Jordyn Glaser currently serves as the Women's Ministry Director at Eastmont Church in Bend, Oregon. In addition to Women's Ministry she is also a team leader for Eastmont's Foster & Adoption Ministry and the International Missions Ministry. In 2019 Jordyn authored the faith based book, "Battle Cry: A True Story of Hope and Encouragement" in which she shares her personal story of being born with a complicated heart disorder, navigating high risk pregnancies, having biological children with birth defects, and pursuing multiple adoptions. In 2019-2020 the Glaser family lived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia fighting human trafficking with International Justice Mission but returned to Oregon due to the pandemic. Jordyn currently lives on a small farm in Central Oregon with her husband of 16 years and her four kiddos (Ages 13, 11, 7 & 7). She loves black coffee, her Australian Shepherds, and Jesus.
Laura Chica is a biblical counselor and co-founder of R3stored ministries, a biblical counseling and equipping ministry. Together with her husband they are passionate about restoring biblical counseling to churches and bodies of believers around the world.Laura has been providing Biblical counsel to women, couples and families for over 15 years and is now training and equipping others to counsel the word to those who are suffering.Laura is the mother of five grown children, three wonderful son-in-laws and four beautiful grand babies. As an adoptive mother of a special needs child, Laura has experienced the joys and challenges of parenting from infant to young adult.She serves alongside her husband of 30 years as he pastors a small church in Independence Oregon. Together they enjoy coming alongside believers and walking with them in the messiness of life. They also enjoy hiking and biking adventures when they can find the time!
Summer Hermann is a busy wife and mama to 8 ranging in age from 24 to 6. Summer and her husband were active foster parents for 8 years before adopting 5 children from the Foster care system. She refers to her eclectic crew as a Tapestry - a beautiful picture only God could create! Parenting multiple children with a variety of complex needs has been nothing short of a wild ride! Seeing the prevalence of children in care with additional needs, she became a trained facilitator of the FASCETS neurobehavioral model to help other foster/adoptive parents who are struggling to keep up with their children from hard places. Summer, has become a fierce advocate for children and families who experience challenges due to the impacts of alcohol and prenatal drug exposure. Summer has also been a “parent voice” with the Systems Of Care, fighting to bring awareness about severe childhood mental illness and the lack of adequate resources there are in Oregon. When not in the trenches parenting, she serves on the women’s leadership team and is a worship leader at Gresham Bible Church.
Vennisa, a wife of 17 years, mother of 6 (2 through Kinship placement resulting in Guardianship), and an adoptee herself, has had the privilege of welcoming many children into her family for the past 14+ years. While the journey of fostering has had its challenges, Vennisa keeps a posture of hopefulness amidst the ups and downs. Real, raw and relatable covered in a blanket of hope are terms often used to describe Vennisa's willingness to share from her own personal experience as an adoptee turned permanent guardian to her niece and nephew. Vennisa has committed to finding opportunities to collaborate with biological parents of all the children whom she's had the pleasure of caring for while also learning to set the necessary boundaries needed to ensure all involved are safe, heard, seen and supported.
