Kristen, 29, is a Nurse at a local Children’s Clinic. John, 29, is a Student Pastor at Rosemont Baptist Church. We have been married since September 28, 2013.

Our story, like so many others begins with a struggle of obedience. Kristen and I have always discussed our desire to adopt, even if one day we have children biologically. As we started our family in September of 2013, we knew God was calling us to adopt in the future. As the years have passed, I felt like we needed to have a child biologically before we could adopt. As if that was God’s way of saying… “Ok, Go!” What followed was five years of infertility and finding new excuses. The thought soon became “If we adopt, we are just telling God…”I don’t trust you to give us children, so we are going to take matters into our own hands.” It sounds ridiculous, I know.

Isn’t it funny how we can over spiritualize delayed obedience? (which is disobedience by the way.) In reality, even though we knew God was calling us to adopt, I was just looking for excuses because I didn’t trust God enough with the mountain of adoption. Throughout the course of 2018, God reminded us that there is nothing that catches Him off guard, and nothing that is too big for Him to be trusted with. Entering 2019 we are out of excuses and know this is the right time for us to do what God is asking us to trust Him with. We believe adoption is close to God’s heart. Through the pages of scripture God outlines His plan to adopt all of us to become sons and daughters through the person and work of Jesus Christ. If you don’t know Jesus personally we would love to talk with you more in detail about Him! For now, we hope you will join us as we trust an unknown future to a God who makes Himself known to us.

We are beyond excited and are doing everything we can to be prepared to welcome a beautiful new life into our home. As part of our adoption process, we have started fundraising using various methods. It may surprise you to hear that adoption related costs can easily total up to $35,000 or more. This is why we have set a goal of 23,000 to help ease the financial burden that often overwhelms adoptive parents.

We hope that by inviting you into this process, you will see yourself as part of the community we hope to build around our child as he/she grows up.

-The Olivers