Meet Oak Grove Baptist Church

We recently started a new FaithBridge church partners series with you and you can find the first post here.

When a church connects with us to start a ministry they create a team that supports the new initiative. Recruiting families and supporting them can be daunting and we are grateful to have partners who are committed to launching such an important ministry. Each team consists of a support director and support coordinators – we call them Ministry Team Leaders (MTLs) . Sometimes church staff serves on the teams, and sometimes the teams are launched and maintained by volunteers — it just depends on what works best for the context of each church.

Today we are featuring Oak Grove Baptist Church in Carrollton, GA. They are committed to supporting the children in their community who are in need and doing their best to show them compassion, kindness and a whole lot of love!

The MTL, Allison Fleming, shared how much she loves children and how foster care first touched her life. She shared that a little over a decade ago a family, Rob and Cheryl Vincent, came to Oak Grove Baptist Church. They had been foster parents to many children in previous years and continued to foster once they got settled down in Carrollton. Cheryl became a close friend and she started helping them with foster child care through babysitting, helping out at home, and anything else they needed.

Allison shared how the opportunity allowed her to become close to these children. She shared that,  “one little girl in particular stole my heart and my husband’s as well.”

When Rob and Cheryl move back home to West Virginia, Allison and her husband Jim decided to get certified so they could foster the little girl who had stolen their hearts. Once they were certified and ready to foster, a family member had stepped in. While they were heart broken that they couldn’t foster her, about a week later they got a call about a newborn and took him into their home.

They had no intention to adopt — only foster, and when the baby was two years old they were told to start looking for someone to adopt him. They had four different families lined up, but God closed all the doors.

Since they were in their 50s they thought, “no way,” but God had other plans. So, three months prior to his third birthday they signed adoption papers for their son, David Fleming.

She shares that they have been truly blessed.

Allison believes that there is such a need for foster parents, especially in Carrollton and is so excited about the foster program at the church. She knows it will be successful especially with all the volunteers that want to help.

Please join us in praying for the continued ministry and commitment of those at Oak Grove Baptist Church. Pray for people who have been involved in foster care who are in a different season of life, or at a new church, and have a heart for a ministry like this.

If you are interested in learning about launching a foster care ministry and discussing how that could work for your context then connect with us here.