Fors for Family

David Scott Fields II, Senior Writer • November 20, 2021

Several years ago, I had the pleasure of serving alongside Mrs. Carrie Fors in Children’s Ministry at Grace Immanuel Bible Church of Jupiter, Florida. It was probably only the first day of knowing her when I learned that she and her husband, Jesse, have a huge heart for the ministry of adoption. In addition to their three biological children, the Fors have adopted four children from the foster care system here in Florida. Theirs is among the most powerful adoption stories I have ever heard. What follows is that story. Actually, in this interview, I asked very few questions. It seemed the Lord had already prepared their hearts with exactly what to say, and I sat in awe of the Lord’s graciousness in the lives of this dear couple as I listened to their story unfold.

Jesse began by recounting how he and Carrie first met. As he explained, “We met at a family get together for my side of the family. She was actually friends with my niece, so we kind of knew each other because she worked at a bank I was doing business with.” There was an immediate interest between the two, but there was also one thing missing. Jesse was not a Christian at the time, and as Carrie added, “Shame on me, because I was a professing Christian.”

Jesse continued, “She should not have expressed an interest in me, but she was different. I had dated other girls, but there was something refreshing about her, so we embarked on a relationship together.” The two had many great times together, but soon enough the Lord would bring their differences to the forefront. Though raised in the Catholic Church, Jesse had absolutely no interest in it. The instant he was old enough, Jesse decided he would never darken the door of a church again. Carrie, on the other hand, attended church every Sunday.

As she explained, “The strange thing was, when we first met, after a few hours of talking, he asked, ‘Are you a Christian?'” At the time Carrie was convicted because she did not think she had given him any indication that she was a believer, but she told him that she was. Jesse then remarked that his mom wanted him to marry a Christian, but it was a generic term to him. If you believed in God, you were a Christian. If you didn’t, you were an atheist. He had absolutely no context for what a relationship with Christ would look like.

Eventually, Carrie began attending Grace Immanuel, and she brought Jesse along. As he put it, “It was okay. It wasn’t the Catholic Church with all the calisthenics of standing and kneeling and all that. The pastor was a good speaker, dynamic…interesting.” In the process of time, the Lord used the fact that the Gospel was being shared in a way unlike Jesse had ever heard before in the Catholic Church to begin drawing him closer to Christ. He made a profession of faith early on, but as he related, “Knowing that [Carrie] shouldn’t be in a relationship with someone who wasn’t a Christian…part of that drove my profession of faith. Looking back, I don’t know that the Lord actually saved me then, but I do know there was some conviction of sin in my life.” It took many years before Jesse was certain of his standing before Christ. Though several had erroneously told him that if you did not recall the day and time of your salvation, you weren’t really saved, it was the coming of Pastor Jerry Wragg that made things much clearer. “It’s actually God’s work. God is the one who makes you alive. You make a decision, but that is not what saves you,” Jesse explained. Then he joked, “That’s probably the first question I am going to ask the Lord – ‘When did you save me?’ To which He will probably reply, ‘Before the foundation of the world!'”

As Jesse and Carrie grew both in Christ and closer to each other, they were married and decided they were going to start a family. However, this presented a rather amusing conundrum for the two of them. Jesse had grown up in a large family of nine kids, yet he hated the chaos and noise that came along with it. At the start of their marriage, he would have much preferred for he and Carrie to have a smaller family. Carrie, on the other hand, had grown up with only one sibling isolated in the wilds of Jonathan Dickinson State Park, where her father worked as a ranger. As such, she loved the idea of having a huge family of her own. The chaos and the noise that would come with it were of no consequence. Carrie laughed as she said, “We are very opposite!”

The couple had talked about adoption before ever getting married. In fact, Carrie had been imagining it since she was a child – pretending to adopt children, reading books about orphans, and often bringing her mother articles about children needing placement. However, though Jesse had always loved children, he was not too keen on having a lot of them. Even so, the idea of children without a home easily tugged on his heart. They got their family started with their three biological kids, but then after two miscarriages with unknown causes, Jesse and Carrie decided not to have any more biological children. Little did they realize, the Lord was not done growing their family.

Adoption continued to be a thought in the back of their minds, but it was not something they had ever followed through with. They knew the Lord had already blessed them greatly with their three kids. However, as the years rolled by and they began to realize the great need for adoptive parents, the Lord brought the idea back to the forefront. And they realized that this would not be about growing their family (though that would come naturally). Rather, this would be about serving in any way they could. As Carrie shared, there are over 400,000 children needing to be adopted here in the United States alone and countless more around the world.

So about 14 years ago, they began looking into the process more seriously. They didn’t know where to go at first. With the options of private adoption, overseas adoption, and foster adoption, it was hard to know which would be the right fit. Jesse did not want to be a foster parent because he did not want the children leaving their home. This would be an all or nothing proposition for the Fors. Soon enough, they realized there were plenty of kids in the United States needing homes, so they decided to focus their efforts here instead of looking abroad. As it would turn out, they got their foot in the door of foster adoption right at Grace Immanuel.

As Carrie explained, “There was a woman going [to GIBC] who had two foster children with her, so I just asked her one day, ‘Are these kids up for adoption.'” The kids were. Their parents’ rights had recently been terminated, and a forever family was needed for them. The Fors began praying, and they shared the idea with their kids. However, the Fors kids were upset with the idea – especially the idea of adopting two older kids. Carrie and Jesse knew they needed their kids onboard with the idea, so they backed off of this opportunity. In His graciousness, the Lord provided a permanent home for the young brother and sister with another family at GIBC. However, he wasn’t done working on the Fors just yet.

At the time, Jesse’s sister was in a mentoring program where she taught an adult literacy class. While there she met a woman who was the foster mother of an 18-month-old who she was not going to adopt. Jesse’s sister gave the Fors the caseworker’s phone number, and they called immediately. Hope seemed dim with that call. Over 50 applications had already been received for the little boy, and the caseworker had been told not to accept any more. However, speaking with the Fors she said, “For some reason I feel like I need to take your application…but you need to get the home study to me in three days.”

For those unfamiliar with the process, an adoption home study normally takes six to eight weeks, and the Fors had no idea where to start. Again, the Lord provided the answer right in their own church. The Fors were told, “Call Melanie!” Specifically, Melanie Kotecki who worked at Place of Hope, a foster and adoption facility. Melanie had their home study done in two days. Next, there was a ten-week class to take in only two-weeks time. Melanie again came to the rescue, finding a teacher who came to the Fors’ home and taught the whole class in just two 15-hour weekends. What should have taken several months from start to finish was completed in just two weeks. How great is our God!

Even so, the Fors were told not to get their hopes up. They were forewarned that since they were not actual foster parents and their application was really late, it would be virtually impossible that they would be chosen as the placement for the young boy. However, in faith they kept their application in and a few weeks later they were informed they were among the four remaining candidates. There was a long silence after that, and the Fors were left wondering. Then the day finally came. As Carrie recalled, “I get home one day, and I start to play the messages on our answering machine. At the same time, a friend had just come to the front door, so we are listening to the messages together and it’s them calling, telling us we have been chosen for this little boy.” Carrie recalled her friend getting a funny look on her face as the message played. You see, the main caseworker who called was her neighbor that she had known for years. It was one of many miracles that occurred during the process.

Another occurred as the Fors began visitations with the boy, Ryan, and Carrie began to post on social media that they had been accepted as his adoptive parents. Another family from Grace Immanuel reached out and asked to learn more about Ryan. When two and two were put together, the Fors learned that this family had lived right next door to Ryan when he was a newborn. As Carrie put it, “They would babysit Ryan because his mom would be such a mess that they were trying to protect him.” When Ryan was ten months old, his birth mom told this family that she had given him away. In reality, the police had come and taken him. Not knowing where Ryan was, this family had prayed for him. A year later, their prayers were answered as Ryan became forever a part of the Fors family.

Ryan is almost 14 now. When he was about five, his biological mother gave birth to his brother, and the Fors attempted to pursue adopting him as well. Usually it is state mandate that siblings be placed together. However, due to several loopholes in the system and caseworkers not doing their homework, this opportunity fell through. It was because of this that when a nine-month-old baby girl became available a few months later, the Fors were among the first to be called. The approval process ended up being so easy this time around, and the little girl, Taylor, was in their home within six weeks.

At the time, with three biological kids and two adoptive kids, it would have appeared to any outsider that both the Fors’ hearts and their home were full, but the Lord was just getting things warmed up. Not so far down the road, three nieces and a nephew of one of Jesse’s cousins in the Carolinas were in foster care in Port Saint Lucie. She wanted to get them out of the system and adopt them, but she didn’t know where to start. She reached out to the Fors for help, and specifically to Carrie. Carrie started to work with her and advocate for her in the system. One of the nieces and the nephew ended up being adopted by the foster parents they were living with. This left two remaining, but out of state adoptions can be incredibly difficult. At every turn in the process, there seemed to be another dead end. This went on for two years before Jesse’s cousin and her husband decided they couldn’t continue in the process.

By that point, Carrie had been advocating for these kids for years – though she and Jesse had never met them. It seemed only logical that the Fors continue to fight for them and bring them into their own home. Carrie recalled, “I asked him ‘What do you think?’ And he said no…at first.” However, in the end, both the Lord and Carrie prevailed, and the Fors once again submitted an application to become adoptive parents. This time the process was far from easy. As Carrie explained, “The system is broken. The problem is the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing…They don’t pass information on…and the turnover rate is high. The average time for a caseworker is three months.” However, the Fors had learned they needed to be fairly aggressive in the process, so they did not give up. They continued to rely on the support of their friends, family, church, and ultimately the Lord, and finally the girls, Layla (7) and Hailey (6) found a home with the Fors.

Over the years, Jesse and Carrie have continued to be open to welcoming new children into their home. In fact, during 2019-2020 they provided a temporary home to a teen girl who had been part of a failed adoption. This girl, now 15, still calls Carrie and Jesse Mom and Dad, though she currently lives in a therapeutic foster home as she deals with her past.

As we wrapped up this incredible interview, Carrie and Jesse shared these words of caution for those looking to adopt, “Be careful. You may not experience the child that is going to be so grateful that you adopted them. Especially foster adoption – these kids have been through abuse or neglect. Rather, go through it with the mindset that this is a ministry. The kids may never appreciate it, but that is not why you do it. You can’t go into it with the Superman or the hero mindset because you are going to be greatly disappointed if the child is not bowing at your knee and thanking you. We’ve seen parents frustrated by that, but they are kids. They are not always going to be thankful.”

Jesse concluded by saying, “It’s such an incredible parallel to the Gospel for us.” One judge, who they actually suspected of being a believer, reminded them that through adoption children literally and legally become part of your family forever. It is exactly the same with the Gospel. As Romans 8:15-17 reminds us:

For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons and daughters by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”

God’s grace, provision, and most of all love are abundantly evident in Jesse and Carrie Fors. They would be the first to tell you being adoptive parents is not easy. In fact, it may be one of the hardest things in life. Nevertheless, I am convinced they have proved true and faithful models of Christ for all the children who have entered their home. I am truly grateful for the opportunity I had to sit down with them and hear their story. I pray it will inspire others to take a similar journey, always keeping in mind the true purpose of adoption and parenthood in general is to model Christ and bring lost souls into His Kingdom. Truly that is the most amazing ministry of them all!

References

Scriptures have been taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE ®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

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