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Rhonda Paulson always wanted to adopt a child.

Sunday, Paulson told her story about how that desire to adopt led to a bigger cause of helping children in foster care during the worst day of their lives, removal day.

Paulson spoke at Rogersville First United Methodist Church as part of efforts to establish an Isaiah 117 House in Hawkins County for children in Hancock and Hawkins counties.

“I tell people all of the time that my favorite thing to do is to tell the story of Isaiah 117 House because it’s not my story,” Paulson said. “I believe it’s the story that reveals the heart of the God I’ve loved my whole life, my heart for those forgotten, my heart for the marginalized and my heart for the most vulnerable. I’ve gotten to witness (God) move in amazing ways to ensure that children know that they’re not alone.

“Through that experience, I’ve been reminded that this has been his message to us all along, from when he walked with us in the garden, when he led us through the desert, when He sent His son and the Holy Spirit, His message has always been that we are not alone,” she said.

As a cheerleader in high school, Paulson would tell members of her squad that she would adopt a baby someday. Her desire continued while she was in college.

“How that never came up during a two-year courtship or pre-marital counseling, I’m not sure,” she said. “Sometime in the first year of marriage in 1997, I told my husband Cory I cannot wait until we adopt. I told him that The Lord has always told me that I would adopt. He said, ‘That’s funny, The Lord has always told me that I wouldn’t.’”

In November, 2014, Rhonda was home sick and was watching the Today Show which was celebrating adoption with a judge formalizing forever families on the show’s plaza at Rockefeller Center. At that time, 75 percent of adoptions were being conducted from foster care.

“In 2014, I knew nothing about foster care,” she said. “I didn’t know what DCS or CPS stood for, I didn’t know where their offices were located. I didn’t know anyone who had walked that journey.

Cory didn’t want to talk, think or approach the subject of adoption, Paulson said. Paulson had a plan that would eventually change Cory’s mind.

Rhonda and Cory had a date-night plan where they went to a restaurant for dinner, then they went to Crossroads Christian Church for the first of eight sessions on foster care. Needless to say, Cory wasn’t happy. After the first training, both were silent for the rest of the night, but had gone back to normal the next day.

By the end third meeting, Cory told Rhonda that he didn’t want to continue the trainings. When Rhonda responded with, “Fair enough,” Cory said that ‘You and God have wrecked me. I’m a wrecked man. Now I know the numbers and there are children in our county who just need a home.

‘We’ve got to do this,’” Cory said.

One of the trainings involved going to the Department of Children’s Services office in Johnson City. A child had spent their removal day at the office, lying on the carpet, their belongings in a black trash bag, far away from familiar or safe surroundings.

“I remember there was a physical pain in my chest, my head got heavy and my shoulders sank to the table,” Paulson said. “I couldn’t stop crying, pick my head up and I just kept seeing her. I kept seeing the six-to-seven-year-old little girl who had left the only momma she’d ever known cheated. Now she was sleeping on some really gross carpet.”

In that conference room, Paulson started mentally yelling at God saying, ‘That little girl is yours. Who’s going to tell her that she’s beautiful? Who’s going to tell her that she’s worthy? Who’s going to tell her she’s not alone and that she’s loved?’ I heard God say, ‘these are my children, what are you going to do?’”

In November, 2015, Paulson got a call from the Carter County DCS needing placement for a nine-month-old boy. After calling Cory, she told him, “We’re about to get into the hottest mess we’ve ever been in. There’s a baby.”

“I’m on my way,” Cory said.

The boy was wearing an outfit way too small for him because he was bathed quickly in the facility’s drug testing sink. The outfit he was wearing was so filthy, it had to be thrown away. He only had a diaper bag with roaches inside.

“That’s how it happens,” Paulson said. “Not in some far-off lands or other country, in my county, your county, in this country. Children in foster care in borrowed outfits with roach-infested diaper bags.”

The boy was named Isaiah. He smiled and reached for Rhonda. As a family, the Paulsons started reading through the book of Isaiah.

“When we read Isaiah 1:17, it just hit different,” she said. “Looking at the face of a little boy who had nothing and no one. If you look at the context of Isaiah 1:17, God is speaking to his people. If you look before it, He is quite frustrated. What He wants from his people are to ‘Do good, seek justice, take care of the widow, take care of the orphan.’”

The Paulsons were foster parents from 2015 to 2017. They learned things about foster care they would not be able to walk away from. They learned about a child’s hardest day, removal day.

“When I was teaching in high school and had heard about removal day, I thought it was to be celebrated,” she said. “They’ll be safe, they’ll get a bath and get a meal, they’ll go to school every day next week. But when God lets you see removal day through the eyes of a child, you realize there is nothing to celebrate. They lose their momma, home, possessions (except what can be put in a black trash bag).”

Paulson also talked about sibling groups being hard to place because of limited foster homes.

“There is no promise that they won’t lose their brothers or sisters,” Paulson said. “There is no promise that they won’t be placed in another county, lose their school, their teacher that’s been so kind to them, and their friends at recess. Every aspect of this child’s life comes crashing down and that child in that traumatic state goes to a state office to sit and wait for hours, maybe days. No bed, no bath, no rights. They’ve done nothing wrong.”

State caseworkers are unfairly vilified due to their jobs.

“They are not the villains,” she said. “They are picking out lice in their breakrooms, bathing babies in drug testing sinks, trying to love on a sibling group of three while doing a mountain of state’s paperwork in a cubicle. It can’t be done. It can’t be done well.”

Paulson said that it was time for the church to rise up.

“Foster care was never a state problem,” she said. “This is our problem. I get it because it’s a hard yes.”

In January, 2017, Paulson couldn’t say no to God any longer.

“I have no idea what you want me to do, but I will do it,” Paulson said. “I have seen that that is when our God takes off. He doesn’t need us to do his work, but he invites us in and He wants us to be part of it.”

She started efforts the first Isaiah 117 house in Carter County in February, 2017.

“That’s when the dream began to take shape,” she said. “What if there was a home for when a child is going through the most traumatic time in their lives they don’t go to a cubicle or conference room, they go to a home with tons of light, color, a bathtub, a shower (with toiletries), new clothes, dignity, because you’ve never been forgotten.”

That home would also have backpacks for school, shoes, blankets and more, Paulson said. The home would also have an office for a DCS caseworker to do their job.

“God built this house for you, for this moment,” she said. “Let DCS do the paperwork, we’ll love on the child. Together, we’ll do this really well.”

Paulson went into Carter County and talked to people and businesses about her vision. The Lord rallied the community through the fire departments, bands, a nursing home bake sale and donations. In a year, the first Isaiah 117 house was completed, a remodeled house, a fully-funded first year’s budget in the bank, construction at no charge and 40 volunteers.

“Every cabinet was full, every closet was full and we were ready to serve Carter County,” she said. “It was unbelievable. To watch God move his people in a tangible way.”

Requests for houses have since come from Greene, Sullivan, Washington, Blount, Knox, Jefferson and Hamblen counties in Tennessee, to Indiana. Even Mike Rowe, of “Dirty Jobs” fame, came with a production company to film a Facebook media show, “Returning the Favor.” When the episode aired in March, 9, 2020, more than two million people watched. Four days after that show aired, Paulson came to Hawkins County to talk with a judge regarding an Isaiah 117 house. On her way home that day, the world was shutting down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

God didn’t stop the Isaiah 117 house from growing during the pandemic. There are houses now in nine states with 40 locations, 25 areas on a waiting list and 100 more submitting videos.

“That’s how big the problem is,” she said. “But that’s how big my God is. It’s unbelievable.”

An upcoming article will update the efforts on Isaiah 117 houses in Cocke, Jefferson, Hamblen and Hancock-Hawkins counties.