“He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.”
Ephesians 1:5-6
In November 2019, Justin Woodruff came to the elders of the barely started Redeemer Bible Church and asked to start a foster care and adoption ministry in the church. We agreed to get behind him and to let him preach about the matter on Orphan Care Sunday. I believe this was the first time Justin preached! Despite being sick, Justin’s (and Molly’s!) true and earnest heart for orphans began to move us all.
Early summer of 2020, when we were meeting outside in the Pennington’s backyard for church due to COVID, Justin came to me during the songs and asked if he could publicly appeal for the adoption of two needy children at the end of the service. I had never experienced anyone doing something like this, and being serious about it. But Justin was serious. After the sermon he gave an impassioned plea that these two needy adolescents be adopted by someone in our small church. There was no long pressure or manipulation, just the facts about these kids and their heartbreaking situation, and prayer asking God to provide through the people of the church. Not a prayer for someone else to take these kids, but for us to take in these kids.
Later that afternoon, I called Justin to see what happened. He said that soon after the service he received three calls. The first was from an anonymous couple saying they would pay the adoption costs but could not take the kids. The second calls were from two couples that said they would adopt the children but could not pay the court / attorney costs! God is good and glorious! I had never experienced anything like this, and it moved me. It also moved the church. We started an adoption fund and people began to sign up for foster care qualification classes in large numbers. We became a church committed to really caring for orphans and needy children.
In 2021, Maria and I felt like we should also join this movement in our church. Like so many, we had no time for anything else in our lives, but in joyful obedience to what we felt was God’s will for our lives, we signed up for foster care certification. We said we would only do respite care, and that’s what we did through the rest of 2021 into 2022.
June 6, 2022, Myla Mize was born. We had no idea what God’s plan was for her and our family. Bob and Gretchen DeWitt (fellow church members and foster parents) took care of Myla from the NICU through the first six months of her life. They took her in when she was known only as a prematurely born baby, filled with street drugs, having a major brain birth defect, and leg mobility birth defects. They were advised that if she lived, she may never walk or talk, and it would be hard to predict the outcome of the drugs in her system.
Soon thereafter, Myla became our foster baby for respite care when the DeWitt’s had need. Our whole family fell in love with Myla for the precious child that she is. By late 2022 it became clear that Bob would be transferred out of state for his work. Bob and Gretchen prayed much about the situation and asked Maria and me if we would take Myla on full-time in preparation for future adoption. It was a moment for our entire family to consider what the will of the Lord was, what the cost would be, and what it meant to obey the Lord in this decision. Without a doubt, we all knew it was the right thing to do, but that did not make the decision easy. Adopting a child is a daunting decision when you’re not a kid anymore, and you know exactly what it means to raise a child to adulthood.
So here we are in August 2025, three years and three brain surgeries later! By the grace of God and much love and constant care from Maria, Myla talks all the time and never stops running! July 28 was Myla’s adoption day! She is now Myla Carpenter; our precious daughter forever.
I want to spend a few moments reflecting on the spiritual reality of adoption. Adoption is used in the Bible as one of the spiritual analogies of our salvation. Many analogies are used (born again, ransomed, delivered from a kingdom of darkness, etc.) to capture different aspects of our great and complex salvation. Many of these analogies we can grasp theoretically, but not in reality until we enter into the reality of the analogy. For instance, we are instructed to call God our Father in heaven. Until you yourself become a parent, you can never fully grasp why God would describe His relationship to us in this way. Adoption is the same way. Maria and I understood adoption before, but now we know what it means to adopt a child and why God describes our salvation in this way.
Myla did not seek us out. Aid workers saw that after birth she had no place in this world, so they sought out a placement for her. She did not come with a resume, but with a very long list of struggles and brokenness. She came with no wealth or assets, but naked into this world. She was utterly unable to care for any of her many needs. Yet, she is a precious child created in the image of God. She is a child that captured our hearts, and who for Jesus’ sake, we gladly bring her into our lives. This is adoption.
You need to see yourself this same way before God. You have no place in this world apart from life in Jesus Christ. All else is ultimately emptiness, loneliness, and death. You have nothing to commend yourself to God. All your best accomplishments and assets are not needed by God who is in need of nothing – perfectly content in His own perfection. All your best deeds are corrupted in some way by motive, thought, or are incomplete. Sin is ever-present in your life either by commission or omission, stirring up the just wrath of God against you. You cannot help God but are fully in need of help from Him. You are spiritually blind, enslaved to sin, and an orphan in the spiritual world having no place in the Kingdom of God.
However, for the glory of God and the love of Jesus, the God the Father determined to love you and bring you into His family. God set His love upon you and gave you new life. The adoption analogy has to do with emotion, rights, and privileges. I could never grasp how I could love a child not biologically my own as much as my own biological children – but by the love of God it is entirely possible! Our relationship with Jesus is not judicial or theological, but deeply relational. God the Father has adopted us, loves us unconditionally, wants relationship with us, and has granted us an inheritance with the saints in light (Colossians 1:12).
Our entire family now more fully understands this analogy of salvation by entering into the analogy. We have a deeper and fuller understanding of salvation through obedience to God’s command and living out the ways of the Lord. I urge you to also be involved in the care of orphans and widows – the most needy among us. There are many levels and many ways you can be involved. The main thing is to not turn away from real need that God places directly in front of you (1 John 3:16-18). Open your heart. Know that true Christian living always requires deep sacrifice, but that sacrifice is the way of Jesus and in it we find life. Open your heart to what the Lord says is good. Live a servant life. Have great faith to believe that what God says is good – is in fact good! Do what the Lord says to do. Go where the Lord says to go.
We know that this journey has only begun, but with the help of the Lord and of each other, we will make progress everyday closer to the eternal life of the Kingdom of God!
I’m so thankful for you all,
Pastor Vic