Into His Arms

In 2015, Addisyn’s eyes were opened while caring for Emma Leigh, a newborn baby girl who had been abandoned and left to die all alone due to her special needs.

Below is Addisyn’s story of how she met Emma and how this much needed ministry got started and continues to bless children like Emma.

“There’s a 10 day old baby girl,” he told us, “she has a disease.”

“I’ll take her,” I told him without hesitation, and a few hours later the social worker was at our door holding a bundle wrapped in an orange blanket. She explained that the baby girl had been abandoned due to her diagnosis. She had been left with nothing- not even a name. And she wasn’t expected to live very long.

I soon learned that this baby girl had a diagnosis called Hydranencephaly. In other words, she only had about 3% of her brain. Days passed filled with MRI’s and hospital visits, until one day I stood before the judge in the courthouse, asking if I could adopt her and give her a name.

“Her own family didn’t even want her,” the judge told me solemnly, “She’s probably not going to live, and even if she does she’ll have a normal life. So why would you even bother? Why do you care so much?”

I looked right back at her and I told her that I cared because her life matters, and that the value of our life isn’t decided by the number of our days.

I named her Emma Leigh. Emma means whole and complete, which is what we were praying for her brain, and Leigh is mine and my mom’s middle name and the name I had always wanted to pass on to my first daughter.

On April 16th, 2015 Emma Leigh passed from my arms into the arms of Jesus. She was born into a completely hopeless situation, but she died being loved.

During my time taking care of Emma Leigh, I learned that that’s not the case for every child. Most children like Emma Leigh are left to die all alone.

And I wasn’t okay with that, and I could no longer pretend that kids like Emma Leigh didn’t exist.

And so, the vision for Into His Arms was born. A place for orphaned and abandoned children who are diagnosed as terminally ill to come and be loved until the very end.

After seeing the void in the system for children like Emma she began taking in orphaned children who had been diagnosed as terminally ill and providing them with palliate end of life care. Soon after, Ronald and Addisyn founded Into His Arms as a branch of Village of Hope, providing love and care in a family style setting to those whom many consider “the least of these” until the Lord takes them home.

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” Matthew 25:40