FLS Caseworker Takes On A New Challenge

For those of you who have been personally acquainted with Family Life Services (FLS), Janelle Basham has been a recognizable part of our ministry for over 10 years.  She has worked as an Adoption Caseworker, in both part-time and full-time capacities, and has very openly shared her own adoption story with many clients over the years.  Her expertise in the area of adoption has been a valued part of FLS and we are so grateful for the many years that she has devoted to our agency.

Although she no longer is employed by FLS, we are celebrating a new opportunity that she accepted in late 2010.  Janelle was asked to become the Director of the Liberty Godparent Home (LGH) and oversee this residential program for pregnant women that provides housing, counseling, education, medical care, and guidance regarding both parenting and placing options.  

LGH is a partner ministry of FLS and we see this transition as a win-win situation:  1)  her office is now in the next building to ours so she isn't far away, 2) we are still able to work with her on a daily basis, just in a different capacity, 3) her life has come full-circle from once being a 16-year-old resident of the Godparent Home to the position of Director and 4)  her personal and professional experience provides her with the energy, passion and drive to continue building a great program at LGH.

Throughout her life, Janelle has experienced ups & downs, victories & defeats, and tears of joy & sorrow that have all been woven together by God's grace to produce a beautiful testimony of God's plan for this chapter in her life.  In 2010, she co-authored Released & Delivered in which she tells her own story of teenage pregnancy, from regret to redemption.

We are so proud of Janelle and the things that God is accomplishing through her!  You can read more about this part of Janelle's journey on her blog The Journey of a Birthmother.