For National Adoption Month, we’re sharing the testimony of Brother Josh and Sister Amy King from the Pinetop Branch, Arizona.

Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy. (Psalm 82:3)

In 2011, I applied and received a job offer as a foster care licensing specialist. This opportunity allowed me to move to the Pinetop-Lakeside, AZ, area and be close to my family and church family with whom I grew up. Little did I know God had big plans for me!  

In this position, God was preparing me for a bigger job in life—to become a mother. Not the traditional way, but through foster care and adoption.

Through this job, I learned the ins and outs of foster care and adoption.

Fast forward to 2013 when I met Josh King, who had just moved to town from California to restart his life. (He immediately found work here when he’d been searching in California for over six months. Again, God was moving his hand for a bigger reason.)

We were married on November 22, 2014, which just so happened to be National Adoption Day. (Coincidence? I think not) Of course, we wanted to start a family, but we also accepted that if it didn’t happen, we’d have another option, as my daily job duties involved working with children who need love and a home. 

In 2016, we started the process of becoming foster parents. At the time, we were living in a small home that had only two bedrooms and two bathrooms. We knew we needed at least one more bedroom for a child. One day in May 2016, Josh was off from work and suggested we look at a few houses to see what was available.

Guess what happened at that moment? My brother called to say he was thinking about buying an investment property. My mouth dropped. I told him we were heading out to look at houses ourselves. “Would you be interested in buying our current home?” I asked, and he was immediately interested.

Our realtor was busy that day, but she had just enough time between appointments to show us a home that had double the square footage of our current place as well as five bedrooms and two bathrooms. 

By 5 p.m. that day, we were approved to buy our dream home, and my brother made an offer to buy our current home. 

Once again, God’s hand was moving us exactly where He wanted us for our future family.

Over the next year, we settled into our new home, finished our foster-care classes, started our home study, and completed all the paperwork we needed for foster care licenses.

One Sunday in early April 2017, Brother Michael Watson felt prompted to call Josh and me to offer a special prayer for us and the future children coming into our home. It was a sweet, spirit-filled prayer. I could feel God’s hand moving, and later my mother-in-law, Berni King, and I had a conversation about how we both felt so strongly that something was going to happen soon.

On April 23, 2017, I was on call to place children in foster homes, and I received a call about an 18-day-old newborn girl who was left in the emergency room at the hospital by her teenage mother who couldn’t keep her.

I called one of my families who had been waiting for a newborn, thinking this placement would be easy. The couple decided they just couldn’t accept a child at the time. At that moment, my heart began to race, and I heard the words: “Just ask, just ask.”

At that point, we didn’t have our licenses, but everything else was in place. “I’ll just ask.”

I called the baby’s social worker and explained that I’d called an available home, but they’d declined, but my husband and I would take her since our paperwork was submitted and we were waiting on the license being issued. (At that point, I was relieved at the mere fact that I asked.) 

The social worker said, “I need to call the supervisor, and I’ll get back to you.”  

“What?!?!?,” I exclaimed. I couldn’t even call or text Josh at work to tell him this could be happening. He is a meat cutter at a grocery store, and I was worried that if I texted him he’d cut himself!

After about 15 minutes, I received a text from the social worker saying she was heading to our home! Oh, the emotions—crying, praying, and thinking this was a dream.

Josh came home from work before they arrived, and I said, “Honey, I think we are getting a baby girl.” He said, “What, now? How?”

I explained what transpired and we waited. Sure enough, within 30 minutes of Josh arriving home, a car pulled up to our house and brought us our sweet Emileigh. After they left, I called my brother and in-laws, and they all showed up to celebrate God’s blessings! What a beginning! 

(Needless to say, our license came just a few days later.)

On October 24, 2018, we officially adopted Emileigh. 

Postscript: God also called us to foster a teen girl. This girl asked us to adopt her, and we did. She was a true gem, and we were blessed to have her in our lives for nearly four years. Unfortunately, her mental health took a turn, and she started running away. Finally, she ran away and never returned. We know that she is safe, but we pray that she will remember God’s love and our love for her and someday wish to have a relationship with us again.

Editor’s note: Next Monday, we’ll continue with Part 2 of Sister Amy’s adoption story. 

This article has undergone ministry review and approval.