forward to a future full of hope.
In this episode, Aubrey has the privilege to sit with Christine to talk about what can get us stuck in the first place, what can happen when we constantly look backwards, and why it is so important to know the promises of God so that we can begin to move forward in faith.
Whatever is keeping you stuck, don't miss the opportunity Jesus is inviting you into as you trust Him when everything around you changes. Let this conversation be a guide for you as you turn towards Him and His promises.
What do we do with the messages that imprint themselves on our souls from our earliest memories? How do we overcome the most difficult parts of our story when our circumstances seemingly want to make us a statistic?
For author, speaker and advocate Tori Hope Petersen, growing up in an abusive home and entering the foster care system at a young age made her start to believe that her life didn't matter. But somehow in the midst of the darkest moments, God met her and showed her His unfailing love in the face of people's failures to love and care for her and that her life had a greater purpose. Since that season, Tori has written about her experience through the system in her book, Fostered: One Woman’s Powerful Story of Finding Faith and Family through Foster Care and has become an advocate for others. She is also now a mom, undoing the brokenness from her family of origin and creating a beautiful tapestry called family through biological, adoption and foster parenting.
In this important conversation, Aubrey sits with Tori to discuss the questions that can come when you're wrestling through a life riddled with pain, the value of community in healing from our trauma, and how the Church can become the foundation for care and love for those in the foster care system.
Whether or not your life has been touched by foster care, this episode will remind you that no matter the messages you received as a child, God's message for you is clear: you are dearly loved and none of your pain is ever wasted.
Parenting is complicated whichever way you come into it. When grief and trauma are part of the equation, it can add even more layers to navigate. How do you sit in the messiness of adoption and fostering while learning to see the joys and the wins in the midst of it?
For Jillana Goble, it has been through the challenges of parenting via birth, foster care, and adoption that she has learned to welcome the invitations the Lord offers in the tensions of it all. As she said yes to the difficulties and joys, she has seen her own understanding of God and family widen in an unimaginable way. She has learned that parenting of any kind does not come with a road map or a formula with a promise, but rather it is the small, daily obediences to say yes to loving our children well in all circumstances. It is there that we begin to see God show up in places that were once thought to be irrevocably broken.
In this conversation, Davey sits down with Jillana to discuss the often complicated nature of adoption and fostering that we don't always see as well as how understanding how integrated we are-mind, body and soul-can help us love kids who have gone through unfathomable loss and trauma and how in it all, Jesus shows up in the mess.
Whether you have adopted or fostered or know someone who has, this episode will help you see that God invites us to know Him more through the imperfect and often difficult stories we all walk through.
How do you persevere in the face of unending challenges and difficult circumstances? Where can you find the strength to keep going when life tries to knock you down over and over again?
For Dr. Danisha Keating, building resilience seemed impossible after a traumatic childhood filled with abuse and moving in and out of the foster care system. Her journey in life was hard, at one point leading her to be a caretaker for her younger siblings while in college and yet she persevered to graduate and go on to earn her PhD.
Now, she spends her life reaching back into the fire, encouraging kids walking a similar journey in the foster care system, to know that their lives have promise and hope beyond their current circumstances. In all the trials she has endured, Dr. Keating has anchored her hope in the Lord and her identity in Him.
In this episode, Davey sits down with Dr. Keating to discuss what it looks like to build resilience in a life that is full of difficulty, the power of community in encouraging those low on hope, and how healing can lead us into a life of purpose in helping those who are walking the road we once did.
This conversation will leave you inspired as you hear how even the most dire of circumstances can forge a deep-seated resilience in our hearts as we move forward into a future filled with possibility.
How do you choose joy when it feels impossible? What can you do when a chronic diagnosis leaves you debilitated?
For Lindsey Wheeler, the answer did not come easily. After a Lyme disease diagnosis left her struggling to get out of bed everyday, Lindsey knew she had to make a choice: to see the good in life in spite of her circumstances or to dwell in self-pity.
It wasn't easy, but Lindsey chose to change her perspective on her life in the middle of so many challenges that included her health and raising a child with special needs.
It was that perspective shift that has given her the strength to bring hope to others in their pain. She started a company called Bottle of Tears that provides curated gifts of comfort to those who are hurting.
In this episode, Davey talks with Lindsey about what it looks like to choose joy when life feels hard, the power in reminding people that they are seen in their pain and why community matters so much in our suffering.
This conversation is an encouragement for anyone who has ever felt like some parts of life cannot be "fixed" this side of heaven and offers an invitation to hope and joy in the midst of it.
How do you find purpose in pain that seems to have no end in sight?
Pastor and former athlete Jesse Bradley found himself facing that question when anti-malaria drugs sent him on a ten year journey of healing from chronic pain and health issues.
Jesse sat down with Davey to have a conversation about what it looks like to find purpose in our pain when it doesn't seem to be getting better. It was in the hardships of that experience as well as others that Jesse found his true path towards healing and becoming a conduit of healing for others.
His journey has included being a child of divorce, fostering and adoption in his own family as well as becoming a pastor passionate about sharing the love and truth of the gospel.
This conversation will inspire you towards hope and healing no matter what pain you are facing.
Claire Culwell’s story in one that has to be heard to be believed. As the adopted daughter of two loving parents, Claire eventually found herself wanting to meet her birth mother. When she was finally able to, she could never have foreseen how that first conversation would go.
What Claire’s birth mother revealed to her on that day would shock Claire to her very core, and her life would never be the same.
Claire sits down with Davey to share her unbelievable story and how she’s learned more about God, forgiveness, and the value of life through this incredible journey.
As a mother, Amy Sylvestre wears a lot of hats. She’s both a biological mom and an adoptive mom. She’s a heart mom, and tragically, a mother of child loss. Walking through the pain of losing your infant child is one of the worst nightmares for any parent can face, and that became Amy’s reality when her son Hudson was born with a severe heart defect. Despite countless attempts by some of the best medical professionals in the country, Hudson didn’t make it long past his birth. Through unimaginable pain, Amy has learned what it means to have a faith that goes beyond your head and into the deepest parts of your being. To wrap up our parenting series, Amy sits down with Aubrey to share her story of loss and some of the ministry that has come out of it.
As the host of the popular podcast “The Happy Hour” and author of If You Only Knew, Jamie Ivey has had the opportunity to share her story with thousands of people across the world. It’s a powerful story, but like most of ours, it’s not always pretty. Jamie’s story is a moving testimony of failure and redemption, pain and healing, and God’s work through our messes. On this episode, Jamie sits down with Davey to talk about how God has taken the messy parts of her story and redeemed them for His message.
Masterclasses:
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How do I help my child heal from the pain they are experiencing?
It is hard enough to journey towards healing as an adult, but watching your kids suffer adds more and more layers to the complicated process of navigating our valleys.
How do we begin to help them wrestle through their difficult emotions and the suffering they are experiencing? How do we walk through it with them when we ourselves are trying to figure it all out?
It could be a recent loss ,a divorce, a big move, blending of families or some other major change that can cause both adults and kids to find themselves lost in a sea of feelings.
What if there was a way to help kids heal in the midst of whatever they are going through?
Dr. Josh Straub has been helping families learn the way to become emotionally safe and how to help kids untangle the web of emotions they are feeling. Through his podcast and book, Famous at Home and other resources such as the children’s book on emotional regulation called What Am I Feeling?, Josh, along with his wife Christi, are encouraging families to build healthy connections and emotionally safe relationships with a Biblical foundation and science-backed research.
In this masterclass, Josh shares about Helping Kids Heal: Entering Your Child's World in Grief, Loss, and Transition.
This masterclass will help you:
Learn why emotional safety is the key to entering our child's world and develop an understanding of the circle of security
How the brain grows and how emotional overwhelm influences the nervous system
Implement 6 ways to be emotionally safe for your kids
It can feel impossible to walk kids through pain, but by entering their world, you can begin to help kids heal from whatever they are facing.
Resources
Website: www.famousathome.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/famousathome
www.instagram.com/joshua.straub
Facebook: www.facebook.com/drjoshandchristi
Book: Famous at Home: 7 Decisions to Put Your Family Center Stage in a World Competing for Your Time, Attention, and Identity
Bonus Episodes:
Growing up without parents in your life is one of the hardest challenges that a child can face. That’s why it’s so vital to have loving, reliable foster parents who can care for these children and help them grow into the men and women they were made to be. Having fostered approximately 145 children over a period of 18 years, Debra Moerke is an expert on this. She’s shared some of her incredible story of tragedy and forgiveness on the podcast before, but we brought her back for this special conversation for our Monthly Partners to share some of the wisdom she’s gleaned from her years of fostering.
Live Events:
Pain to Purpose Coaching
Need someone to walk with you through your valley? Our Nothing is Wasted Certified Coaches are ready to help you find your way from pain into purpose. Hire yours today by scheduling a free connection call and we’ll help you started with one-on-one help.
Our Adoption/Fostering Certified Trauma Coaches
Child Loss, Stillbirth, Miscarriage, Adoption Trauma, Medical Trauma, Singleness, Family Fractures and Betrayals, Life Transitions, Grief, Church Hurt, Crisis of Faith
Miscarriage, Loss of child, Divorce, Adoption, Identity and Worth Struggles, Single Parenting, Life Transitions, Grief & Deep Loss, Healing from Past Wounds
Childhood Trauma, Sexual Abuse, Identity, Fostering & Adoption, Parenting Kids with Special Needs
Have you found this Pathway helpful? Be sure to check out our other Pathways for more inspiring stories of hope in the face of tragedy, trauma and pain.
Let these Pathways be a roadmap for you on your healing journey.
What does the gospel speak into our suffering? How can the Bible anchor us with hope in our deepest pain?
Author and co-founder of She Reads Truth, Amanda Bible Williams has helped countless people understand the importance of Scripture in their everyday lives. But it was through her own journey—adoption and raising a medically fragile child—that God’s Word became even more personal and powerful. As she parents her son Toby, who has faced significant medical challenges due to congenital heart issues, and as she has walked through other profound losses, Amanda has returned again and again to God and His Word to find the strength and hope she needs to keep moving forward. Her latest book, The Bible Is for You: A Devotional Journey Through Every Book of the Bible, co-written with She Reads Truth co-founder Raechel Myers, guides readers through every book of Scripture and reveals the unchanging truth that transcends our circumstances.
In this honest conversation, Davey and Amanda discuss the unique challenges parents of medically fragile children face, how to encounter God in the midst of suffering, and why the Bible is essential when we find ourselves in life’s valleys.
If you’ve struggled to read the Bible—especially in seasons of difficulty or pain—this episode invites you to discover the comfort and steady hope that await when you immerse yourself in the timeless truths of Scripture.