All Things New with Kaycee Stanley from The Reel Hope Project

Well, it is with great pleasure this morning I get to introduce to you a dear friend of mine and this congregation.

Her name is Casey Stanley.

She was a youth director for us.

She served under Ryan for a couple years and then she took over our youth program for several years.

I'm not going to share too much because I know she will do a little bit of her own intro, but from a personal note, she's just a sweet friend.

She could be a comedian, she's an incredible mom.

She is an incredible mother and I'm so excited for you to hear more about the foundation of Real Hope.

Every month we highlight one of the ministries that we serve here, whether it's through our hands and our hearts, but also through our emotional prayer and our financial support, and Real Hope is one of those today.

So can you please share a big welcome with Casey Stanley.

Well, good morning.

Thank you, Sonia, for that intro so sweet.

It is such a joy to be with you all this morning.

Like Sonia said, I was a part of this community.

I was on staff over the span of about seven or eight years Years that were so special and so formative in my life, and so coming back to Central each year is one of my just like my favorite annual rhythms, because it is this opportunity to see so many people who I love and so many new faces as well.

Even just during communion, I was sitting right here and it was like watching a personalized parade of, like all my favorite people just walking by me.

It was kind of torturous, actually, I couldn't say hi to anybody, but anyway, it is such a gift to be here.

So thank you to Pastor Ryan and Sonia and the team here at Central for welcoming me back each year.

I left Central in 2018 to go full time with the nonprofit organization that my husband and I had started called the Real Hope Project.

Raise your hand if you've heard of Real Hope.

Good, all right, very cool.

Real Hope was launched at this body, in this room, on a Sunday in 2016 and by 2018, we were kind of ready to go full time and so stepped away from Central at that point.

For anybody who's not aware, at the Real Hope Project what we do, I think we have a slide that has a little logo on it.

But at Real Hope what we do is we make videos of kids in foster care who are waiting to be adopted and then we use those videos to find a forever family for every child.

So we travel to churches every Sunday and we highlight kids and our vision is really to mobilize the people of God to step into adoption, foster care and family preservation.

Just to give you a little glimpse of what the Real Hope Project does, I want to introduce you to one of these kids this morning.

In the United States there are about 100,000 kids who are waiting to be adopted.

A thousand of those kids are in the state of Minnesota and I'm going to introduce you to one of those kids right now.

This is Taj.

Check this out.

I'm interested in boxing because I've ever since I was a child.

I'm sorry I'm a child, but ever since I was like really little and I was inspired to do more.

When I get to boxing I feel happy, I feel strong, I feel pride.

When people see me boxing, they always underestimate me at first.

Then when they see me boxing, they be surprised and they like they ain't that kid actually got skills, he's going somewhere To start boxing.

You gotta have movement to be able to move around and not get knocked out as soon as you get hit.

It's really fun for me because I get to fix my opponent and I get to take my anger out in the positive way.

I get my energy out and I get to see people proud of me.

When I grow up I'll be a boxer slash architect.

When people got me to architecture my friend was showing me designs of homes and I said how do you do that?

And then he said it's not that hard, you just make boxing and squares and design it.

It's really fun to do because you get to use your mind strength.

How other people were here describe me he's kind of a knucklehead but he always keeps on striving for the better.

I'm not like a country kid with boots and a hat, and this I'm more like a person, a city kid, that have like Jordan's on their feet.

One advice I would give somebody that's going through a hard time just keep on striving and no matter what, don't let nobody tell you who you are.

Friends and family are important to me because they're the one that's always going to have you back, even when you don't have your own back.

When I think about adoption, I think about you.

Want to have a family that actually cares.

Why?

So that you don't feel alone.

Family is not always mean blood.

It means somebody that cares that, somebody supports you, somebody that actually wants you to be better.

My name is Taj, I am 11 years old and this is my real Isn't he awesome.

You just met the world's first boxer slash architect.

It's just boxes, guys.

That's all it is.

So that's what we do.

Our goal is to make a video like Taj is for every kid who's waiting for a family until we find a forever family for every child.

The real hope project works with some of the hardest kids to place, not because of who they are at their core, but because of some of the trauma they've endured, some of the labels that are put on them.

A lot of the kids we work with are older or part of a sibling group or have some unique needs.

We've been doing this since 2016 and I think we have this on a slide.

In the last seven years, we've made reels now for over 400 kids.

We've expanded into six states and we've seen 204 kids so far get matched with their family.

This church, this body, was really the launch pad for this to happen.

Central was the first church to come alongside us with corporate financial support, and many of the individuals and families in this room support us to this day on a monthly basis.

Just know, we are so thankful.

It is always so special for me to be back here Now to catch everybody up on my life.

Like I mentioned, we left Central in 2018, we went full time with the real hope project.

Later, in 2018, we actually met our son through real hope, so we made his video and fell in love with him on his video shoot.

I think we have a picture here.

So on the left, here is the one in the middle.

Tess was 12 when we met him.

He was 13 when we adopted him in 2019 and he just turned 18.

Now he's a senior in high school this year, which is crazy.

Yeah, he's awesome.

He's the coolest kid in the world.

You guys would love him.

I'll share a lot more about Tess a little bit later today.

About two years after Tess came home, we had our daughter Tyka she's the curly headed one in my arms there in that picture and then, about 18 months after that, we had Vinnie June.

She's the one mean mug in the camera there in Pete's arms, and the more astute among you may notice that we actually have one more on the way, one more little girl coming in June, and that will be a full house for the Stanley family for a while.

We would love to adopt again down the road once Tess is kind of fully launched into adulthood, but there will be no more what we call homemade babies in our house.

Now, today I want to share a story about our family and before I jump into the story, I just want to give a quick caveat that this story is just our story, so this is not prescriptive for how every adoptive family needs to interact with birth families.

This is not like.

This is the way that it should go.

Every adoptive family has different dynamics that they're navigating.

But this is our story and I'm really excited to share it.

We've never really shared it publicly, and so it felt cool and special to get to share it with you guys this morning.

This is a story that started on the day that Vinnie was born, so this was almost two years ago now.

Tess was 16 at this time and at this time we had not heard from or spoken to Tess's birth mom ever.

Tess had not seen her since he was about 10 or 11.

So it had been five or six years at this point the timeline is a little bit blurry, but about five or six years since he'd heard anything from birth mom the day Vinnie was born.

A few hours after she was born, I'm in the hospital bed still.

I'm pretty tired, as you can imagine, and just kind of had one of those muscle memory absent minded moments where I reached over from my hospital bed and grabbed my phone and I don't know why but checked my email.

Why am I checking my email?

Like three hours after my daughter was born, I don't know, but I did it and in my inbox is an email from Tess's old social worker from like five or six years ago and the email just says hey, kasey, tess's birth mom reached out.

She'd love to get in touch A letter's attached Hope you guys are good.

And I'm in the hospital bed, just like, not today, not looking at this right now, I'm not in this head space.

And so we just kind of set it aside for a few weeks and went home and got settled as a family of five, and a few weeks later I went in and opened my inbox and opened up this letter from Tess's birth mom Thank you.

And it was beautiful.

It was everything that you would want a birth mom to say in this circumstance.

She was sober and had been for several years.

She was following Jesus in this committed, authentic way.

She was in a healthy, stable relationship with a guy who was also sober, and she owned, took ownership of some of the mistakes and choices that she had made that had caused a lot of pain in Tez's younger years and pain for other people in her life.

At that time it was beautiful.

So we held on to that letter for a little while and we prayed and we talked about it and eventually we decided let's write a letter back.

And so we did, and that began a few months of correspondence just getting to know Tez's birth mom, who we now call Mama P.

Her name's Patty, mama P.

And after a few months Tez didn't know anything about this and after a few months it felt like, okay, it's time.

And so we looped Tez in and we let him know hey, we're in touch with Mama P and she wrote you a letter and this is it.

If you want to read it, you don't have to read it, but you can read it if you want to.

And he needed a little bit of time to kind of process that and eventually he decided that he did want to read it.

And again it was beautiful.

Again she owned for him all the things that she needed to own and clarified for him none of the stuff that you've been through is your fault or because of you and I've always loved you and I'm happy that you're in a family and just everything that you would want her to say.

And she closed her letter by saying something along the lines of I understand if you can't, but I really hope that someday you can forgive me, not just for my sake, but for yours too.

And Tez sat with that for a few weeks and then he decided okay, I'm ready to write a letter back.

And so he did, and I share this just to honor Mama P and to honor Tez in the story.

So Tez writes this letter back to his mom, who he has not spoken to in years, and the opening line of his letter was hey, ma, I forgave you a long time ago.

How beautiful is that?

This is a 16 year old boy.

How kingdom minded is that?

And so that began a few months, really about a year, of writing letters back and forth between Tez and Mama P.

And about a year ago, this last March, me and Tez went to a coffee shop and we met in person with Mama P for the first time.

I think we have a picture of that day.

Yeah, here on the left is me and Tez and Mama P and a few weeks after that first meeting she came to our house and she met Pete and our girls and she sat on our couch and she answered questions for Tez that we never would have been able to answer for him.

She told him history that we never could have connected the dots on.

She was open and vulnerable and truthful about her story and she honored Pete and I and the role we play in Tez's life and she said things like buddy, I know there was a lot of pain that got us here, but look at what God did.

Look at this family that you have, look at all the people who love you.

Look at how God redeemed it and made it new.

And over the last year we've been walking out this journey of like absorbing Mama P into our family and she's absorbing us into hers.

We got to go to Tez's birth family's family reunion this last August and meet his cousins and his aunts and his uncles.

Mama P came over on Tez's 18th birthday and we made all Tez's favorite foods and we had brunch together.

She started coming to Tez's football games this last fall and she sat in the stands with me and she was the loudest person in the stands.

At one point Tez took a hard hit and she screamed at the top of her lungs shake it off, stanley.

It was not as she could.

And there was a moment at one of these games this last fall where we're at that point, I don't know six or eight months into really getting to know Mama P in person.

There was a moment where Tez got hit pretty hard in the game and it looked like he was hurt and I had the context of knowing Tez gets hurt all the time and so I wasn't super worried.

Mama P did not have that context and so she ran down the bleachers to check on him and I stood where I was and I had this moment of like rolling fear, like welling up in me and just this deep insecurity of like, what am I doing?

Am I being replaced right now?

What's going to happen?

What's going to happen to my relationship with Tez?

What's going to happen to our family?

Why did we even go down this journey?

And these thoughts had definitely like percolated to the surface over the previous year or so, but never with this kind of like intensity.

And she went and checked on Tez and he was fine, I was right, he was okay and he came up, she came back up to the bleachers and we sat together for the rest of the game and we cheered Tez on.

But I spent the rest of that game like in a little bit of a panicky headspace, you know, just kind of faking it till I make it like just get through this game.

And I was fighting tears and I was internally freaking out a little bit and I went to my car after the game and just started praying and processing these thoughts with God and I had this moment where you know, when somebody kind of like grabs you by the shoulders and does the like like chin up buttercup kind of pep talk, I felt like I had this moment of connection with God, where it felt like what he was saying was Casey, this is not how we are going to walk this out.

This insecurity and defeat and self-doubt and fear.

This is not what I have for you to carry.

What I'm holding out for you to carry is unshakable confidence in who you are.

What I have for you to carry is unrattlegable affection for your son, which includes all of the people who love your son.

What I have for you is unrelenting faith in my goodness and my ability to redeem any situation and make it better than you could ever ask or imagine.

When we started down this adoption journey five or six years ago, in my mind the best possible outcome that we could imagine was a kid who needed a family found a family Like that's a miracle, that's a win in my mind.

I mean, come on, is there a bigger win than that?

And we got that.

It was like this kid who needed a family has a family, praise God.

There is nothing better.

And yet God has been working in the midst of it to do even more than I could ever ask or imagine.

God has been redeeming lives and hearts in ways that I never even really considered within the realm of possibility for us.

I think as Christians, sometimes we have this idea that God or the scriptures are.

This story of almost like.

This is the evacuation plan Jesus is going to come back and he's going to take us out of here and he's going to bring us somewhere else.

But we all know that's not really the story.

The story of Jesus, the story of scripture, is a story of redemption, of God, bringing something back to the way that it was intended to be.

The word redeem means to reclaim ownership.

So, if you like, sell your best piece of jewelry to a pawn shop and then you get the cash and you go to the pawn shop and you get your jewelry back.

You have redeemed your jewelry, you have reclaimed ownership.

So when scripture talks about that God is redeeming the world, he is a reclaiming ownership of the world.

When God redeemed you, he reclaimed ownership of you.

That is what the biblical story is about.

That is what God is doing.

Isaiah 43 says it like this behold, I am doing a new thing.

Now it springs forth.

Do not perceive it, I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers, in the desert.

Revelation 21 5 says this in the one seated on the throne, that's Jesus.

The one seated on the throne said behold, I make all things new.

Now I'm going to bring us to some new place and start over again.

Now I'm going to make all things different.

I'm going to make all things new.

And Tez's story, as it turns out, is not about Tez being evacuated from one broken family and placed in a new one Although that is how his story began but Tez's story now, because of the bigness of God, the redemption of God, is about not just an evacuation plan, but a redemption plan that God has redeemed connection and relationship that we thought was long gone and that has affected not only Tez but my family, my daughters, my husband, my brothers and sisters and my parents.

That has affected Mama P and her brothers, tez's biological uncles, about two months ago.

So here's where this all comes to fruition.

About two months ago, mama P bought tickets for the Teen Challenge Christmas concert and she bought them for herself and her boyfriend, who we adore, and she bought them for Tez and his adoptive family.

And she bought them for Tez's youngest sister and her adoptive family she's adopted by another family and she bought them for Tez's aunts and uncles, who we'd only met a few times.

And we sat in a group at the Teen Challenge Christmas concert with about 25 people who are connected to Tez, as Tez's oldest sister, who's 28, graduated from Teen Challenge and she stood at the front of the room during this Christmas concert and she shared her testimony on the one-year anniversary of her sobriety journey and she stood in front of nearly a thousand people and she said she kind of ended her time by saying I'm in Teen Challenge and I'm up here sharing with you today because I followed my mom and my family straight to the gates of hell, and then they started following Jesus and I'm following them right back out.

And Pete and I got to sit in the stands just weeping as we're singing waymaker, miracle worker, promise keeper, light in the darkness, my God, that is who you are.

And we got to sit with Tez on one side of us and Mama P on the other and Tez's bio sisters on the other side of him, as we got to witness, right in front of us, the redemptive work of God beyond what we could have ever asked or imagined, beyond what we set out for when we went on this journey.

And to be clear, this is not happening because of anything that we did.

Mama P got sober before we got connected to her.

We had never met Tez's oldest sister until this concert.

This was not because of us, but there was a great redeemer working unseen under the surface to make all things new, to bring redemption where we hadn't even considered it possible.

Now I want to add a few caveats to this story.

I want to be clear this morning that I am sharing the Instagram version of this story.

These are like the highlights, the like most beautiful, powerful, weeping with joy moments.

But I also want to be clear that it has not all been rainbows and butterflies.

Not in adopting a traumatized teenager and not in reconnecting with his birth mom.

Neither there have been moments that have been hard and delicate and complicated.

But I can also tell you with like confidence from my like the bottom of my gut, that this has not been as hard as it should be, and that is because there is a great redeemer who has been making all things new without us even being aware.

And another caveat I want to share is that I know that sometimes, hearing a story of like redemption and victory and look what God did, it isn't this beautiful.

It can be so encouraging and it can stir up our faith for like, oh, what is God going to do next?

And it can leave you feeling like, well, where's my victory?

When is redemption coming for me?

When is God going to make it new in this area of my life?

And what I'm trying to do this morning is not put a bandaid on those areas of our lives, on those moments that we have all felt, but what I am trying to do is remind us, to anchor ourselves to the truth and the reality of who God is as a redeemer.

But our foundation is not in our circumstances and our foundation is not in our feelings or emotions.

Our foundation is in who he is, in the character of God, and he is a redeemer who never stops redeeming.

This morning, I want to highlight one more video for you.

This is another story of God making all things new.

This is the story of the Hunter family and their new son, jj.

Check this out.

My friends will describe me as a funny person.

There's a lot of things in the lab, but it happens a lot.

Family means to me like caring, loving, probably responsibility.

Well, a mega cool family would probably be trust and just like actually caring.

I think people need a family so they can know what like being loved means or like having a person in their life.

We all hope actually became a really pivotal part of us re-engaging the adoption process.

At that point we were exploring international adoption and unfortunately after several years that did not come to fruition and kind of fell apart at the very last minute.

A couple years later we also felt like maybe that chapter wasn't yet complete.

And so we began looking at profiles for kids and doing paperwork and working with social workers, and the doors kept opening.

For JJ.

It was a case worker who said would you consider this kiddo?

He was looking for an active home where he could engage around sports and activities, which was something that was very much part of our family's life.

And then seeing his real and as we got to know more of his story and his background, it seemed like there could be a good opportunity for this home to work well for him and for him to be a good fit in the mix of our family.

When I met Becky and Evan for the first time, I was hoping that they were a nice family, nice people, and they.

I was right they were.

I mean, the first interaction was a little bit scary because at first seeing them, but then I warmed up in the middle.

Okay, I'll just decide.

Though why did you put mine in the middle?

There's a family that already had three very active boys within it teenagers within it.

It's not just a question of one member of the family fitting, but of how everybody fits together.

From the beginning of the adoption journey there's been a sense of being a part of it, that they have really wanted this to be a part of our family for a long time, and I think that's been helpful as we've navigated everybody making it through the ups and downs and challenges that come with this.

I would describe our family as very active.

I think we discover all the time we're on the high energy side of things, with a lot going on.

We like to play and engage together, finding ways to look out for each other and challenge each other into new spaces, new ideas, new things and ventures.

What's good YouTube?

I'm back and I really just have phones to run, so, yeah, I guess so.

Okay, let's roll back.

So, guys, I lost, but it's okay.

Don't forget to like, subscribe, hit that notification bell and don't forget stay paid.

So I'm here with the winner of the race, my brother.

What's your workout routine?

Just drink water, lots of water, more water, gatorade.

No only water, so Gatorade.

Okay, you guys hear that Gatorade is bad.

Only water.

Alright, folks, that's the end of the channel.

Thank you to like, subscribe and follow.

On the adoption day I felt really excited going down to court as a family, having Austin call in from a TV screen.

In many ways he felt already like so much a part of the family, like it was just a really natural fit coming together as a family to be one for the rest of our lives.

Well, having reviewed the file, having heard the credible and persuasive testimony here today, it is my pleasure to grant the adoption and find that it is in JJ's best interest for the hunters to be his forever family.

Congratulations.

JJ is really funny and also just his like fun, loving spirit and just great energy.

I think my favorite thing about JJ is probably just kind of his passion and just seeing how much that draws other people around him and they like meeting him and brings a lot of joy to the table.

I have a lot of favorite things about JJ.

One of them, I think, is just the like zeal and excitement that he brings, that he even just brings joy to the people who are around him.

For me there's also sort of been this in an application of kind of a more spiritual lesson was this idea that I wasn't being asked to do the miracle.

I'm just asked to bring what I have, whether it's the loaves and fish or the bread and oil, and we're asked to bring what God's given us.

We're asked to bring the gifts that we have to the table and that God does the multiplication.

It isn't something that we have to do this transformation ourselves and that we have to make life whole.

It's really just offering our part and allowing God to do the miracle.

From my experience, something that's good about being adopted is like getting a second chance, with a family that cares about you.

JJ is full of life.

He is funny and witty, winsome and engaging.

He loves people.

He's really caring.

Certainly feeling a lot of emotions, a lot of joy of completion of wholeness.

And here we go on the next part of this journey.

It'll be an adventure.

A forever family For every child.

I love how Becky said that of we bring what we have to the table and then it's God who does the miracle.

The burden is not on us, but he is the way maker, he is the one who makes all things new, he is the redeemer and we just get to join with him in that work.

This morning, if you're interested in learning more about adoption or foster care or family preservation, I would love to connect with you.

I'll be at my table in the lobby this morning.

I would love to answer any questions you have or help you get connected or take initial steps on the journey.

Stop by and say hi Also this morning.

If you're interested in partnering with us financially with what God is doing, we are 100% privately funded.

We can only do this because of churches like Central and individuals and families like you.

You can sign up as a monthly giver, give a one-time gift.

Whatever you're able to do Goes a long way in helping us to get to these kids and share these stories and find more families.

And, by the way, if you do decide to become a monthly giver this morning, I have a little present for you at my table, so make sure you stop on back and say hi.

What I'm going to ask everybody to do before I close this morning is take a second and grab your phone.

Take out your phone for just a second and this is just a way for us to stay connected with you.

If we can go to that next slide, I'm going to ask you to open up a text message to this phone number.

It's kind of hard to see, so I'm going to read it 833-756-2038.

833-756-2038.

And if you're interested in keeping up with the Real Hope Project, in learning more about adoption and learning more about foster care, about supporting us financially, any of those things, just text in the word kids to that phone number and then your phone is going to prompt you and ask you for your email address.

You have to respond with your email address, otherwise the whole thing doesn't work.

So send in your email address and later this week you'll get some information from us about some of the basics of Real Hope, what adoption and foster care looks like, how you can partner with us financially, all that stuff.

So go ahead and text in the word kids to that phone number.

Respond with your email address.

Thank you so much for allowing us to be here this morning and thank you for all of your support over these last seven years.

I'm going to close in prayer and then we'll move on.

God, thank you so much for who you are as our Redeemer, the Redeemer of our souls, the Redeemer of our lives, of our families, of our marriages, of our connections and relationships.

God, thank you that you are always working beneath the surface, that you, as a Redeemer, never stop redeeming.

And we just pray, god, that we would have eyes to see the ways that you are working.

I pray that, in those places where we don't see it, where we don't feel like you are working, that you would give us faith and grounding in the reality of who you are, that that would be our anchor point, that that would be what we look to, regardless of our circumstances.

That we would know who our God is as our great Redeemer.

We love you, god.

We pray all this in Jesus' name, amen.