It only took one meeting with representatives from Bethany Christian Services for Megan Johnson to know she wanted to adopt a child through that organization.
About six years ago, Johnson and her husband were trying to adopt a baby. They had been looking into going through another adoption agency when they went to Bethany Christian Service’s orientation meeting in Columbus. They met with two representatives who opened the meeting with prayer and devotion before telling the Johnsons how the process would work. They didn’t sugar coat it, Johnson said — it would be a long process.
“I knew I could completely trust them with building our family,” Johnson said.
Now she has two children, ages 4 and 2, both adopted through Bethany Christian Services. It’s a story she told the 200 attendees at Bethany Christian Services’ “Make a Difference” fundraiser banquet at Lion Hills Thursday night.
It was the first banquet fundraiser the organization has held since 1999, said Columbus director Lynn Mullins, and she hopes it will be the first of many in coming years so that Bethany Christian Services can continue to serve families in the area. It opened with a silent auction at 6 p.m. and continued with a dinner for attendees.
Bethany Christian Services is an Christian adoption agency which works with birth families and adoptive families during domestic adoptions, Mullins said, and will also help couples adopt internationally. Though based in the Jackson area, it opened a Columbus branch in 1993.
Its focus is not only on adoptive parents but on birth parents. The organization provides counseling and services for expectant mothers at any point in their pregnancy for however long they want, Mullins said. It also helps them determine whether they want to put their child up for adoption and then helps them choose adoptive families.
Often the birth families and adoptive families stay in touch. Johnson is still in contact with the birth families of both her children, and her son spent part of his recent birthday at the park with his birth mother.
Before hearing Johnson speak, attendees had opportunities to bid on items from the silent auction — everything from gift baskets and hotel stays to a football signed by University of Alabama football coach Nick Sabin.
“Everything has surpassed our highest hopes so far,” Mullins said hours before the fundraiser.
Mullins said Thursday night’s event raised more than $30,000, and she expects to hit the event goal of $40,000 once all donations trickle in. Funds came largely from 13 local sponsors, donations and silent auction items.
“We [had] more silent auction items than we could have imagined and more attendees than we could ever have imagined,” she said.
Mullins hopes to hold a bigger banquet next year.
“This is great for our first one,” she said.
Johnson said she just wanted to be there to thank Bethany Christian Services’ beneficiaries for aiding the organization that brought her children — and those children’s birth families — into her life.
“We’re just thankful and honored to be a part of their stories that God has written for them,” she said.
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