BY CLIFF SMELLEY
Telegraph Staff Writer
Adam and Crystal Crawford of Starke would do anything for their children. The fact that their children aren’t their biological children doesn’t change that fact.
The Crawfords are foster parents, but they view themselves simply as parents. Whatever children they’ve had in their home, they’ve loved as if they were their own biological children.
“It’s a joy. It makes me stop and realize how truly blessed we are,” Crystal said.
She and Adam currently have a set of twins in their home: Addison and Andrew, who joined their family last year at the age of 5 days.
The foster journey began with a set of twin boys they kept for approximately 8.5 months. They then kept a set of siblings for a weekend before welcoming a 9-month-old girl, who stayed with them for almost a year.
The love and commitment they’ve shown as foster parents led to them being the first recipients of a new award established at Lawtey Correctional Institution, where Adam works. “Beyond the Badge,” which was created when Barry Reddish was the warden, recognizes those LCI employees who give back to their community.
“I was really honored,” Adam said. “You don’t get a lot of recognition working at a prison.”
Fostering children has had its ups and downs, but Adam and Crystal said through it all, God has been with them.
“A lot of people will say, ‘I don’t know how you foster because I would get attached (to the children).’ Well, it’s not that we don’t get attached and don’t love these kids as if they’re our own,” Crystal said. “God gives us the strength to be able to do it.
“A lot of people tell us we’re special, and we don’t feel special. God gave us the strength, I think, to be able to endure it.”
Becoming foster parents a surprise
Adam and Crystal wanted to have their own biological children, but it wasn’t happening, which led to infertility treatments.
Describing himself as hard-headed, Adam said his thinking was, “We’re just going to keep trying. If God wants us to have them, we will. If He doesn’t, we won’t.”
Crystal, on the other hand, approached Adam one day about the possibility of becoming foster parents. Adam didn’t like the idea of “taking care of somebody else’s young’uns,” but Crystal convinced him to attend an informational event in Lake Butler one night about fostering and adoption. Adam said he agreed to go, thinking if he was going to go for anything, it would be the idea of adoption.
At the end of that meeting, though, when Crystal asked Adam what he thought, he replied that to his surprise, he was leaning toward fostering. Crystal said she was, too.
“We took that as a sign from God that we needed to start fostering,” Adam said.
It didn’t take long after the Crawfords went through PRIDE (Parent Resources for Information, Development and Education) training and got licensed as foster parents that they received a call about placement.
“It was within a week of us getting officially licensed,” Crystal said.
Adam was at work when Crystal called him to tell him that they had a chance to open their home to 5-week-old twin boys.
“Tears started running out of my eyes,” Adam said. “My buddy who I work with was like, ‘Man, are you all right?’ I just waved him off because I’m big, bad, rough and tough. ‘You don’t want to see this right now.’”
If that phone call was emotional for Adam, you can imagine what it was like when the twins arrived at his home. He couldn’t wait to see them.
“I went straight to the car and looked into the window and saw these two precious, little babies in the car seats, both of them asleep,” Adam said.
From twins to twins
The goal is to reunite foster children with their birth parents or to place them with a biological family member. Thus, being foster parents can be tough at times.
“You have to have the mindset of knowing that’s what fostering is,” Crystal said. “It’s temporary. You’re just the middleman and woman who’s going to take care of these kids and hope that the parents or family member can get their act together to get the kids back.”
Still, Crystal said it was “one of the hardest days” when twin brothers Aiden and Zaiden left her home. She and Adam kept them from Nov. 5, 2019, until July 17, 2020.
“It’s an emotional roller coaster,” Crystal said.
After Aiden and Zaiden left, the couple kept another sibling group (a brother and a sister) for a weekend before the children went to another family that eventually adopted them.
Adam said he and Crystal agreed too soon to bring more children into their home, but it all worked out for the good.
“That was just another way of God strengthening us and benefitting the children,” he said. “We were there for their initial placement. Then, they moved on to a family who loved and cared for them from that point on.”
They were ready to become parents later that same year, welcoming 9-month-old Brittney into their home on Nov. 17, 2020. Brittney remained with them until Sept. 17, 2021.
“I thought we were done,” Adam said. “I couldn’t do the heartbreak anymore. It was just too hard.”
Adam and Crystal received calls about child placements, but they kept saying no until they were asked about taking custody of Addison and Andrew. They were the first ones to be contacted about the children, even though they had said no multiple times to other possible placements.
“They knew we had experience with twins,” Adam said. “They knew that we had been struggling (after losing Brittney) and that, hopefully, this would get us back in (to fostering).”
Addison and Andrew have been with Adam and Crystal since May 11, 2022.
God turns tribulation into something good
When they still had Brittney, Crystal felt sick shortly after she and Adam had both gotten over covid. She drove herself to the hospital, where she received surprising news. She was pregnant.
Adam said after praising God, he and Crystal turned their thoughts to finding a new home. They needed a bigger house if they were going to have a child of their own as well as continuing to foster.
They sold their home quickly (with the help of local Realtor Carrie Crews) and found a new house.
The pieces were falling into place, but then the couple received some bad news during Crystal’s first OB-GYN appointment. The fetus hadn’t developed inside of the embryo sac.
“We ended up not having the baby because of that,” Adam said.
Adam admitted he was struggling with his faith in the aftermath. Why did God allow them to buy a bigger house that it now looked like they no longer needed? Why did God allow Crystal to become pregnant, only to not actually have the child?
“For the first time in my life, I questioned God,” Adam said.
It was difficult for Crystal to watch, especially with the emotions she was experiencing, but God was there with her.
“After all the years we’ve been together, I’ve never seen his faith shaken,” Crystal said. “I’ve always been the one who’s had to turn to him, and he’d give me the encouraging words from God.
“For once, God, without a doubt, gave me the strength and the words to be able to be the strong one during one of the hardest moments I had experienced. He gave me the strength to be there for Adam and help him get through the process.”
The Crawfords attend LifeSpring Church. Crystal encouraged Adam to call Pastor Ken Weaver about what he was dealing with.
“Of course, he had words of wisdom for me,” Adam said.
Weaver mentioned Romans 8:28: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.” The mistake people make, Weaver told Adam, is that they interpret that to mean all things are good all the time. People go through tough times, but good will eventually come, Weaver said.
“It eased my mind when he brought those words to me,” Adam said.
Adam said neither he nor Crystal knew what the good was going to be at that time. Now, they can sit in their home and see the good in front of them — twins Addison and Andrew in a house that’s large enough for the current family. Plus, Adam went from working a job he didn’t like at Florida State Prison to one he now enjoys at Lawtey Correctional.
More good could be on the way. Adam and Crystal could get the chance to adopt Addison and Andrew.
“I pray that we do (get that chance),” Adam said. “If it’s presented to us to adopt them, without a shadow of a doubt we’ll adopt them.”
Lasting relationships
Adam and Crystal have received a blessing that isn’t typical of foster parents in that they’ve been able to maintain contact with the children who were once in their home.
Custody of the first set of twins was eventually awarded to their biological grandmother, who lives in Tennessee. The grandmother said she couldn’t not let Adam and Crystal continue to be a part of the children’s lives. In fact, Aiden and Zaiden visit the Crawfords every year for Christmas.
“We’re still Mama and Daddy to them,” Adam said. “We talk to them just about every day.”
During the process of the grandmother adopting the boys, she had Aiden’s middle name changed to the middle name of Crystal’s father and Zaiden’s middle name changed to Adam’s middle name.
“She said we were the two biggest influences in their lives when they needed us the most,” Adam said, adding, “We are now permanently a part of their names. I thought that was pretty special. I might’ve shed a tear or two.”
Brittney was reunited with her biological mother, but Adam and Crystal still continue to see her at times. They told Brittney’s mother that if she needs anything or any help with Brittney to let them know.
She has. For example, Brittney’s mother asked Adam and Crystal if they could keep Brittney for a couple of days so she could deal with the impact of a recent hurricane.
“She doesn’t have family here,” Crystal said. “She’s not from here. She doesn’t have that family support at all.”
Support from family, friends and God
It takes a village.
Crystal referenced that common phrase, saying that she and Adam have gotten plenty of support through their foster-parent journey.
“It’s not just me and Adam,” she said. “It’s our moms, my dad, friends and church family. It’s people around us cheering us on.”
Adam said, “We’ve had to rely on our parents more often than we probably should have. We couldn’t do this without them. We couldn’t do any of this without our parents.”
They also admit they couldn’t do any of it without God. Their faith has strengthened as a result.
“There’s not a day that goes by that you can’t just say it’s of God — the way it’s worked out from the beginning,” Adam said. “From Him changing our hearts from the very beginning at that information night to right now, where it looks like we might get to adopt (Addison and Andrew). Every step of the way, it’s been God. None of it has been Adam and Crystal.”
Crystal said, “God put us on this journey. I wouldn’t change one minute of it.”
She and Adam are experiencing the joy of parenthood. Crystal believes she’s a better person that the joy has come through fostering.
“We get to experience what I’ve always dreamed of,” Crystal said. “I feel like maybe if I would’ve had my own child, maybe I would’ve taken for granted what I don’t take for granted now. I just realize how precious it is and just how blessed we are that we get to take care of these kids.”
