“Life is always full of tough choices.”
That could well have been said by Christie Werts who is deservedly my Sunday choice for someone that we can all admire.
The background is a bit complicated so bear with me.
Christie Werts, 48, married Wesley Werts, 45, in 2018. Both have children from their previous marriages: Mrs. Werts’s 15-year-old son, Vance, and 21-year-old daughter, Megan; and Mr. Werts’s son, Austin, 14, and daughter, Dakota, 10.
Mr. Werts’s ex-wife had struggled with drug addiction, leading to him winning custody of Austin and Dakota. The couple divorced in 2015. “She had a total of six kids,” Mrs. Werts said. “Two with my husband, then the rest each had a different father.”
From Epoch Bright:
In 2021, the couple found out Mr. Werts’s ex-wife was expecting again and 33 weeks pregnant; her sister had called them from hospital because the expectant mom was still doing drugs and very sick due to COVID-19. There was no one to take care of the baby.
Christie Werts was once a foster child, and said, “as if it was a sign from God, that she often dreamed of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed baby even before they learned about the child.”
“I told my husband, ‘We should take him,'” Mrs. Werts said. “We didn’t know race, we didn’t know gender, we didn’t know anything—I just knew we wanted to take this baby. I just knew that I felt like he could be with brothers and sisters instead of going into the system. We were already in love with this child.”
Baby Levi was born on Aug. 23, 2021, after his mother was induced at 33 weeks. She passed away four days later from a stroke resulting from a blood clot.
However, the whole process of adopting Levi was not easy.
The Wertses reached out to Child Protective Services, who told them Levi could not leave the state of Texas because he still had a biological father. If the couple wanted to keep the baby out of care, they would have to move to Texas and become foster parents.
Subsequently the Wertses sold their home in Ohio, and Mrs. Werts, who works in information technology, moved with the couple’s three youngest kids to Texas. Mr. Werts had to work out of state as a crane operator, so his wife worked extra hard to help their children adjust to the move.
The family then began the painstaking process of registering as “foster to adopt” parents, including 60 hours of classes, home checks, and house modifications, all while hoping nothing would complicate the process.
“Personally, because I believe in God, I felt like it was kind of God’s plan from the dreams, preparing me,” Mrs. Werts told The Epoch Times. “I’ve always known that God is real and that He works in our lives. But when you witness something that you have dreams [of], that God put in your heart, and then it turns into reality, I think my faith got even stronger.”
The Wertses moved back to Ohio in mid-December 2022 after finding a homeowner who supported their adoption journey and offered them a six-month lease-to-buy option on a farmhouse. After traversing every hurdle, they officially adopted 17-month-old Levi by virtual court proceeding on Jan. 24, 2023.
Truly an unbelievable story about a truly praiseworthy couple.
11/12/23