Jones Familiy
Tell us about your family.
My name is Heidi and I have been married to my wonderful husband, Bryan, for almost nine years. Bryan works full time for Liberty University as a Resident Director and also works part time for our home church as the Lead Pastor.
We have two beautiful children, a girl-Jacee and a boy-Malachi. Jacee will be two this August and Malachi just turned one a few days ago. We received Jacee into our home as her foster parents when she was five days old and we officially adopted her in November of 2019. Ironically, we became pregnant with Malachi just three short months after Jacee became our foster daughter.
What motivated you to be foster parents?
Before Bryan and I were married, we discussed the desire that we both had to adopt a child one day. But, the spark for foster care was a result of our infertility. We tried for roughly four and a half years to have a baby biologically before exploring what foster care would look like for us. We knew that God had placed the desire to adopt in our hearts and foster care made a lot of sense. Although, we were open to whatever God had for us!
Share a highlight of your fostering experience.
One of the highlights of our fostering experience was in the very beginning when we received the call that changed our lives forever! We literally went from no children to having a newborn baby in our home and being fully responsible for her in every way! The excitement of going out and buying her clothing and having the privilege of loving on her! It was extremely emotional to think about how she came into our care, but it was such an honor to be her mommy and daddy. We will never forget the emotions and the excitement!
Tell us something about your fostering experience that you didn’t expect or anticipate happening?
To preface the answer to this question, Bryan and I had already given much prayer to the idea that we wanted to minister to the parents and family of our foster children, just as much as the foster child/children themselves. But, I didn’t anticipate how wide open the door would be to have a relationship with Jacee’s biological mom. Jacee’s bio mom was only 22 when she had Jacee, and was a part of the foster care system herself as a child. We wanted her to know that our desire was for her to do what she needed to do in order to be the best mom for Jacee, and we encouraged her in whatever ways we could.
In part, I also didn’t anticipate the emotions I would have as a whole with Jacee’s bio mom. As you can imagine, I became very attached to Jacee, making it harder to love her bio mom as Christ would call me to do. I had to pray many times that my desire for her bio mom to experience the love of Christ would be greater than my desire to keep Jacee in my care. It was an emotional roller coaster to say the least!
What would you say to other families who are considering foster care?
DO IT!! I will never forget the fear that I had when considering foster care. I was nervous that I would become too attached and my heart would be broken. One day I read a blog that stood out to me about foster care. They said that there was something WRONG if you didn’t become attached. We are doing it right when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable. Each child deserves to be loved, and when we allow our fear to stop us, a child misses out on the opportunity to receive the love that we can give.