Give1Save1 Week: Intro to Our Family

Hello all!! Some of you are new to our blog and are visiting us from the Give1Save1 Africa blog…welcome! We are so honored to be this weeks featured family. Let me give you the run down on our family and our adoptions…

 We are Trey and Ashton Phillips. We met in high school and were married just 5 months after graduation. We did the typical “American dream” thing, pursuing reputable jobs, the white picket fence, pretty cars, starting a little family, just trying to keep up with the Jones’. Then God rocked our world. He opened our eyes to the poor, the needy, the broken…the orphan. Once our eyes were opened there was no going back, we knew what we had an obligation to do. We had to begin living out our faith through works, not just words. For us, this came in the form of adoption.

Our adoption story has been a little crazy, but nothing short of miraculous. We began our adoption journey in Ethiopia then due to some doors closing God led us to the Democratic Republic of Congo. We were broken for the desperation of the people there. The 2nd poorest nation in the world, rampant with disease and corruption. It was in this destitute country that we knew we had a child. In May 2012, we were matched with a three year old orphan girl, Cora. The first pictures we saw of her only brought tears because you could see the sheer horror and sadness in her eyes. We knew she would be our daughter and soon she would be an orphan no more. Soon Cora will know the love of family and not feel the pangs of hunger and disease, soon Cora will be home.

When Cora comes home in the beginning of 2013, she will have two little brothers to love all over her. Our biological son, Kipton (18 months), and our soon to be adopted son, Kade (due this fall). Kade’s adoption came as a surprise. We did not intend on pursuing two concurrent adoptions. In fact, even the thought of that seemed ludicris, but we all know God’s plans are always better than we can imagine. When things were slow with our Congo adoption, we started entertaining the thought of starting a domestic adoption. We had the mindset that whatever happened first would be the path we’d take. Two months after we turned in our domestic portfolio we were matched with Cora. We immedeatly let our domestic agency know and told them to pull our portfolio. Despite closing the domestic door, God still worked his hand in the situation and had us presented to Kade’s birth mom. She chose us to raise her son because of the Christian values we lived by. I truly believe that as Christians if we are pro-life that we need to be willing to stand in the gap for the women who choose life for their babies. In this situation there was no way we could say no. With a simple yes and a phone chat with V, we were on our way to becoming parents to a newborn and a three year old in Congo all at the same time. Oh how great is our God?

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. -Galatians 6:9

Thank you so much for coming over to learn more about our family! I hope you’ll stick around and continue with us on our journey. Don’t forget to visit the Give1Save1  site and come back to donate your dollar. Every dollar counts toward bringing Cora and Kade home!

Also check out our adoption video... https://vimeo.com/43259092