65 | JoJo's Psalm with Special Guests: Elliott & Emily Yancey | Part 1

What does it look like to follow God… when you don’t know how the story ends? 

In this powerful first part of a two-part conversation, we sit down with one of Richard’s dearest friends, Elliott, and his wife, Emily, as they share their journey into the world of fostering and adoption - a path filled with uncertainty, surrender, and deep trust in God. 

This isn’t just a conversation about outcomes. It’s about obedience. It’s about choosing to keep the gospel at the center, even when the road ahead feels unclear. And it’s about treating people with the kind of selfless love that Jesus calls us to - regardless of how the story unfolds.

Elliott has been a mega-supporter of Sermons on the Side from the early days (firmly on the Mount Rushmore of fans), and this conversation is one you won’t want to miss!

Part 2 drops next week - make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss the rest of this incredible story.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Welcome to Sermons on the Side. I'm Brad. And I'm Richard. And life can move pretty fast. So we're here to slow down, dig deep, and find the story hidden in everyday moments.

SPEAKER_07 0:14

With years spent in ministry, friendship, and navigating real life together, we're all about blending humor, honesty, and faith into conversations that meet you right where you are.

SPEAKER_02 0:24

So whether you're brand new or you're back for more, we are so glad you are here.

SPEAKER_07 0:30

So relaxed, listen in, and let's discover meaning together.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

In the ordinary, the messy, and everything in between.

SPEAKER_07 0:38

Sermons on the side, finding meaning in the everyday.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

So we'll text it to her when this episode comes out on Thursday.

SPEAKER_06 0:48

Okay, well, you know, look, more than that, this episode comes out on Thursday.

SPEAKER_04 0:56

I didn't say which Thursday. No, I know. I didn't.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

Oh, we lost him. He's over there cackling. Oh, he's about to choke on his gobstopper, whatever that is. Well, he doesn't have any gobstoff. We lost him. If we if he dies, you're uh next we're gonna stop the next man.

SPEAKER_06 1:30

We lost the room.

SPEAKER_07 1:49

Welcome everybody to a really special episode of Sermons on the Side.

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Woo! We've been cooking on this one, Coach. Bro I mean brewing in the background for weeks.

SPEAKER_07 2:01

No, no doubt.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

Uh a much anticipated episode, as you will come to find out.

SPEAKER_07 2:08

Hey, listen, you guys just heard a quick taste of it. We it was hard to get this episode recorded because we couldn't stop laughing half the time.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

We had such a great time, Elliot and Emily Yancey. All right, tell us how tell the people how we know Elliot or how you know Elliot and Emily Yancey.

SPEAKER_07 2:24

Well, Elliot and I met around four years ago. We uh served as chaplains together, and Elliot has also served as a lead pastor of uh church in the Atlanta area, and we've become fast friends along the way. And Elliot and Emily have some really cool stories that they're gonna share with us during this interview. They were able to come down to Columbus from the Atlanta area just uh to spend an evening. We took them uh out to eat, and and where did we take them?

SPEAKER_02 2:56

Uh to a super nice restaurant. We'll just let that be a teaser because we talk about that.

SPEAKER_07 3:00

Only the best. And uh, and and they got to sit with us and we had such a good time. Was it not crazy fun? Yeah, it really was.

SPEAKER_02 3:10

It was special because we also had Rhonda there and Lisa was able to come to the dinner, and um the six of us just got to break bread and to kind of hear their hearts for not just ministry and and certainly not just for their family, which is an incredible family story, um, but for the Lord and just their heart for missions and for people. And so this is an incredible story. It's an incredible story of trust and of letting go, um, but also taking on a challenge, but understanding that the opportunity is not just to execute what's in front of you, but the opportunity to be the gospel to everybody involved. And so we're really, really excited about this. We hit record on this conversation a couple of months ago, and it got so incredible that we had to turn this in to a two-part episode. So this is just part one. That's right, and I apologize if there's a cliffhanger, but hey, come back next week for part two. This is an incredible conversation with Elliot and Emily Yancey. All right, well, as promised, we are here in studio, live in person with Coach a Mount Rushmore Sermons on the side fan. I mean, did you just Elliot? You are you are so you're I mean, I feel like you are, I don't even know what I'm saying right now. You're you are a celebrity. That's the word that I was trying to say. You and your wife are celebrity guests here on this podcast.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Right. It's an honor to be here. Um you guys talk a lot about your addiction recovery journey. You're right. Sometimes in that journey, there is a moment of intervention.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

Yes. Intervention. Brad, I'm here, to serve as an intervener for you. Okay.

SPEAKER_07 4:56

This is a big deal.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Because I hold the great honor of having been mentioned multiple times on the podcast.

SPEAKER_07 5:05

That's true.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Um, in fact, there's I believe there's only two people that are ahead of me in the number of mentions. He's keeping track. One of them lives in New Zealand. And so, as far as I'm concerned, she's like a day ahead. She has a head start, she's cheating, it doesn't count. How is tomorrow going by tomorrow? The second one is this Keith guy. And I don't I don't know who he is, but if there is a Mount Rushmore, he's on the front of it. Like he's got the corner spot. And and bro recently posted his own video on the Facebook webpage. I mean, talk about a power move.

unknown 5:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

So Heath, I don't know you, but I'm coming for you. You are my arch nemesis.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

So Heath made that post in the in the Facebook group. Cold Turkey Elliott comes off the rafters. Hello, my arch nemesis. Richard called me. He's like, dog, do we need to delete the post? Are we kidding? No, I'm not just kidding. That was I mean, that was one of the greatest intros.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Heath, I will meet you one day and I will defeat you. But Brad, Brad, that's um actually the second most important thing I came here to say. Okay. The first is that in those mentions that I've had on the podcast, um, your friend across the table here, Rico, as he's become. K Rico, in every instance that I've been mentioned, he has embellished the truth. He has exaggerated. Some would say lied.

SPEAKER_02 6:41

Oh, some would say.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

So I just want you to know. I just want you to know, Brad, that if he will lie for me, there's nothing this man won't lie about. And so just be careful who you're hanging with.

SPEAKER_02 6:59

I'm here for you. Thank you. I appreciate that. See, I can't have you going around embellishing sermons on the side stories, Richard.

SPEAKER_07 7:07

Look, he he's he's just being humble. I think because man, I I just I tell it like it is when it comes to Elliot.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Yeah, you know. No, clearly you don't. He lied every time to make me look better than I am. Because had he told the truth, we would not be invited here to that.

SPEAKER_02 7:26

You wouldn't be on that runner. Well, then poster post-brother, you're in my corner. Emily, I just have one question to ask. Is it like this every day?

SPEAKER_08 7:37

Um, most days.

SPEAKER_02 7:38

There you can see awesome.

SPEAKER_08 7:40

I actually said when we got married, I would really probably never have a dull day in my life.

SPEAKER_02 7:44

Well, I can tell you. There we go. We just shared an awesome dinner together where uh Hey, by the way, where did we have that meal, Brent? Of course, at at the office at uh at Culver's and uh your lovely wife Rhonda and my lovely wife Lisa uh was in attendance as well. And anyways, I Emily, you said something you were like you can you can find out real quick when you're in when you were watching somebody interact with Elliot, whether they get them or not.

SPEAKER_08 8:12

Yes, within the first three minutes, maybe less.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Can you see the data of how quickly people have dropped off this podcast?

SPEAKER_04 8:21

In real time. Wow, these numbers are currently starts. Nobody got past the first minute. Yep, that's my fault.

SPEAKER_02 8:30

No, no, dude. Oh my goodness, it's so much fun. This is awesome. And uh welcome to Columbus. Welcome to Sermons on the Side. Thank you guys so much for being um just an incredible encouragement and support to us, Elliot. In a in a serious note, just about every week. We're getting your feedback and um and your texts and your calls, and and man, it's it it means a lot. And um, Richard, I know that y'all too share a very special relationship. And so I'm I'm grateful to meet you guys in the flesh uh for the for the very first time.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

There you go, then I feel like I know you. We've never met, but I do feel like I know you.

SPEAKER_02 9:05

Well, there's a lot of life that we've shared on the podcast over the last year, and so that's some would say too much. Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Ratha said that as well.

SPEAKER_07 9:14

And my wife those very words. No, seriously, though, it is awesome to have you here. Listen, the world needs to know. How did you two meet?

SPEAKER_08 9:24

I'll tell you. That is wise. Elliot jokes that if it wasn't for the great melting pot of uh public school, we may have never met because we don't have a lot in common. Nothing. We have nothing in common. Um, but we actually met when I was a sophomore and he was a freshman in high school. Oh, it's awesome. And we met in marching band.

SPEAKER_07 9:47

Whoa, oh, whoa. Okay, yeah, okay. Well now I'm full of questions. Yes, right? Okay, okay. What instrument did you play in marching band?

SPEAKER_00 9:57

Well, see, that's part of the story. Okay, so I was smart enough, I thought, to be interested in a young lady who played the oboe. Because being the refined gentleman that I am, yeah, blind man can say that. Don't appreciate you rolling your eyes when I said that. I would carry her instrument and an oboe easy to carry. Gotcha. But then she joined the pit orchestra down on the sidelines in the front of the band that plays things like marimbas and chimes, all the heavy stuff. Heavy instruments. That you have to have like moving vans to move to the marching competition. Yeah. So that's how uh her dad and I met as well. Was lifting a marimba down the steps.

SPEAKER_03 10:42

Steps stadium.

SPEAKER_08 10:44

Oh, we were we became good friends first and then started dating my end of my junior year.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Until I had my own driver's license. That is 100% true.

SPEAKER_02 10:57

Yeah, but high school sweethearts nonetheless.

SPEAKER_07 10:59

How about that?

SPEAKER_02 11:00

That's incredible. And then at dinner tonight, we we made this small world connection that both of you went to Barrie College along with my wife. There was we just missed each other in terms of overlap, but a lot of mutual connections, even just tonight, of was so-and-so still at the college?

SPEAKER_07 11:15

Yeah, and Barry College in Rome, Georgia. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, we love it. You gotta love that. Well, thank you for that. It's a great story. The childhood sweetheart thing or the high school sweetheart thing, gotta love it.

SPEAKER_02 11:27

Well, I'm really, really excited to dive into um a very, very beautiful part of y'all's story together as parents. And so um we'd love to hear a little bit about your foster, your adoption story as it relates to your youngest son.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

Yeah, so um, we have two kids, uh Cooper and Joseph. We call him Jojo, have since day one, um, whether he likes it or not. That's what we call. Uh, they're now 13 and 10. Um, and so Cooper is our biological son, and then um Jojo would ultimately become our adopted son, but we did it through the local counties foster care system. Um I'll just tell you up front, because they're probably gonna hear us at some point, so it's important that we say this. Uh, when it comes to, as parents, biological kids and adopted kids, there's just no difference. Come on, they're just our kids. And so Cooper is awesome. We're obviously here to tell Jojo's story, but Cooper, uh, 13 years old, he's about eight feet tall. He uh looks like a grown man.

SPEAKER_07 12:31

Like, where does that height come from? I mean, that's a it's staggering, real.

SPEAKER_08 12:34

Yeah, he's I think he's past six feet.

SPEAKER_07 12:37

Yep, that's outstanding. Yeah, shout out Coop. Yeah, Coop, can we say Cooper? Let's call him Coop, yeah. Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

There it is.

SPEAKER_07 12:44

Don't worry, fans, they're not booing, they're just yelling coop. They're cooping.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Um, so he's a good kid. He's a really good kid. Mature beyond his years. Just he's he's you know, I keep saying the older they get, the more I like them. Brad, this is encouraging to you. Um that is bomb to my soul.

SPEAKER_02 13:04

You have no idea. I would lay my life down for my children, but man, are they unlikable at times?

SPEAKER_00 13:11

Yeah, I'm kidding. I'm editing that out. Yeah, yeah, you there's an edit point. Yeah, though. But uh, yeah, so we we tell them all the time the older they get, the more we like them. And and Coop is just he's growing into a fine young man, and and it's uh he's a genuine pleasure to be around these days. So um, yeah, and then Jojo uh was foster care initially through our local county. Um, and ultimately we'll kind of walk through his adoption story. And so there's the end of the story. We kind of you know saved, you know, already ruined the punchline, but we did end up adopting him. But man, it was quite the journey going through that process.

SPEAKER_02 13:46

Yeah, let's dive into that a little bit because you know we've had some incredible conversations with with people and even if we with some couples, but I don't know if we've ever had a topic of a foster and adoption. So you guys get to be the first. Groundbreaking conversational topic here.

SPEAKER_07 14:01

So, how old was Jojo when he came into your life?

SPEAKER_08 14:06

Three days. Three days old. Wow. He was three days. We got a phone call on December 29th. He had been born on December 26th, right after Miss Christmas about 45 minutes. And um said, you know, we have this baby boy that needs a home. Would y'all be willing? Told us kind of the situation. Um they said we need to know in about 15 minutes. And so we got off the phone, we called our parents, because I guess you never stop calling your parents when you know, you know, no matter how old you are. Um and we were just like, yeah, this is this is it. So we called back and they dropped him off that night.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

You have weird conversations in adoption world uh or in fostering world. Like we had done a bunch of research on different like addictive substances, and some of them are more harmful to the baby than others, the the the fetus than others, just because of the way the biology works. And so lots of weird conversations of okay, the addiction was part of mom's story, and and so we want to know what those substances were so that we could know what to expect. And we're calling some people that know more than we do and saying, hey, you know, she's got this in her background. Oh, yeah, no, that's fine. That's one of the good ones. That's okay. That's okay. Okay, all right, it's a it's a good drug.

SPEAKER_08 15:31

We're yeah, and not that we were against anything, but you you do want to know what you're about to step into and what that, but he was he was actually very healthy and doing very well. So and they were releasing him after three days.

SPEAKER_02 15:44

So wow. Now, how many days had y'all been on the waiting list?

SPEAKER_08 15:49

I think our home, like our home study had finalized maybe in November, if I remember, it was pretty quick. We hadn't gotten any other calls. And I want to add this because this is so important, and I told Jojo this um actually I just told him the other day, um, when we got called to adopt, and then we ended up God just led us into the foster care route. I started praying that wherever that baby was, whether he or she was born, whether it was a you know an older child, um, that God would protect him and keep him healthy. And so even though when he was born, that was the first prenatal care, she had had no prenatal care, she you know, and so that was he was protected, and so I say like God was protecting you from the beginning.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

So yeah, and it really if we could back up a little bit into just our process even deciding to to foster and adopt and those things, it was really just God. We we had Cooper as our biological child, and we were actually kind of thinking about this, and God was working in our lives separately. And we happened to be at a church's Christmas production, and for some reason the pastor said, if you're gonna be pro-life, then you need to support the the mom after her decision to keep the baby. And it was like, wow, that's really practical and kind of cut and dry, and here I am. And so eventually a few things like that had happened, and and she and I just kind of mentioned it to each other and didn't realize that the other one had been thinking about it. So we had been. So once we realized we were both on the same page and God was moving us, we we we went and met with a friend of ours that worked in that world, um, worked for a Christian organization that functions between the foster homes and de facts. Okay. And so they kind of rally the churches around.

SPEAKER_08 17:39

And um, what was the stat you were saying somebody said about the churches in the if every church, I don't know if this is still true today, but this was about 10 years ago, but if every church in America would foster one child or one sibling group, there would be no need for foster care in the United States. And that was a good idea.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Yeah, not every Christian if each church would take one foster care or one group of siblings and rally around them as the church, that is a problem.

SPEAKER_07 18:10

Isn't it?

SPEAKER_08 18:12

And I don't know if that's true today, but statistics. But yeah, even if it's it was enough to make us go out.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

Oh my goodness, yeah. So this organization rallies the churches to support fosters. It's it's a very cool thing, and we were very grateful for them. But we were just asking, okay, what what what are the boundaries that we put in place? I mean, because listen, it gets really weird. You can almost go baby shopping. You can say, I want this and this and this, and I don't want this, and and and he just looked at us and said, Are you gonna trust God with this or not? Wow. Okay. So there were some practical things that that we couldn't take on, like we were really unable to deal with a child in a wheelchair because our home has steps that you have to access to get in. So we had some real general practical boundaries, but pretty much we were just open to whatever's gonna happen. Um, and so that was sort of our mindset going in. Uh, God, you called us through this, we're just following you, and whatever happens, happens. And so when DFAX calls, you don't know the situation that they're calling for. You get 15 or 20 minutes to make that decision, otherwise, they're calling the next person on the list. And usually what they tell you ends up maybe not being so accurate because they don't know either. I mean, they're discovering it, you know, in real time as well.

SPEAKER_07 19:31

That's really something. Yeah, I mean, how quickly it all happens or has to happen.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

We're in those last days after Christmas, and between Christmas and New Year's, my favorite days on the calendar. Because it's just chill, all the chaos is done. You know, uh I remember I was sitting in my in my in the living room at the end about the chaos. At the time we had a three, so we yeah, so three and a half, yeah. Three and a half, yeah. So I was sitting in the living room, I kind of have a desk there, and I remember there being just jazz music playing, and it was just chill. And then the phone rings, and it was all of a sudden not chill anymore.

SPEAKER_08 20:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

So we got 20 minutes. And so we called around and then we called back, so yeah, we're in.

SPEAKER_08 20:14

And we had to be in court the next morning.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Well, we didn't find that out until the intern, the county, it was a holiday, so nobody's working. The county intern comes and drops his kid off on our counter, no paperwork, no nothing, and says, You gotta be in court at 8 a.m. in the morning in the county that we were working in. Oh, okay. I guess we're free. I guess we're gonna do that.

SPEAKER_02 20:33

Life changed very, very quickly.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

Yeah, it did. Man, that's amazing. Yeah, it was it was a wild 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_02 20:41

So you talk about how all of a sudden you're just thrust into the life of this beautiful three and a half day old baby. But I know because we talked a lot about this at dinner time, that there that's not the end of the story. And in fact, there was this beautiful gospel, I mean, just kind of out of nowhere moment that really nobody was expecting. Can can you kind of walk us through years after Sweet Jojo was introduced into your life, how it looked kind of bleak there for a little bit, and what what ended up taking place?

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Yeah. So again, with the council of some wise friends that are in the in in the I hate to say the business, the industry of child care, you know, but in in that arena, um that also have a a godly perspective, a Christian perspective. We kind of set some boundaries, some guidelines on how we would make decisions. So we just knew that there would be you know turns in the in the path and and decision points we had to had to navigate. And so we just said we're going to do whatever represents the gospel in this decision. Okay. Now our heart is to adopt, but the gospel is second chances and responsibility. Restoration and grace and compassion. And I mean, it just so often you find yourself working against your own desires because that we were there to represent God. And so we learned this in our very first day in court that very next morning. Uh, we didn't know we we're here kind of as missionaries for lack of a better word. We're we're work representing God what we do. So we brought uh Chick-fil-A biscuits for the courtroom staff, the defect staff. And so we remember this, we handed them out and realized that nobody was eating them.

SPEAKER_08 22:35

Yeah, we took them back to that little office first.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

It wasn't a yay, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_08 22:40

It was like weird.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

Okay. Okay. Then our representative with that Christian organization met us back out in the lobby and she says, I gotta tell you what happened. They weren't eating the breakfast because they didn't know who it come from, and then they found out the organization that you work for, that you're one of the Christian families. They said, Oh, okay, we're okay. Nobody's like poisoned this or anything. Wow.

SPEAKER_08 23:02

Really?

SPEAKER_00 23:02

Yeah, it was crazy.

SPEAKER_08 23:03

Yeah, and that's when I was like, Oh, they they have a hard job.

SPEAKER_02 23:07

A sobering reality. Now we're in this, yeah. We're in this orbit of so being the gospel to people, even in Chick-fil-A biscuits. You don't even have a huge what yeah. You didn't know, right? Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

So we're out in the waiting room, and and this is our first interaction with mom. Mom's name is Ashley, um, who we still have a good relationship with, and we love her to death. But this is our first meeting with her, and so you can imagine the the tension that's there. Um, because we're called to represent Christ, which means that we're not gonna do dividing lines, we're we're not gonna build walls and barriers, we're not gonna get hostile. So we're going to love her and greet her and respect her and cherish her, and we still do to this day. But part of you is torn because that's like you can almost you're tempted to see it as competitive. But we knew that if you did it that way, that is short-term gain, long-term pain. Because if if if if it does go through his adoption, or if it goes through that she reunites with him, we're still part of that story, and we want the ability to continue to be part of that story, and we want her to have the ability to continue to be part of that story, and she does. She she she's still welcome into that story anytime she wants to.

SPEAKER_08 24:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

That was a little harder for Emily.

SPEAKER_08 24:34

Yes, I think I remember um they ended up, he stayed at the courthouse to have a visitation with her, and so we had they said, Well, we'll just bring him home. And so we left. And I mean, he had been with us 12 hours, and I boohooed the whole way home. Because it it hit me how hard this was gonna be.

SPEAKER_07 24:52

I see, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 24:53

Like, oh, this is gonna be harder than I thought.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

And I foster care is strapping your family into a roller coaster you have no control over. You're just along for the ride wherever it goes. Yeah. One of the many cool things that God does is He makes men and women different. Emily is much more in tune with emotions and um the empathy in the room. And God's really gifted her to recognize and empathize and feel along with others. And so that was true for her own emotions, that was true for Ashley's emotions, that was true for Jojo's, you know, four or five-day old emotions and and and growing up. And so, you know, Mama Bear is there, and and men had been given the miraculous ability to compartmentalize. We are too dumb to do any more than one thing at a time, we can only do one thing, and so we can either do emotions or decision making. We cannot do both at the same time. And so preaching as as we continued through the process, one of the one of the things we did is she just didn't come to court anymore.

SPEAKER_05 26:02

I didn't come to court.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

Yeah, Emily did not because just interacting with everybody, it it was she couldn't compartmentalize it. And so so I was able to, not because I'm like super special, but just because the way God's created men, it is I could say, okay, I have all those emotions too, I have all the, but I'm gonna put them over here and we're gonna stick to the principles, we're gonna stick to the plan, and we're going to represent the gospel. And so those times in that waiting room waiting for court with Ashley be began the foundation for the not only the relationship with her, but the relationship with her family as well. Yeah. That continues to this day as much as they want it to.

SPEAKER_07 26:44

Understood. And and there was this time in I think early 2017 where things got really dicey. Yeah. Uh and and it was complicated with multiple counties involved and different layers of uh Miss Ashley's family and and all that. But uh walk us through uh what what happened and some of the things that you tried to do to help communicate to family members about that really difficult time when uh in Brad's words, things things looked a little bleak.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

Yeah, a little bleak. Um so we'd had Jojo for about a year. Um and again, she's talking about court 12 hours later. You it takes you five minutes to fall in love. Like he's just part of the family now. And now he's a year later, he is very much part of the family. Um and so I get a call from D Fax, and Ashley uh actually had just given birth to another boy with a different dad, and they had just gotten married, Ashley and this other dad, which gave that dad of the of the younger now younger brother legal rights as stepfather to Jojo. And D Fax wants families reunited and they want sibling groups together. So now we had a sibling with the appearance of a nuclear family, you know, all that, and and and this individual now had legal standing as stepdad. So they call me and they explain all of that to me. Uh, and they said, You need to start packing up his stuff because we're gonna come get him soon to actually relocate him and put him in their home. And we actually did an in-home visit. And I'll never forget, we walk into their home, their new baby's there with a defects worker, and we come in and and his whole family is there, and it's like this supervised meet and greet, and and she's they're showing me the nursery that they've prepared. And I walk into that nursery and I see Jojo's name painted on the wall over a crib. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Like it was that close. Yeah. Um, so I get that phone call, and you know, you're just shocked because as foster parents, you're nothing more than employees of the state. Right. Um, you don't have an opinion, you don't have rights, you don't, I mean, you're just you're just providing a service to the state. And and so I actually wrote a little document um just so I could keep my thoughts straight. And so I have that here today, and it just kind of outlined everything. And I drove to Emily's school, she's a teacher, because I was not gonna have that conversation over the phone.

SPEAKER_05 29:33

Oh, yeah.

unknown 29:33

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

And I pulled her out of class, I think. Yeah, it was the end of the day, it was the end of the day. And I just said, hey, we gotta talk. And I just kind of walked through that the bullet points on that document. Um, because I was trying to keep my head straight too. Um and at the bottom of the document, after explaining all this uncontrollable, difficult, unfair situation, I just had written down a review of the principles that we stand on, the navigating principles that we had been using for over a year at this point. And and those were those were this number one, God is sovereign. So whatever happens washes through his hand and he is in control.

unknown 30:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

Which is comforting because God is also good. And so whatever happens washes through his hands, and he is in control, and it is what is best for everybody in the situation. Just because you believe it doesn't make it easy. Right. This is why I wrote them down so that I could remember, right? Um, and then what we'd already learned through the process through because it's always chaos, is often what we know today is not true tomorrow.

SPEAKER_02 30:53

In the foster world. In the foster world. Right, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

And so you get information and the next day, something right. And so, okay, there's you know, so you're saying we have a chance, you know, that kind of thing, right? So it's just it's just it that's that had been kind of a pattern, and and so you're kind of holding on to that. But then we remind ourselves that that we are not going to compete with the family. We are not gonna do that dividing line, we're not gonna do us versus them, we're not gonna we're we're here to represent Christ, and and and our decisions will display the gospel in every action and decision. And so that's where we are.

SPEAKER_07 31:31

Can can I just say those guiding, those navigating principles? I need I need a lot of that in my life, yeah. You know, and I'm not in the the foster world, foster care world. I mean that God is sovereign, that God is good, that you know his ways are higher than our ways.

SPEAKER_02 31:51

And even when, and maybe especially when it doesn't feel like it, we believe truths uh over feelings, exactly. And I just this commitment that that in the midst of not just uncertainty, but of heartbreak, your commitment uh to being Jesus to others is is a beautiful thing. Yes. So what happens?

SPEAKER_00 32:17

I I I'll follow up that with um one of the lessons we've learned recently is that there's nothing wasted in the kingdom of God. And so these lessons that we learned 10 years ago were all preparing us for a new challenge that would come later, where we would learn those same lessons again, but in a different way and a more rich way. And so God's always moving you somewhere, and unfortunately, the times that we build and grow and mature, and our I hate this term, our character is developed. I'm like, I'm a caricature at this point. It's just too much. And so, but but but you don't want to go through them again, but you also wouldn't trade them for the world, yeah. Right, yeah, come on, right? And and it's it's building building those things, and so yeah, so so those are our principles. Um, that day it's just like a bomb had gone off in our world. And so what we actually did is we drove to church. We did because we just didn't want to be home. And so tell about that experience sitting at church. Yeah, so it was a Tuesday.

SPEAKER_08 33:32

It was no, I think it was uh I thought it was well, I don't know. I don't remember. It doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_00 33:37

It wasn't a church service, it was just we just need to go. And we're very good friends with our pastor and his wife, and just love them to death.

SPEAKER_08 33:45

And I'll never forget our pastor's wife, Amy. She just sat with me and she just cried with me. I mean, she didn't say a word. And I even remember having the thought, like, God, maybe you're showing me like how to hurt with people who hurt, and like I'm learning something from her right now because you know, there were other, and listen, everybody has the best intentions, but there were others that would say that, well, at least you had these, you know, 13 months with them and you gave them a good start, and like, and they're just trying to be nice, like, but and I do it too. We want to fill the silence because we want to make it better, but there's some situations that people walk through that there's nothing we can say that will make it better in that moment except just to sit down. So she I just she just sat by me and just cried.

SPEAKER_00 34:39

Didn't didn't try to didn't try to fix it, didn't try to make it better, didn't offer up platitudes.

SPEAKER_08 34:44

Yeah, and so I learned I learned something that even I look back and I'm thankful for that. But did you say her name was Amy? Amy.

SPEAKER_07 34:52

Shout out to Amy, Amy one of the heroes of the story. There you go.

SPEAKER_08 34:57

She probably did. I don't even know if I've ever told her that. Really?

SPEAKER_07 35:00

Well, well, they it just how about those moments in our lives where God sends somebody? Yep, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:07

So we'll text it to her when this episode comes out on Thursday.

SPEAKER_06 35:10

Okay, well, you know, look more than a big thing.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

When this episode comes out on Thursday.

SPEAKER_02 35:18

I didn't say which Thursday. No, I know I didn't. Oh, we lost him. He's over there cackling. Oh, he's about to choke on his gun stop or whatever that is. He doesn't have a gun. We lost him. If we if he does, you're about to go next man.

SPEAKER_04 35:49

Oh no. We lost the room. We lost the room.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

Here we go. We're back in the room. We're back in the room.

SPEAKER_02 35:58

No, he's not back. I'm back. Here, you keep going.

SPEAKER_06 36:01

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 36:03

So we we spent a couple of hours at the church, literally kind of sitting in silence, and it was just the only place we could think to be. But then we realized we gotta tell our parents.

SPEAKER_02 36:17

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 36:18

I think you you had already talked to yours biz they had Cooper.

SPEAKER_00 36:23

Yeah, you're right. I forgot. Yeah. So I I talked to mom and dad with this document. I mean, that's that's um, and then we went to your parents' house. Yeah, we drove to their house and and talked through the document. I mean, and and we ended with these are the principles that we stand on, and here we are. And that's all you can say.

SPEAKER_05 36:39

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:40

And so here we are as a family, and we're supposed to have his stuff ready to go soon. Soon means literally when they call, they're coming, and nothing happens ahead of time in D Fax Land. Like when it's when it reaches the top of the list, then it's time. And so we we're just stuck there. That ended up being around three months of waiting for that.

SPEAKER_08 37:07

But I don't think, and I don't know if this is just because we didn't want to believe it, or we just were praying and hoping for the the best, but we never actually packed up anything.

SPEAKER_05 37:18

No.

SPEAKER_08 37:19

So if they had shown up, we would have had to say, um, you're gonna have to wait a second, cuz I had a bag packed from Mexico.

SPEAKER_00 37:33

In in the middle of that, um, just in Bible study, uh, I came across Psalm 40. And I have it written um at the top of Psalm 40 in my Bible, it just says Jojo's Psalm. And I won't read the whole thing. Um, but verse one says, I waited patiently for the Lord to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the pit of despair. And I've got several other things um highlighted here. Again, I won't read it all. Um, but down in verse uh nine, it says, I have told all your people about your justice. I have not been afraid to speak out, as you, oh Lord, well know. Feel the emotion in that? Yeah, like, come on, man. I'm working for you down here. You're killing me. As you, oh no, oh Lord, well know, I have not kept the good news of your justice hidden in my heart. I have talked about your faithfulness and saving power. I have told everyone in the great assembly of your unfailing love and faithfulness. Which is what we were doing.

SPEAKER_01 38:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:46

It's like, God, this is what we're doing, as you well know. So where are you? You ever been there? Oh yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 38:58

You kept saying you kept saying, I think the phrase I heard you say over and over is, God, you got us into this mess. You're gonna have to get us out. We don't know what to do.

SPEAKER_00 39:10

Yeah, we were at the the beach as a family one time, um, in the middle of all this chaos, and um I was alone out in the waves, you know, and I remember shaking my fist at the sky saying, You I'm here because of you. Yeah, you you put me in this, and now you're wrecking my family over this. That's the relationship I have with God. I don't know how y'all works out, but um, so anyway, you can read the rest of Psalm 40 on your own, but I just have it marked in my Bible as Jojo's Psalm. Um it it it ends with, You are my helper and my savior. Oh my God, do not delay. Yeah, so there we are.

SPEAKER_07 39:56

Whoa man, that is something else. I mean, Elliot is taking us on this journey that they went through, Elliot and Emily both. Wow, but I just gotta ask, that's where you ended? You left us hanging, dude.

SPEAKER_02 40:15

I told you, I told you in the beginning there might be a little bit of a cliffhanger here. I apologize, but I gotta have some incentive for y'all coming back next week.

SPEAKER_07 40:24

But seriously, though, that actually, honestly, man, that's a great place to end it. Yeah. And and there's some reasons why. I think about how many stories ongoing that might be existing and playing out in in our lives, yeah, the lives of our listeners. And we don't always get to a nice tidy uh ending point.

SPEAKER_02 40:49

Right.

SPEAKER_07 40:50

There's still tons of question marks, especially if we're in the middle of it. Exactly. And that's life, right? But I'm telling you, I'm really glad we ended with Psalm 40. So I'm gonna encourage all our listeners to think about not just this amazing story that we can't wait to hear what happens next, but in your in our own lives. How about we spend this next week putting some Psalm 40 on it? Come on, and some some real moments with God. Oh, right. I I love the honesty and the rawness of those moments with God. Yeah, and and I think that would be a great thing for us to do as we wait to hear the end of their story or the how their stories are playing out, but also as we face our own question marks. I love that, man.

SPEAKER_02 41:40

I love that. And I'm telling you guys, you have to come back for part two next week. Not only do we hear the conclusion of this incredible foster adoption journey, but we also get a little small story of some of those same truths that God is revealing in this adoption story has played out in Elliot and Emily's life in really big ways just within the last calendar year. So, anyways, you gotta you gotta come back.

SPEAKER_07 42:06

Y'all are not going to be disappointed. I I think you you're gonna feel this next episode. We can't wait to have you back with us next week for another episode of Turns on the Side. Can you believe it? I'm taking the under whether or not that comes out of the when it comes to this of what's 2027.

SPEAKER_06 42:54

My kids take my daughter's six years old.

SPEAKER_07 43:00

She's turning what?

SPEAKER_01 43:01

She's turning six in September.

SPEAKER_07 43:03

Oh, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 43:04

Gosh, yeah, so if it was June of 27, she would be six. You're right. You're right. We just got booted in September.

SPEAKER_07 43:11

Oh man. Hey, look, it happens to the best.