In the small rural town of Possum Trot, Texas, you won’t find streetlights, McDonalds, or even a post office. Dirt roads, woods, and small-town living are all the roughly 700 people who live there know about. Head into the piney woods and you’ll find Bennet Chapel, a small community church where Bishop W.C. Martin serves as pastor.

In 1997, the Holy Spirit moved Bishop Martin and his wife, First Lady Donna Martin, to adopt children nobody else wanted out of the Texas foster care system. The couple completed the required 12-week class and opened their home to a little boy and girl.

‘I began looking at every scripture in the Bible concerning adoption,’ said Bishop Martin. ‘And come to find out, Moses was an adopted child. Esther was an adopted child. Even during Jesus’ walk on this Earth, he was adopted by Joseph. My life made a total turnaround when we started this adoption program. We stood by these young people and helped those children. God did what he said: ‘I am a rewarder of your faithfulness’.’

Bishop Martin preached about adoption to his congregation, and his members answered the call in an extraordinary way. Single parents, couples, and grandparents completed the required classes, resulting in 28 families adopting 77 children out of the Texas foster care system.

‘Some adopted twins, some adopted triplets,’ said Bishop Martin. ‘These children needed love, nurture, and care. Some families quit their jobs in order to provide that. My wife and I stood by these families and offered our support whenever they needed help. We had one of the best wraparound support groups that you could ever have inside the church.’

The Lord’s mighty movement through the Martins and Bennet Chapel is one of the great “and too often untold“ faith testimonies in America, with Bennet Chapel being a spiritual genesis place of the church-to-child movement in our nation. The Lord continues to use Bishop Martin as an anointed pioneer and a fierce movement evangelist stirring the hearts of churches across the nation to care for children and families in crisis.

Over 400,000 children are currently in the U.S. foster care system. In the next chapter of this life, Bishop Martin hopes to see the system empty, with families supported and strengthened so that children never need to enter the foster care system, and families adopting kids out of the system who have no family.

‘I’m still in the process of teaching, training, showing, and demonstrating the power of God in the life of people,’ said Bishop Martin. ‘The bible teaches us, ‘ I can do all things through Christ Jesus that strengthens me.’ Yes, we can do it! There are hundreds of thousands of churches. I believe if the Church were to focus on two or three children, they would knock the system out, just like that. I hope and pray for God to move the heart of people and the heart of churches and lets them know that this is what the church should have been doing all the time.’

Is your congregation ready to be involved in the church-to-child movement? Learn how CarePortal can help mobilize your congregation to be the hands and feet of Jesus in your community!