My husband, Mike, and I met through a mutual friend, while he was deployed with the US Army overseas. I was sending care packages to their unit to brighten their spirits and included a bible study for them (one from Pastor Earl McClellan who was my Young Adults Pastor at the time), which I then offered to do with them online while they were overseas. Mike & I became friends for the next 8 months during that deployment, even handwriting each other letters and being pen pals. When he returned back home, he was transferred to Texas and we were married a year later. We started attending Fellowship Church shortly after being married in 2011. We both loved listening to Pastor Ed and all of his messages were so powerful. We got plugged in and served on the greeting team.

For the first couple of years of our marriage we tried to start a family of our own, but I was unable to conceive, though we held the desire to grow a family. I asked God to remove the desire from my heart if he did not want us to grow our family, but the desire only grew. Doctors told me I was infertile and that we could not have children on our own. I was devastated. We tried everything, from Invitro to acupuncture, you name it, we tried it. Nothing worked. Yet the desire remained.

Mike went Active Duty with the Army in 2012 and we got moved out of state to a different army base. We still watched Fellowship Church online. The online ministry was fairly new back then and I was SO grateful to still connect with "home". In prayer, I felt led to build a nursery in the giant 4-bedroom home that just the 2 of us shared. I was certain that through this step of faith I would become pregnant. For 5 months, it remained empty.

Each month when I found out I wasn't pregnant, I would go into the nursery, sit down and cry out to God, but the desire to grow my family remained. One day at church, I was asked to cover in a meeting before service that I don't normally attend. Before the meeting began the woman leading said, "before we pray does anyone know of a place where a baby could stay?"

My heart began pounding and I knew that this was the baby God meant for me. I approached the woman and said that it was probably crazy, but that we have an empty nursery and I should probably ask my husband first, but we could take this baby into our home and help for however long a time. I called my husband and he surprisingly agreed, straight away. That was Father's Day weekend when we opened our home to a child in need.

It turned out that the five months our nursery had sat empty was the EXACT amount of time that this child had been fighting for his life in a prenatal intensive care unit, getting weaned off of drugs he had been exposed to in utero.

He was welcomed into our home and through many more miracles became our adopted son. In 2018, we moved back to Texas and back to Fellowship Church. Our adopted son is now 9 years old and thanks to the incredible kids ministry program at Fellowship Church, he loves the Lord. He was even baptized at Fellowship Church in 2020, during the Covid Pandemic, along with his adoptive sister.

His biological mother has since gotten clean from drug addiction and has been able to successfully raise two little girls full time. I continue to mentor and be a resource to her as she navigates life.  

We have since adopted a little girl who came to us at 3 days old, from a different family, through similar circumstances. And after a failed 3rd adoption, I found out I was pregnant and carried a healthy baby boy full term. He is now almost 5 years old. In addition to that little miracle, came another biological baby girl, whom I carried full term and is now almost 4 years old.

I feel like Sarah and Abraham. For so long I tried to take matters into my own hands. But God would not bless what I tried to take credit for on my own...

Invitro didn't work. Instead, God had a baby that needed a home waiting for me in the wings, and after faithfully welcoming that child and another into our home and helping other families do the same, God worked a MIRACLE in my life and allowed me to biologically carry two children of our own. We are a blended, by no means perfect family...but after all isn't that what the Kingdom of God looks like?

We are all adopted...

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Niki has openly shared their family's faith journey with over 200 lead pastors and community members through Q Commons Podcast/Community Talks, & iHeart public service radio announcements. She helped form a coalition of 37 churches in the Pacific Northwest to wrap around and meet the needs of the local Foster Care Community in the Seattle/Tacoma area and helped to advocate, license & educate over 500+ foster & adoptive families during their time stationed there. She currently attends Fellowship Church in Grapevine, TX with her husband, Mike- a 23.5 yr retired Army Veteran and their 4 beautiful children. She holds a Masters Degree from Georgetown University in Communication, with an emphasis on Advocacy. She is in the process of writing a book about this incredible faith & family journey, and is open to publicly speaking and sharing this testimony of faith with others, in the hopes that it inspires others to love like Jesus and maybe even welcome a child into their family in perhaps a nontraditional way.