The Call to Future Hope

For the last almost 14 years we at Addy’s Hope have been working to find permanent, loving homes for the children in the Texas foster care system who have no hope of returning to their biological family. We refer to these children as being “legally free” because their biological parents’ parental rights have been terminated by a court, and the children are now “legally free” to be adopted. Because we are an adoption-only agency, the process we use to place these children in the families we recruit, train and support as adoptive families is called “matched adoption.” Quite literally we are matching children who are in need of families with families who are committing to a lifetime of love, care, and nurture for these children they have never met - kind of like having biological children if you really think about it! We commit to biological children before meeting them also!

However, over these last 14 years, we saw so many children “grow up” on TARE - the photo listing of children who are available for adoption in Texas. You would see their pictures change every couple of years with the old ones at the bottom of their bio. Then you would notice that they would be gone. You would hope it was because they found a family, but in your gut you knew it was because they had turned 18, and we had failed them. We as an agency dedicated to finding homes for all the waiting children - those children who are legally free and waiting for a family - a loving and forever family had failed to find them a family. Therefore they had “aged out”. They had turned 18 with no family. They just hit a magic number that our world has decided means you are an adult and that meant they had to be able to function in life all on their own on that magical day of their 18th birthday. Even typing that puts a pit in my stomach as I think of my own kids as they turned 18. None of them were ready to take on the world successfully on their own the day they turned 18! They still needed the support and guidance of parents and even extended family at times to be successful! 

Our staff had many conversations about what we could do with the ones we failed to find families for who simply aged out. We felt there had to be more we could do, but we came up empty during those conversations other than to try to work more diligently to match families and recruit more!  
One day, during the COVID pandemic—a time when starting anything for any organization seemed nearly impossible—God spoke to me. He placed a vision on my heart: to open a facility for young men aging out of foster care. It was an unexpected calling, especially since I didn’t feel equipped to work with men between the ages of 18 and 22 because of some things happening in our own family. In fact, I felt like the least qualified person for the task. 
However, one day in the local Wal-Mart parking lot, as I sat arguing with God about why I should not be the one to open such a facility, God asked me a simple question. It went something like: If you don’t open this place, what will happen to the young men that I have already made this part of their future? That question hit me right in my soul! While I had no idea of the how or the timing, I immediately knew that I was going to be opening a facility for young men aging out of foster care!
Now that we are so close to having young men actually moving into the apartments, that conversation sitting in my car in that Wal-Mart parking lot is even more meaningful! I can’t help but go back there and think that I am about to meet those exact young men that God was asking me about - those young men that he had already made Future Hope part of their future when he put this project on my heart! 
It is such a good reminder for all of us that God knows our needs and is often even working to meet it way before we even have the need! These young men were not thinking about what they were going to do when they aged out of foster care when they were 12 or 13 years old. But that is exactly how old they were when God told me to start building and already had it slated as part of their future - a solution to a problem they did not even know they would have! 
We covet your prayers over the next few days and weeks as we read over referrals and have to make decisions about accepting young men into our Future Hope program. We want to be obedient to God’s leading and walk in his discernment as we read the applications we receive. We know these young men are more than what is written on paper! 
We are so thankful to all of you who have given of your time, talents, and resources to get us to this place! All of you prayer warriors who have covered us in prayer and held our arms up during the times when we became weary are truly a treasure we value beyond words! 
Future Hope, like so much of Addy’s Hope’s story, is once again a testimony of how God equips those he calls and provides for our Yes! And I cannot wait to share with you the testimonies of those who are about to walk through the doors and how God is going to move in their lives….