Today we’d like to introduce you to Chelsea Reidland.
Chelsea, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
My name is Chelsea Reidland. I have been married to the love of my life for almost 15 years. We have six kids and sponsor a girl in Ethiopia that we go see at least once a year. The first date I had with my husband I told him, “I want to adopt one day, I want to be a stay at home mom when my kids are little and I don’t iron. It makes me hot and sweaty and I just don’t like it. If he was ok with those three things, we could continue, but if his hope was to have a two-income family, with one or two kids, we should probably just remain friends. No judgment, just not for me. We both agreed that it was unacceptable to us that there are kids that don’t have a family. We knew one day that we would foster or adopt. Fast forward a few years and we were welcoming our first baby boy into the world, Then another and another. God blessed us with three biological sons. We decided once our youngest was potty trained, we would start the adoption process and planned to adopt a little girl that would fit perfectly into the birth order. We decided we would foster teenagers once all our bio kids were older and out on their own.
We got licensed through an agency and I began dreaming of my little girl. I painted her room and started buying hair bows and tutus. During the training, we learned about how many older kids are in foster care and what their life looks like when they age out of foster care. My heart began to break for the older kids, but I didn’t think God was asking me to do anything about it besides praying for them. We attended our first match event (an event where they have pictures of all the kids in foster care that have their parental rights terminated and are waiting to be adopted). I was shocked at the lack of two-year-old little princess that was available for adoption. I think the youngest kid was nine years old. At the last table, we went to there was a sibling group. The girl was almost 17 and her brother was 14. We took their picture home and began to pray for them. Those kids are now my kids, my son, and my daughter. Adding two teenagers into our family that had experienced unimaginable trauma was not easy, but it was and is so worth it.
Around that time, Hope Fort Worth was starting and they were wanting to start some initiatives to advocate for older kids in foster care that were at high risk of again out of care. I began volunteering for Hope Fort Worth and ran both of the new initiatives. One was putting on match events. Since we went to several during the adoption process and found our kids through a match event, I had so many ideas of how to make the experience better for the families attending. The other initiative is called Hope Now. I get to match one older kid in foster care to one church and allow that church to advocate for that kid through prayer and social media. Once my youngest started Kindergarten I came on staff at Hope Fort Worth. My husband and I now run Hope Fort Worth full time and we are living our best life!
Our 6th kid will be added to our family at the end of summer right before his 18th birthday. He is one of the kids we have advocated for and ended up falling in love and knew that he was meant to be apart of our family. We don’t know what God has in store for our family or the ministry God has given us, but we want to always be available to do whatever God asks us to do.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
No, it has not been a smooth road. Adding kids from trauma into our family and running a non-profit has tested our faith, marriage and family. I am stronger. We are all stronger because of it though. One statement that became a life statement for me is, “I am willing to be rejected so that my kids will never have to be rejected again.” Raising teenagers who have been hurt, abandoned, abused and rejected will act out when they start to attach to you. Receiving love and giving love is one of the scariest things for a child that has had their biggest fear in life come true.
The hard things that I have experienced have allowed me to be able to inspire, equip and support other families as they say yes to the hard and give a child a family. It has also allowed me to be able to help people know how to support families that are fostering and adopting. Hope Fort Worth helps churches help vulnerable kids. We partner with churches and help them know the best way to support families.
Another obstacle is being donor-based and being such a young non-profit. It was scary for my husband to quit his full-time job and for us to both do this full time together, but we knew we wanted to give 100%. We don’t get any state funds so we rely completely on people’s generosity. With COVID-19 and the economy dropping we are believing that people and churches will see how important it is for every child to have a family and will partner with us to make that a reality.
Please tell us about Hope Fort Worth.
Hope Fort Worth is a non-profit that works to help find forever families for kids that don’t have one. We believe that every child deserves to be loved and supported. We do this by working to inspire families to adopt and making sure they are supported when they do.
We have seen a ton of success in helping older kids find families. When most people think about adoption, they think about babies. However, most of the kids in foster care today are teenagers. Statistically speaking, if these kids age out, they don’t have much of a chance at success.
Something that sets us apart is that we have actually adopted teenagers. Of all the training that I have attended to become a foster mom and an adoptive mom, I haven’t had one teacher who had adopted or fostered teenagers. Living through the ups and downs in our personal life sets us apart in the way we can inspire, equip and encourage.
Contact Info:
- Address: 5320 Camp Bowie Blvd. Fort Worth, TX 76107
- Website: hopefw.org
- Phone: 8172295788
- Email: chelsea@hopefw.org
- Instagram: @hopefortworth
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HopeFortWorth/
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