Hometown Rankin - October & November 2016

I
Planting
a Family
Jamie Walley
t’s been over five years since two couples from our church approached our
staff about getting involved in orphan care. We agreed to meet, and the
conversation led to what this would look like for our faith family. As the
student and mission’s pastor at Meadow Grove Baptist Church, part of my
role was to help develop our orphan care ministry and team. Fortunately for
me, we had several amazing people who had adopted, were foster parents, or
were already praying about how they could be involved.
It wasn’t long after those initial conversations that we were actively involved
with orphan care. We began by reaching out to our local CPS (Child Protective
Services) office, and building relationships with social workers. A foster care/
adoption support group started to meet at our church. We created a resource
closet to help foster families and
social workers have quick access
to clothes, diapers, toys, and other
essentials for children who came
into custody with nothing but the
clothes on their backs. I was proud
of our church, and content with
my role.
Along the journey, I met my
friend Rick Valore who was at that
time the executive director of 200
Million Flowers, an adoption agency
based out of Ridgeland, Mississippi.
Rick was traveling the state
encouraging churches to create,
equip, and train orphan care teams.
He played a critical role in Meadow
Grove taking the next steps in orphan
care, and was a huge blessing to me
personally, and our team. I was excited to see what God was doing in the lives
of others, and felt like what I was doing was adequate. Then one day my wife
Stephanie mentioned to me that she felt like we needed to consider becoming
foster parents. My initial thought was, “We are already doing enough!” We
have three children. Evan is 19, Eli is 14, and Olivia is 12. In my mind our
family was set, and we were already making a difference. But I reluctantly
agreed, and we moved forward.
We began our journey to get licensed to be a resource family through CPS
in 2013. We received our license in April of 2014. It took almost a year for us
to get licensed. I really struggled at first with bringing children into our home.
It disrupted everything. Our schedules were off, we had additional meetings
to attend, and it limited what we would normally do as a family. In October
of 2014 I received the Heart of Adoption Award from 200 Million Flowers
for my work in orphan care, and yet I was still struggling as a resource parent.
God, in His grace and kindness, used several people in my life to help change
my heart. Stephanie was doing an amazing job, and I was trying my best to
keep up.
In early December of 2014, Stephanie received a call for a medically fragile
child that would be a long-term placement. I remember going to the hospital
and seeing this tiny baby boy lying in a hospital bed with no place to go. The
doctor explained that he would need a kidney transplant, and after hearing
that, I only caught bits and pieces of the rest. I heard “G tube”, “around ten