Long-time visitors to this blog may remember the story of Davion Only. In 2013, the then-15-year-old Davion stepped in front of a church in Florida and asked if someone would adopt him.
Davion was born in prison to a mother he never knew. He entered into the foster care system at a very young age, and bounced from family to family, hoping to eventually find a permanent home. By the time he reached his teenaged years, Davion decided to find out what he could about his birth mother. An Internet search revealed a mugshot of his mom—and the sad news of her passing weeks earlier.
Instead of becoming despondent over the loss of the mother he never knew, Davion became committed to finding a family that he could truly call his own. Wearing the only suit he owned, and with a Bible provided by the boys’ home where he was living, Davion addressed about 300 parishoners at St. Mark Missionary Baptist Church in Naples, Florida, and asked if someone would be willing to adopt him.
“My name is Davion,” he said, “and I’ve been in foster care since I was born. … I know God hasn’t given up on me, so I’m not going to give up, either.”
Thanks to the Internet, Davion’s plea became national news. Over 10,000 people contacted the foster family agency assigned to Davion, inquiring about possible adoption. He was interviewed by Barbara Walters on national television. A pastor in Ohio agreed to adopt Davion, and he moved north to begin a new life with the minister and his family. However, a physical altercation with one of his new siblings caused his new family to reconsider adoption. He returned to Florida, once again alone and without a family.
But now, Davion has finally found the family he has been seeking. And, as it turns out, he didn’t have to go very far.
For years, Davion had been asking his caseworker, Connie Going, if she would adopt him. Going, a divorced mother of two daughters and a boy she had adopted from Davion’s group home years before, had always resisted. “You deserve more,” she would say. “You need a dad.”
But when Davion called Going after returning to Florida from Ohio, she knew it was time to welcome him into her family.
“In adoption there is a ‘claiming moment,’ when you know [someone is] your child,” Goings says in a yahoo.com article. “When he called me to ask, in that moment, I just knew. When he asked me, my heart felt this ache and I just knew he was my son.”
In a wonderful story by the Tampa Bay Times, Goings talks about the challenges that come with adopting a child who has spent his life in the foster care system. “I’m okay with messy and difficult,” she says. “You just have to have your armor on all the time, but it’s more than worth it. And every day things get a little bit better.”
The adoption becomes official on April 22.
Davion’s story is one of many to be told of children who have had their their lives disrupted by the incarceration of one or both parents. Some of those kids end up in group homes or in foster care. In other cases, a single parent or grandparent steps in to care for the children. In all these situations, the children are ultimately the ones who pay for their parents’ absence.
Prison Fellowship’s Angel Tree program seeks to strengthen and restore families torn apart by incarceration. Angel Tree provides these families with encouragement and support throughout the year, and introduces them to a Heavenly Father who will always be there for His children.
To learn more about Angel Tree, and how you can be a part of serving kids like Davion, visit www.angeltree.org.