The Story

A single foster mom? I didn’t exactly have this in mind for my life but God did and he knew all along the story that was and is to unfold. My hopes in writing this blog is to share my process and journey with you and to not forget. So easily God will do something in my life and I forget. I was encouraged by a couple people to write this journey and process, so here I go!

From the time I was little, the only thing I wanted to be when I grew up was a wife and a mom. I have always loved kids. I have been a dance teacher for many years. I went through a hard season and every Wednesday I would go over to my sisters house to watch her new born babe. She would fall asleep on my chest and for some reason kids brought me healing in that time. I feel like they see you for who you really are. They were a gift to me and still are.

I remember years ago I was teaching dance and one of my young students (age 9), came up to me and said, “Miss Hannah, I have a word for you.” I said, “Yes Sara, what is it?” She then said two words. “Single adoption.” She proceeded to tell me she thought maybe I would adopt as a single person. I was kind of shocked by the word and “put it on a shelf.” Ha!

The summer of 2017 I read the book Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis and It stirred my heart. She was a single gal who had an orphanage in Africa and ended up adopting many kids. I would just cry reading it. One of my pastors always said, pay attention to what makes you cry because you might be called to that. I was open to whatever God wanted, even if that meant going to Africa and working in an orphanage or adopting children. I had always felt called to Africa and had been a couple of times.

Shortly after the summer I read Kisses from Katie, I was walking in to the place that I work and I said to God, “I want to be a mom.” I then heard Him say, “Well why aren’t you?” I was confused by that statement and I didn’t understand. The next day, I went to my friends house, she was a foster mom. We were talking and she said to me, “Hannah would you ever consider being a foster mom?” I asked her, “Would they let a single person foster?” I was 28 at the time. She then said, “Absolutely. You would be great at it and there is a huge need.” In that moment, all of these things came flooding into my mind. The word about single adoption, someone had a dream I had 4 ethnic looking children, someone gave me tubs and tubs of baby clothes and I thought it would be for my bio children. All of a sudden it made sense. I had always wanted to adopt but thought it would be too expensive.

I went home and told my parents about pursing foster care and they were immediately supportive. They told me that they wanted to do foster care years ago but it just never happened. You know when you just know you are supposed to do something? It all just clicked. I figured if it wasn’t God’s will he would close the doors and if it was He would make a way.

I am blown away as I write this thinking back on the journey. I have story after story of the Lords provision throughout all of this. God’s ways are higher than ours and I believe he is just waiting for our yes to whatever he is calling us to no matter how big or how small. Let the journey begin.