The Richarte family felt called by the Lord to foster care adoption. Vicente recounts the story of God calling them to foster care adoption:  

The small whispers of adoption had been placed on Ashley’s heart several years ago, small whispers of God wanting us to follow this path. Our hearts weren’t ready, and we ignored the call for a few years. God kept knocking at various times, softening Ashley’s heart. As we moved into 2022, the word the Lord put on Ashley’s heart was “surrender,” and mine was “discipline.” As each month passed, we kept seeing (areas) where God was calling us to step into the fullness of our individual words while remaining obedient. In October 2022, my amazing wife and I discussed the possibility of fostering or adopting and what that might look like. Our journey began with a surrender to foster care adoption in 2022, with a great deal of uncertainty as to what the call would look like, but a willingness to be obedient. As we began to search for an agency to partner with us for licensure and training, we felt the most peace about joining the Lifeline team because of their faith-based focus.  

Once we started the classes, we quickly knew we had made the right decision because of the direct and purposeful focus of each class. Each week, we came away with another series of tools, equipping us to better love, serve, and care for both our children and ourselves in this journey. Our instructor, Caroline, taught us from the beginning that her job was to prepare us for the worst so we would not be ill-prepared for this assignment. As the weeks went on, we realized that we had trauma of our own that needed to be dealt with, reconciliation to work through, forgiveness to give, grace to extend, and copious amounts of love needed for all parties involved.  

At the beginning of this, I could not imagine the gravity of this calling: the responsibility and privilege to hold space and grace for both the child and their parents, the reality of the generational impacts to be had by leaning into a calling requiring surrender, trust, and faith, and the responsibility to intercede on behalf of these parents who, for whatever reason, could not parent their child. This calling requires trust in the Spirit of God to remind you of what you have learned, what His Word says, and how to apply both in our lives.”