ABILENE, TEXAS (KTAB) – Abilene mom, Jennifer Jones and her three-year-old daughter, Jaylee enjoy reading books together.
There’s one book that is a family favorite, “God Found us You,” by Lisa Tawn Bergen.
“It just helps with all the emotions because I can’t even get through the book without tearing up. It just speaks to our family, to me perfectly,” says Jones.
This story may be told with animals but even Jaylee understands she shares something in common with the characters of the book, “The fox is adopted just like me.”
Jones says, “My husband and I struggled with infertility for a few years and we just felt like God was telling us adoption was the next thing. “
They opened the adoption chapter to their own story in 2012, “Finally we got the phone all in 2014 that we had a little girl that was three months old. And you’re going to be her Mommy and Daddy.”
It may have taken years to turn the page, but only moments for their own fairytale to come true.
“The moment we saw her and she like looked up at us. We saw her smile. It was just instant,” Jones adds.
For Jaylee’s birthday, she enjoyed presents and a cake but her family knew there was something else worth celebrating.
“We decided to do something easy and collect 130 quarters,” says Jones.
The Gladney Center for Adoption in Fort Worth celebrates its 130th year of helping families just like the Joneses.
Jones says, “It doesn’t make up who she is. We don’t want her to feel like oh, this is exactly who you are. But it is part of her story and we want her to be proud of that, you know. We decided to talk about that from day one.”
It’s the faith that the Jones family keeps that binds them together.
“I told her that she didn’t come from Mommy’s belly and she understands that. She’s very proud to be adopted,” says Jones.
“I’m so glad God found us you, ” Jones says to her daughter, Jaylee.
The Jones family tells KTAB News they are ready to make Jaylee a big sister by going through the adoption process again.
If you’re interested in donating to the Gladney Center for Adoption in Jaylee’s honor, you can go to: www.iamgladney.org. There’s even a place to put Jaylee’s name.
