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March 7, 2024
A Virginia pastor believes a miraculous provision from God led his family to adopt, and he’s now sharing his insight and inspiration with others.
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Dr. Bob Griffith, lead pastor of Christ Chapel in Woodbridge, Virginia, tells his family’s incredible story in the book “Fostering Jesus: Answering the Call to Foster Care in the Home and Church.”
Like many, at one point Griffith didn’t know a great deal about foster care. But he asked a question years ago while serving as a pastor in the Kenosha, Wisconsin, area, that changed everything.
“I went to the county officials that were there and I just simply asked them, ‘If you could wave a magic wand and you could ask the church or rally the church in your area to do one thing, what would that one thing be?’” he recently told CBN News.
Their response? They needed help serving the foster care system. This reaction left Griffith thinking and pondering how his church could step in to assist. So, he went home, spoke with his wife, and decided, as a family, to start fostering kids. At the same time, he looped in his church.
Watch Griffith talk about the miracle that unfolded when he turned to God in prayer:
There was a question on the foster care form, though, that stood out to him. The government asked if he and his family would consider adoption if needed.
“I looked at that form and I said to my wife, ‘I’m not doing this for adoption. We’re just doing foster care,’” he recounted. “And she looked at me and said, ‘Well, if God makes it clear to you that, at the end of this, you are supposed to be a foster parent … would you do it?’”
Griffith said he’d certainly listen to the Lord on the matter, so he and his wife checked the box.
A few years later, the preacher said he and his wife found themselves in that very situation when all three of their foster care children came up for adoption.
“The county representatives called and they said, ‘We need to know now, ‘Would you like to be an adoptive parent to these children?’” he recalled. “And I will be honest with you; my answer was, ‘No.’”
Griffith continued, “I used my brain that God gave me and I did an assessment of how big of a home we had, and how many seats in our car, and just very practical things. And I could not see how we could do this.”
With three children already in their home, the family would immediately swell to eight members, expanding well beyond their resources and means.
But, while Griffith couldn’t see a path forward, God had a powerful plan. And a simple prayer on the pastor’s part opened the floodgates for it to all come together.
“I prayed and I told God, ‘My answer is ‘No,’ unless you really want this to happen. If this is Your plan for my life, then of course I will do it,’” Griffith said, continuing his invocation: “But if that’s the case, you’re going to have to do something about it.’”
And that’s when the miracle happened.
“Twenty-four hours after I prayed that prayer, things just started happening,” he said. “I mean, within 24 hours, we had phone calls from people that were encouraging us to adopt the children just out of nowhere. We had seven different… confirmations that this is what we were supposed to do.”
The biggest of those assurances came from a man in the community who flipped homes. He called Griffith “out of the blue” and said something that stunned the preacher.
“[He said], ‘Hey, God put you on my heart and I know that you’re a foster parent. So, I just wanted to see if you need more space. I have a home that I will allow you to buy at my cost as a flipper,’” Griffith recalled. “And so he said, ‘Would you be interested in that?’”
Within a day of that prayer, Griffith sold his current home and bought the new house, which had enough space for his now-larger family. And the other details surrounding the deal were equally phenomenal.
“We were able to get a new home in the same school district,” Griffith said. “For the same price that we sold our house, we bought the new house, but it had two more bedrooms and those two more bedrooms were exactly what we needed to be able to make room for the new foster children to be adopted children in our family.”
The pastor said the entirety of the surreal experience taught him some powerful lessons about God’s love and willingness to reorder things in Griffith’s life to fulfill his promises in Scripture.
“God cares about children and He will make it happen if we pray,” he said. “Even if you pray a prayer like I did and you give [Him] this much room, God will kick the door open and He will make it happen, because He’s all about helping vulnerable children that need the love of God.”
Griffith has learned many lessons along the way and he recounts them in “Fostering Jesus: Answering the Call to Foster Care in the Home and Church,” helping Christians and the church better navigate foster care and adoption.
Considering the issue is massive and affects every state in the nation, he encouraged Christians to step up to the plate and help others. He said communities “need the church to be able to jump in and be part of the solution.”
“The church has been focused on adoption, primarily, that’s something that has been talked about … and that has been amazing and wonderful,” he said. “But, if you look at adoption and you back up one step, often times, it’s foster care that is the step right before that.”
Griffith stressed the importance of coming alongside the biological family and partnering to push toward reunification, which is what happens in the majority of foster care situations.
Additionally, he encouraged churches to disciple families and help them aspire toward strength and endurance.
“The area of foster care is one that I believe that the church in America needs to get more active on talking about as it relates to the heart of God,” Griffith said. “It really is found in the Word of God.”
Find out more in “Fostering Jesus: Answering the Call to Foster Care in the Home and Church.”
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