Birth Mothers

"We give to Lilyfield because they help "the least of these” like the Bible speaks about in Matthew. We love that Lilyfield not only makes a difference in the lives of children, but the mothers and the foster parents and the families that are at high risk."

- Jeremy and Rae

Gene and I met in 2002 while attending SWOSU. God had his hand in us meeting for sure. I grew up as a Baptist preacher’s daughter in TX. I had never even heard of the Nazarene church. Gene’s pastor of almost 10 years, his wife (the piano player for the church), and six children (they now have 10 kids) moved to Texas. My sister started playing the piano for the Weatherford Church of the Nazarene. I started attending to help with their upcoming Easter Cantata. I was pretty smitten with him from the start. 2 months later we were officially dating, engaged 5 months later, and married 14 months after that in 2003. We knew we wanted kids, 1 boy and 1 girl. We even had their names picked out before we were married. In 2005 Hannah was born. In 2007 Isaac came along. We were done. We had our boy and girl. We bought our perfect house (slightly out of our price range, but perfect size for our family of 4), and we stated that we’d never move. Life was good and just as we planned it.

We visited with Gene’s former pastor right after Isaac was born. We told them we were done having kids. They asked “Are you sure that’s what God wants?” (Remember, they have 10 kids) Yes, we were sure God only wanted us to have our 2 kids. Hannah started Kindergarten at my school in a very poverty-stricken area of OKC. She started talking about a classmate that she wanted to pray for because he had a very hard home life. We prayed for this little guy and in 1st grade he and his brother came in to DHS custody. We had never thought about Fostering or Adopting. We had our 2 kids right? We were done. We planned, and God laughed at our plans and we ended up fostering these 2 boys for 6 months. They left in August 2012 to join their sisters and be adopted by their Aunt.

Well we did our “good deed”; we fostered these 2 boys. Now we can go back to our comfortable and safe family. God started talking to my heart around Christmas 2012 and we decided maybe we needed to foster again. This time we would just take babies. We were certified and signed our contract June 19, 2013. We had prayed for months for the baby that would need us. Prayed for his/her safety, health, overall well-being and that God would bring this baby to us at just the right time. We got the call the next day about a 7 month old little girl. We said Yes! We had her 2 weeks and she went to live with an Aunt that eventually adopted her.

People always say, “Oh I could never foster, you just get too attached and I could never give them back.” Yes, it is very hard when these babies that you love as your own leave. Yes, you cry, usually a very ugly cry, but you just keep going. You start praying for the next baby that will need you. Our next baby was a newborn boy. We were told he would be with us for a very long time because parents were incarcerated and there was no family that could take the baby. We brought him home from the hospital and 4 days later got the call that family had been found and he was leaving in 4 hours. Seriously? Would we ever get to have a baby stay with us??

The next day we brought home a precious almost 7 month old (the next day was 7 months) little guy. We were his 6th placement. My heart breaks when I think about this baby, my baby spending his first 4 days of life in the DHS Shelter. We had no idea of the roller coaster we were getting on with this little dude. After 2 years of ups and downs with his case, and the case looking like reunification was going to happen, this Little Dude’s parents asked us out of the blue if we would adopt him. I have never felt so much joy and sadness all at this same time. We love his parents so much. They are the bravest, most loving parents I know. On June 9, 2015, we adopted Spencer. Again, I have never felt so much joy and sadness at the same time. Spencer knows that he has two mommies and daddies. We’ve told him about his biological parents (Paul and Crystal) and try to keep them updated on him. This last Sunday, I was delighted to see him light up at the mention of the story about Paul and Silas. “Paul? Like my other daddy? Yea!”

Fostering is very hard. It is very ugly. It is full of brokenness and sadness. We live in a broken world and sadly this is a cycle for many families. We wanted to love these families. I don’t think at the beginning I truly understood what that meant. It is hard to not be judgmental. It is hard to love these people that don’t seem to be able to get their lives together enough to get their kids back. My heart is forever changed thanks to fostering. I look at these parents not as drug addicts but people who are lost and struggling and have no support, no hope. This is what I think we as a Church are called to be; the hope (or representation of Hope) to these lost and hurting people.

In June 2014 we decided well, we have managed 3 kids, what’s 1 more. We brought home 2 little girls that we only had about a month, they left to go live with an aunt. We decided we only wanted a single baby, no older siblings, because you know, older kids are so much harder. So we told our agency we only wanted a single baby; no siblings this time. Here is where God saw us making our plans and laughed again. I felt God saying there was a 4 year old that needed us. Gene didn’t feel the same way (but did mention later that God had just been giving him the number 4 over and over in his head for days). We got the call the next day about a 4 month old and her 4 year old sister. There was the 4 year old God had placed on my heart. After lots of prayers and 3 phone calls with our agency, we finally said Yes! These 2 girls officially became “Strongs” on December 4, 2015, after we had had them 14 months. We were told a few months before their adoption that their mom was pregnant again. We prayed A LOT!

We spent many hours on the road to and from Lawton visiting (just sitting and holding/being present with) a little boy that had a long road of withdrawal symptoms (tremors mainly) ahead of him. He spent 47 days in the NICU; the longest any of the nurses working there had ever heard of for an NAS baby. NAS is short for Neonatal abstinence syndrome and is more or less technical jargon for a baby born addicted to whatever illicit substance the mother used during pregnancy. Just a week ago we sat and watched/listened to his (and his two sister’s) mother as she relinquished her parental rights without shedding a tear. Oh we both cried like babies, but it was awkward to watch her demeanor, and we both ended up telling ourselves it was just a front she had put up to make it easier on herself. The court terminated dad’s rights by default since he had failed to show to 5 different proceedings and now this little boy is on his way to being adopted soon this summer. He has never known any home other than the NICU and our home, but we plan to make sure that he knows he has 2 mommies and 2 daddies.

And it seems like this adventure is not slowing down. We’ve outgrown our “perfect” house and have started looking for something bigger. We’ve outgrown two different cars in 6 months, and if they adventure continues the current path we will soon outgrow the current vehicles we drive. It’s all just money, right? My God owns the cattle on a thousand hills and will provide for anything he calls us to.

The End…?

Providing Hope 2016
for Adoptive & Foster Care Families

August 6th 2016
North Church - 1601 West Memorial Rd. OKC OK 73134
9 a.m.-3 p.m.

Speakers include Babara Sorrels, Ph.D along with others

Dr. Sorrels is the author of the book Impact of Trauma on Healthy Child Development - Insight for Adoptive Families, Foster Families, and Caregivers.She is founder and Exec Director of The Institute for Childhood Education & founder of Connected Kids. Connected Kids works to help parents, guardians and child advocate understand and nature children in crisis.

This Adoption & Foster Care Community Seminar seeks to provide trauma-informed education and valuable skill sets that can be used in everyday life.The goal is to provide insight and understanding for Adoptive & Foster Care families who maybe be struggling. The seminar objectives are:

• Trauma Informed Care Education
• Learn attachment and nurturing to help reach their children
• Gain other skills to help strengthen your family

This seminar is free and child care and food are provided at no cost thanks to our generous sponsors. However, registration is required. Please complete our online registration form. If you register and then learn that you are unable to attend, please alert our office at 405-216-5240 or by email at info@lilyfield.org so that we can have an accurate count for the food and childcare. If we reach capacity for childcare we will begin a waiting list and we will place an alert on this page once capacity has been reached.

Five Hours of CEUs have been approved for LPC and LMFT and LSW. The cost to obtain CEUs is $30 and payment can be made by following the link after you have registered.

The doors will open on August 1st at 8:15 a.m. and if you are bringing children, please arrive no later than 8:40 a.m. to allow plenty of time to check your children into childcare.

click here to register

Being a foster family has been difficult, but it has helped us grow in many areas of our lives. Each of us are learning to be more giving, selfless and adaptable.

We talked about adopting before we were ever married. It was a “someday” dream. We never thought about fostering because that was way too scary. But then we moved to Tulsa in 2012 for Ryne to become the Community Pastor at The Crossing South Tulsa. That’s when we begin to hear about the 111 Project and the need for foster families in Tulsa. We realized this wasn’t just something we should tell others to do, but something we needed to dive into ourselves. We were officially approved as foster parents in May of 2015 and have had 4 placements and 5 amazing kids.

Adoption touches almost every family in one way or another. Adoption provides a priceless gift, both to children and to families. When we make adoption placements, we don’t have an idea what the true impact on the life of the child will be.  We can easily look at people and wonder where they will be in 15-20 years or what they will accomplish in that timeframe.

Here are some influential individuals who were either fostered or adopted:

• Steve Jobs - founder of  Apple – Adopted  
• Dante Culpepper - Football player - Fostered
• Dave Thomas - founder of Wendys - Adopted
• Faith Hill - singer - Adopted
• Michael Oher - football player - Fostered

The movie  Blindside  was based off of Michael Oher’s childhood. It is an amazing story of how one mom had deep compassion for Michael Oher regardless of the differences in their worlds. She looked at Michael and saw something special in him. This weekend Michael will be playing in Super Bowl on the main stage in front of millions world-wide. His mother could have never imagined him playing in the Super Bowl when she encountered him at a time of such great need. It wasn’t an idea of his future success that prompted her to love him.  She felt compelled that she wanted to make her life count and in turn make a difference in a complete stranger.

As we see needs right in front of us, I pray that we respond. That allow our hearts to be touched and that we move to help children to have hope and a future. Saying yes to loving children gives us the chance to develop qualities in them that will last forever.

Care Connect support groups will meet on October 13 at Memorial Rd Church of Christ.  

To RSVP, call 405-216-5240 or email  info@lilyfield.org

Every first Wednesday of the month is Johnnie's Night. Come by Britton Rd, Edmond,

Danforth, or May & Memorial to support our mission, which is providing safe and stable families for

at-risk children and youth. We appreciate you!

(Don’t forget to mention you're supporting Lilyfield)

J. Hill Photography is donating proceeds from photo sessions to Lilyfield and is giving a great price to her customers at the same time.  Indoor sessions are available as well as a limited number of outdoor sessions.  Call Lilyfield at 216-5240 or email   lhopkins@lilyfield.org   for more information.