This July, we celebrated some adoptions at Coyote Hill Foster Care Ministries! One family, the Tittels, shared their experience with us.
Justin and Erica Tittel have four daughters: Josselyn and Ruby, and Truly-Christina and Vaeda-Amberlyn (biological sisters). Truly-Christina and Vaeda-Amberlyn were adopted on July 5, 2022, but had been living with the Tittels since mid-March of 2021. Justin and Erica had been visiting with them for a year at Coyote Hill Foster Care Ministries Harrisburg prior to their moving in with them.
Erica’s lifelong best friend had heard through the grapevine of a sibling set of four that desperately needed a family.
“When we received a picture of the children, we knew we wanted to pursue adoption,” Erica said. “This was a challenging task given that we didn’t have our foster care license at the time. We reached out to all the local DSS agencies in our surrounding counties, but none of them had plans to offer a class due to a staff shortage. At the same time, we were also reaching out to the children’s caseworker expressing interest. That’s when we learned about Coyote Hill Foster Care Ministries. It’s Christ-centered mission moved us, and we knew we wanted to be a part of it.”
“It’s when we came to tour the Coyote Hill Foster Care Ministries facility and see what needs we could fill that we learned they were planning on offering all the classes required to foster in the coming month. We felt God had just opened the door for us. Even though the classes were an hour drive one way they were totally worth it, and we’d choose it again. The support and care we received from Coyote Hill Foster Care Ministries made this journey possible for us,” said Erica.
Truly-Christina and Vaeda-Amberlyn’s other two siblings were adopted by their long-term foster family. This other foster family has become incredibly precious to the Tittels, and Erica said that seeing God’s hand at work in all of this has been amazing.
Immediately after the adoption, they had ice cream with Truly and Vaeda’s brothers. Then as part of their celebration, the Tittels flew to California for a memorial service and family vacation.
“The girls got to meet members of Justin’s family they’ve never met before, visit San Diego, Sacramento, and Lake Tahoe. It was an excellent bonding experience especially between the four sisters,” Erica reflected.
They have a circus-themed adoption party planned for early September, and everyone is pitching in. “Truly is learning to juggle, Vaeda will be doing acrobatics on the web swing, Ruby learned to make balloon animals, and Josselyn is considering learning to face paint,” said Erica.
“The best part of our adoptive story has been seeing God’s plan for our family unfold. When we married, we were not sure if we wanted to grow our family through birth or adoption. We decided we would try both options. At every challenge we have faced thus far, God has been faithful to pave our way. When things get hard, we still sleep well knowing we’re exactly where God wanted us to be,” Erica shared.
Even though Erica says their family is “blended to the fullest extent of the definition,” with their oldest two daughters being from Justin’s first marriage, they lean on the Scripture passage from Mark 3:34–35: “Then he [Jesus] looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, ‘Here are my mother and brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother, sister, and mother.’”
“Jesus established a new kind of family not based on blood ties but on the will of God,” Erica said.
We are thrilled to celebrate the Tittel family’s adoption story and thankful that they have opened their lives to give more children a safe place to be a child!
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