The Gunter Family
We are Joe and Kaley Gunter. We just celebrated nine years of marriage this past month. Adoption has always been something we wanted to pursue but just never knew when we would pursue it. After 3 years of trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant we knew the Lord was calling us to pursue adoption. We began our adoption journey with Love Basket, a smaller Christian adoption agency who later merged with Nightlight Christian Adoption Services in March 2015. This agency stood out to us at an adoption fair because of the high value and love they placed on the birthparents. We knew we would love to be able to have a relationship with the birthparents of our child if they were open to that, so the fact this agency counseled birthparents along the journey to make sure this was the right fit for them confirmed this was the agency the Lord was calling us to use. We started our paperwork and training in March 2015 and due to several reasons, some including the merge of agencies, knowing the Lord was calling us out of our ministry position in Louisville but not sure where He was leading, and then our move from Louisville Ky to Magnolia Ms (which required us finding an assisting agency to complete our home study in Mississippi) all of our paperwork was finally finished in February 2017 and we were ready to be matched.
On March 2nd we received a call from our caseworker stating that she wanted to show our profile to a birthmom but the expenses would be more than expected due to birthmom being privately insured. We told her to show our profile because if the Lord saw fit for this to be our child then He would work the financial aspect out. Then we prayed, trusted, and waited. The following day we headed to Hattiesburg for a date day and got a phone call from our caseworker. We knew she would let us know either way the decision the birthmom made regarding us parenting her child. So when we saw our caseworker name on our phone so many emotions were flooding us. She informed us we had been chosen to parent a two day old baby girl and of all the states she could have been born in she was born in Kentucky, Louisville Kentucky at that. There are so many little details the Lord has orchestrated in our story. All of the waiting was ordained for this moment and we are reminded of the quote “Waiting time is not wasted time” The wait was long at times and there was questioning on how the Lord would provide this large amount of money. But God truly showed that if He calls you to do something He will provide the money. We are so grateful for the generosity of others on our journey and are so honored that Heritage Hills would choose to give us this grant to help fund our adoption of Addyson Kate.
- The Gunter Family
