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In today’s Marriage After God podcast, I had the privilege of interviewing Stephen Moore. Our conversation was a good reminder of God’s perfect timing, provision, and grace.
Stephen and his wife have been married nearly 14 years and live just outside of Atlanta with their three children. But their journey into parenthood wasn’t straightforward. They both came from large, loving, faith-centered families and desired to have a big family themselves. Shortly after getting married, they began trying to have children—but year after year, they faced the heartbreak of infertility.
After years of trying and countless medical appointments, doctors told them their only options were IVF or adoption. Exhausted and prayerfully considering their next steps, Stephen’s wife enrolled in nursing school—a calling that led her to care for pediatric cancer patients. In God’s providence, they were connected with a birth mother who chose them for a private adoption. They were in the hospital when their son was born and brought him home the next day. Two years later, they adopted a second son during the height of COVID-19 and just weeks after their second son arrived, Stephen’s wife took a pregnancy test—and for the first time in their eight years of trying, it was positive. God had miraculously blessed them with a daughter.
One verse that carried them through this season was Proverbs 3:5-6:
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.”
Stephen shared honestly about the emotional toll of infertility, how it affected their marriage, and how prayer—both theirs and their families—carried them. He reminded us that even when God seems silent, He is working.
“Even if we didn’t have children, our hope would still be in Christ,” Stephen said. “But God was faithful, and His plan was better than ours.”
Stephen now serves as Director of WinShape Camps for Communities, a ministry that reaches over 30,000 children each year with the gospel through summer camps across the U.S. and abroad. He and his wife are using their story and their roles to impact the next generation for Christ.
If you’re walking through a season of waiting, don’t give up hope. Keep praying. Keep trusting. God’s timing is rarely what we expect—but it is always perfect.
For more encouragement and to learn about Stephen’s work, visit winshapecamps.org.
READ TRANSCRIPT
Aaron Smith (00:54.81)
All right, Stephen Moore, welcome to the show. is Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast, I should say.
Stephen Moore (01:01.176)
Thank you, Aaron. Happy to be here today.
Aaron Smith (01:03.746)
Yeah, I don’t remember who it was that reached out to me to connect. Do you have a publicist that reached out to me to connect us?
Stephen Moore (01:09.942)
Yeah, Sarah Doss or Pinkston.
Aaron Smith (01:11.514)
Sarah, that’s it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was really glad when she reached out. I love to, I like to do a lot of vetting when I get reached out to you. So I just start trying to research whatever I can. And so it was really cool learning about a little bit about your life from what I can find online. And so it’ll be cool to chat about some of the things that God’s done in your life. And like I was telling you before the show is my hope is that we just can encourage all of our listeners with what God’s doing because it’s always God’s story. And so.
I’d love to start with, why don’t you share with who you are, some of your background story, marriage, how long you’ve been married, how many kids you got, and then we’ll slowly work into some more stuff.
Stephen Moore (01:50.306)
Yeah, that sounds great. Yeah. Name is Stephen Moore. I live in the Atlanta, Georgia area, just outside of Atlanta with my wife and my family. have, my wife and I have been married for almost 14 years. So this summer we’ll hit the 14 year mark. We have three young children. We have a six year old, a four year old and a three year old. And so we are very thankful for our kids, very thankful for our marriage. And we’ve been
been in Atlanta for almost all that time. For 12 years, we’ve been in the Atlanta area.
Aaron Smith (02:24.019)
Do you like the weather there in Atlanta, Georgia?
Stephen Moore (02:26.39)
Hey, we love the Southeast. We’re both from the Southeast. It does get hot and humid in the summer, fully acknowledge that, but I’d prefer warm over cold all year round. So I’ll take it.
Aaron Smith (02:36.538)
Yeah, that is true. My wife and I live up in central Oregon and we get all four seasons, but one of the seasons lasts most of the year. So we get winter for quite a while. It’s worth finally getting really into spring, which I’m really excited about because we’re having warmer days. We’re going to have some seventies this month or this week. I’m super excited about it. But yeah, I get that the warm weather is, I do like warm better than cold for sure.
Stephen Moore (02:47.598)
Then we’ll…
Stephen Moore (03:01.518)
Yeah, so we hit 90 last week. So that’s unusual, but you know, it’s almost like, yeah, we’re getting there. So got to put the sunscreen on when we go outside sometimes.
Aaron Smith (03:06.462)
you guys are already into summer weather.
Aaron Smith (03:13.038)
That’s amazing. why don’t we, some of the stuff that I’m going to dig into is going to be personal on the personal side of things, like your marriage. But I’d love to know about you and your wife’s like kind of like faith story background. And then also I would like to talk about your kids, that’s okay. Yeah. So why don’t you share some of that.
Stephen Moore (03:20.652)
Yeah.
Stephen Moore (03:29.964)
Yeah, let’s do it. Let’s do it. So, yeah, so my wife and I, actually grew up in pretty similar homes. We didn’t know each other. We grew up five hours apart from each other, met in college. But I’m the youngest of five kids and my dad has been a pastor since the 1970s, faithfully serving various churches throughout those years. And same with her dad. She’s the youngest of four. We grew up playing sports really close to our family, love, like very loving.
carrying homes and even to this day we vacation with our siblings and our nieces and nephews and our parents. I’m very thankful for a close family. We met as freshmen in college. We both went to a small private Christian college on Lookout Mountain, Georgia called Covenant College. I was a soccer player there and really enjoyed my time there. But we met as freshmen. We aren’t high school sweethearts, but I guess we’re college sweethearts. We started dating our freshman year.
Through kind of interesting circumstances, my wife’s older sister had cancer and my wife was selected to be her bone marrow transplant donor. And so she was needing rides to the airport almost every weekend to fly to St. Jude for the surgery and the bone marrow transplant. And I was quick to offer a ride. I was like, oh, I’d love to give you a ride. That gave us an hour in the car each way to the Chattanooga airport.
Aaron Smith (04:36.415)
wow.
Aaron Smith (04:45.486)
Mm.
Aaron Smith (04:48.865)
Yeah.
Stephen Moore (04:52.342)
And so we got to know each other pretty quickly. And that was just a heavy thing to walk through even as an 18 year olds. but dated all four years, the Lord was faithful through that and got married. We graduated college in 2011 and got married that summer. So we, after marriage, being like a part of big families, that’s something we desired. And we all had older siblings that already started having kids and we knew we wanted a big family. We knew we wanted kids. So.
Aaron Smith (05:17.69)
Leave.
Stephen Moore (05:21.838)
We as 22, 23 year olds were like, well, let’s start, you know, trying to have kids instead of a family. So.
Aaron Smith (05:27.096)
Yeah. That’s such a cool, encouraging story because it’s more more rare. These ages are sad, like larger families, know, everyone is still getting along. Did you say both your parents, both your dads were pastors?
Stephen Moore (05:40.556)
Yeah, and they still are. My dad’s 75, 76, her dad’s 80, and they’re both still. I don’t know that my dad will ever retire. He will continue to serve the Lord in whatever capacity the Lord’s calling him to. Yeah.
Aaron Smith (05:43.459)
Wow.
Aaron Smith (05:52.93)
Yeah, I don’t I don’t believe in retirement. Well, specifically for Christians, there is no such thing as retirement, but that’s crazy.
Stephen Moore (05:58.914)
Yeah, so and her dad is 80 and 80 and he’s still lead pastor of their small church in Northwest Georgia.
Aaron Smith (06:06.86)
Yeah, and large families, which is so cool. I grew up in a, I just had one brother. I had another brother that passed away at less than one years old, but it was just me and my brother. then my, so I have a small family. My wife grew up in a big family, a disjointed one because of, you know, divorces and remarriages. But we now, we have a big family. We have six kids and we, luckily we have a lot of also big families in our community and our church.
So we’re all trying to figure this large family thing out on our own, it’s kind of like that. That’s the hope, you know, is what you guys are doing. Like that heart for big families, whether everyone can have big families or not, the heart for the heart for children, which is something I want to dig into in this episode because you have a heart for children. But why don’t we transition to that? You said you guys had, you know, hearts for big families. You grew up in big families, still enjoy all your guys’ siblings. You go vacation with each other, which
Stephen Moore (06:52.846)
Absolutely.
Aaron Smith (07:04.76)
I think is so beautiful. something that I desire for my kids. Something I desire that we’re always telling him like, like your brothers and sisters, you’re like lifelong. Like you better make this work now and let’s figure this out. Let’s have good, strong relationships. So how you get married and you have this big vision for having a big family, right? Tell me what happened next.
Stephen Moore (07:07.854)
Mm-hmm.
Stephen Moore (07:31.51)
Yeah, that, well, I think we probably at that point, I think we were up to like 16 or 17 nieces and nephews. Now at that point we maybe had four or five. So we’re like, well, let’s, let’s start having kids. they, our kids can be the age of their cousins, you know, things like that. And there was always this adoption, like thought after thought in our mind, kind of a, Hey, let’s have three or four kids when they’re eight, six and four, maybe we’ll look into like, you know, adopting a child or something.
Aaron Smith (07:43.353)
Wow.
Aaron Smith (07:54.862)
in one day.
Stephen Moore (08:00.366)
We’d seen people do that in our church and we just always kind of admired that and said that was not something we explicitly said we’re going to adopt, but it was always an option that we wanted to consider. again, years down the road, once we’d had several biological kids of our own. So in 2012, we started like we’ve been married a year. We’re like, all right, let’s let’s start this journey now. And pretty early on, you know, for for about a year, we tried and, you know, by God’s
Aaron Smith (08:04.42)
Mm-hmm.
Stephen Moore (08:29.496)
Providence never had a child, couldn’t get pregnant. And so we started going to some fertility clinics, some doctors and asking some questions. in the process of this, we moved to Atlanta and Atlanta obviously has plenty of options and fertility areas we can go to. So after about two or three years, probably, you know, of trying three or four years up at this point, including our time in North Carolina, we were a doctor set us down and we’d done all the things short of IVF that you can do. And I remember her sitting us down.
And she said, hey, we want y’all to have a child. You’re at the point where you got two options. You can go IVF or you can go the adoption route. That’s kind of where you’re at. And in order to have a child, it’s going to be one of those two things.
Aaron Smith (09:03.535)
Hmm.
Aaron Smith (09:14.074)
essentially no hope and no other option.
Stephen Moore (09:17.12)
Yeah, yeah. It’s either we’ve already done some medical intervention, like we’d already done some very expensive things. And so at this point, we were like, well, adoption’s not cheap. IVF’s definitely not cheap. What should we do? And my wife was just exhausted, to be honest with you. It was just like, it was just trying, it weighed on her. And so she’s just like, I need a break. And one we couldn’t really afford either. So we’re like, let’s just take a break. Let’s just regroup. Let’s
kind of examine what next for our life. She was an art major in college, which she’s thankful she did, but at this point she wasn’t pursuing that in her career. And she said, you know what, I’ve always been interested in nursing school. So she’s like, let me go back to nursing school. There’s a accelerated program right up the road from our house at a good school. So she got in and she pursued that. And that was a huge, like she immediately loved it.
Like she got into class and was head down like studying, like this is something I love. Got finished nursing school and got hired as a nurse for kids with cancer, pediatric cancer, which her older sister had had, as I mentioned earlier. So she felt really called to that and was, it was able to like love own families in the darkest season of their life. You know, think about having a child, maybe a year old, seven years old, 12 years old with cancer and yeah.
Aaron Smith (10:15.31)
Thanks.
Aaron Smith (10:28.397)
Yeah.
Aaron Smith (10:38.242)
No, I don’t want to. Yeah.
Stephen Moore (10:42.03)
And so she was able to kind of administer to them and do that. And she worked for Children’s Health Care Atlanta for probably six or seven years, even after we had our children. So after doing that for two or three years, we were like, all right, let’s revisit this conversation. We’ve saved money. So if we go the IVF route, can afford that if we go to the adoption route. And as I mentioned a little bit ago, we always knew adoption was an option.
We pretty clearly, early on, were like, let’s pursue adoption. We feel like the Lord has always called us to that. The timeline’s different than what we foresaw it being, but if the Lord provides our family only through adoption, praise the Lord. We can’t wait. But then the price tag was expensive, so we started raising support. And in the support raising process, we were approached by a family that were like, hey, we know of this young girl, and she’s pregnant and she wants to do adoption. Would y’all come have dinner with her one day?
Aaron Smith (11:39.086)
Hmm.
Stephen Moore (11:39.086)
So we did and immediately, as that, I think we had lunch. She said, hey, I’m in if you’re in. And so we’re like, we’re in. So this was fall, spring 2018. And then a few, like she started inviting us to doctor’s appointments. She was probably five or six months pregnant at this time. So we were there when he was born. Our son, we went to a doctor’s appointment with birth mom, was not thinking that would be the day he was born. It was three weeks before birth, but the doctors were like, your blood pressure’s high, let’s do it.
So we were in the hospital with him when he was born. We took him home at 24 hours. He was born on a Friday afternoon and we were home Saturday afternoon with him. And just such a beautiful moment in the hospital. And we love that birth mom deeply. She wanted a no contact closed adoption and we’ve honored that. But we understand that she wanted her young son to have a mom and dad that loved him, that loved the Lord and was going to raise him in a home with both parents.
And how honoring is that for her to do that, to make that choice? Because I mean, she could have made some other choices that by God’s grace, she didn’t. So we would not have been parents outside of her, like allowing us to step in. I also rec… Yeah, go ahead.
Aaron Smith (12:46.702)
Yeah.
Aaron Smith (12:51.394)
Well, and I just think about your story and how that choice to take a break and take a step back and say, hey, we’re going to put this on hold. You know, we’ve been pursuing, pursuing, pursuing, trying, trying, trying. And then you get, you know, to this point of like, here’s your two options. You’re like, hey, we’re going to take a step back. I love that you were saying that your wife just dug in and fell in love with nursing right away. I mean, the Lord has so many different things for us. And sometimes it could be, you know, we don’t
It’s not what we want. Like I’m hearing this story. like, it wasn’t that you wanted to not have kids. Like you wanted children, and God had other plans, but instead of becoming bitter and angry, I’m sure those were feelings that came up at times, but instead of like letting those win, you’re like, let’s just take a step back and recoup, you know, let’s, let’s, let’s reconfigure, let’s figure out. then your wife goes into this, this role, which is so amazing that she got to help with children like her sister.
and blessing that. But if you would have pursued adoption, then this situation wouldn’t have existed. This opportunity wasn’t there. This young woman would have needed someone else. so I just I’m looking at God’s providence in this and the beauty of of your obedience and humility of patients saying, OK, it’s not our time. We’re going to take a step back. We’re not going to just jump in to these decisions hopelessly. And then when you guys came back to it,
like this happens. And so I got a question about that. Did this situation with, this is not common. It does happen, but it’s not common for these closed adoptions and someone coming and being, you know, that connection being made. Did that help financially? Was it cheaper to go that route? Not that that’s why you did it, but because that was also a part of the whole situation is having the funds to be able to do this. Unfortunately, adoption is very expensive. It shouldn’t be, there should be better processes for this, but it is so that
Stephen Moore (14:38.018)
It was.
Aaron Smith (14:50.328)
This situation was an answer to prayer in more ways than just the adoption, right?
Stephen Moore (14:56.426)
Absolutely, Aaron. Yeah, like we go into the private route, being able to connect with her, that was substantial. It wasn’t the deciding factor, but it sure was nice to have not the huge expense that we thought it would be, but a smaller expense. We were able to save money for what later would become our second adoption. but yeah, something you just said, I mean, I think you summed up kind of the theme of our marriage and the theme of our family is
Aaron Smith (15:05.486)
Yeah.
Stephen Moore (15:24.888)
hey, God’s timing is not our timing, but it’s so much better. You know, like we think we have a plan and our plan is what’s best for us. When you are in the midst of it, it’s really hard. Like, you know, in our suffering, like it’s not as, I mean, to the point where you’re so excited when your brothers and sisters announce another pregnancy while simultaneously being devastated because you want what they have. You know, it’s like a…
a weird place to live, like a joy and a sorrow simultaneously. But I mean, it was pretty clear that like even in our suffering, God was faithful and close with us, you know? Like it was some of our hardest circumstances. But as we look back and even in the moment, even though it was hard at time, we knew like how much God loved us and how good He was to us because He had a better plan than what we had. So, yeah.
Aaron Smith (16:14.714)
you
Aaron Smith (16:20.662)
Tell me if you could speak to it I know there’s probably a lot of people listening that if you either are currently going through infertility issues or have lost children Which is another whole level of devastation What were some of the in the season of of this waiting you guys are trying trying trying no answers are being happened because my wife and I went through something not similar it wasn’t infertility issues and another physical issue where we had pain during sex and it wasn’t nothing was ever getting better and doctors were like
Stephen Moore (16:31.821)
Yeah.
Stephen Moore (16:48.43)
Mm-hmm.
Aaron Smith (16:49.612)
Everything should be fine. Like you have all these prayers of like, this is what we’ve been waiting for. This is should be working. But it’s not. What were some of the things that you guys did? What were some of the ways you guys walked through this together? How was you as a husband? You know, did you walk through this? it’s not an easy thing. You have probably moments of like, yeah, you know, it’s OK. And then you have moments of like, why God? So just tell me some of those insights into that.
the dark time before you had the answers.
Stephen Moore (17:22.796)
Yeah, I think through a verse that we often would share, Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, you know, probably know, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding and all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your path straight. That’s like easy to say, but like it’s harder to live, you know? Like even to the point where like on social media, you know, whether that be on Instagram or stuff, a lot of new moms are rightfully
Aaron Smith (17:32.228)
Yeah.
Aaron Smith (17:42.244)
Yeah.
Stephen Moore (17:52.046)
posting pictures of their newborns, the first step, first, know, whatever the picture. Like to the point where it was not healthy for us to like follow them in some seasons because of the, you know, maybe the jealousy that like, you know, we could not celebrate with them. In fact, it did the opposite in us. So like we had to sometimes remove ourselves from situations where those things would take place. It was so hard on my wife, obviously, because
Aaron Smith (17:53.529)
Mm-hmm.
Stephen Moore (18:20.684)
I think she felt really called to be a mom, to carry, you know, children, to get pregnant. And so I just tried to love and support her and let her know that, hey, like you’re not defined and your worth is not defined in you getting pregnant and having a child biologically. Like we belong to Christ whether or not we have a child or not. And we need to remember that like in that we can have hope, you know? And even had we not had kids,
by adoption or by biological children, we could still rest in knowing our ultimate hope is in Christ, where we will have reconciliation and restoration with Him in heaven. And thankfully, He gave us children here on earth, but even if we didn’t, hopefully we would have still remained faithful in that.
Aaron Smith (19:15.33)
Yeah. And that is the truth is our identity is not in what work our abilities because there are people that just that’s not going to be a possibility ever because of various reasons. And I just I think of the story of Hannah. I’m sure that this is something that you guys have thought about, you know, praying and praying and praying for a child. And in the Old Testament and in those cultures that being able to have a child was if you couldn’t.
Stephen Moore (19:21.987)
Mm-hmm.
Aaron Smith (19:43.93)
they would, you women were looked at like, you must be broken. You must be less. You must be, but that’s not what Christ calls us. And so we have a new way of looking at ourselves, but that doesn’t change the heaviness. doesn’t change the way it doesn’t take away the, um, the pain of the, being able to have that, be able to have that child with your own, but, um, something that I’ve seen firsthand,
I’ve known many people with infertility issues and, you know, trying for years and years and years. And the thing that I’ve seen the most often, I actually, don’t know if I currently know anyone who has gone through, you know, however long who God didn’t eventually answer that prayer. And, even if it was 10 years, you know, 15 years, like at some point, you know, in God’s timing, he answered it.
Stephen Moore (20:29.431)
Mm-hmm.
Aaron Smith (20:38.424)
I don’t know why or why it takes that long. don’t know what God’s doing, but it’s something that I’ve seen as a beautiful thing is people that are faithful in pursuing and praying and desiring that. As the Bible says, you pray anything in my will, you will have it. And I just, see that. like, of course God wants children. He loves children. So whether that’s adoption or biological, there’s God’s faithfulness in that. And that’s played out in your life. So you adopt.
Stephen Moore (20:38.766)
Mm-hmm.
Aaron Smith (21:08.324)
You guys get through that dark season. I’m sure there’s still times in this, even in this adoption phase of like, you know, wanting biological children, wanting your own children, but then learning to love this new child, your child. Tell me a bit about that journey from adopting your first son to your next child.
Stephen Moore (21:29.206)
Yeah, yeah. So he was adopted pretty locally a couple hours away, but thankfully within within the state of Georgia, so we could bring him home right away, which was awesome. You know, he was 24 hours old and we loved loved on him and continue to love on him. Now he’s he’s actually turning seven in a couple weeks. And so very thankful, you know, we got every phase, you know, we brought home a newborn and got the sleepless nights to the walking and the
Aaron Smith (21:48.068)
Amazing.
Stephen Moore (21:58.324)
know, toddler stage. So about when he turned two or when he was about to be two, we’re like, hey, we want to do it again. And we were kind of told again, IVF for adoption. So we pursued adoption again. This time we were matched with a young couple actually out in Texas. And in the same way that mom and dad loved this child enough to know that the home that they were in would not provide them the life they wanted him to have. They wanted him to have loving parents in a home where
you know, he could be cared for and provided for. And so that was at the height of COVID. That was like, you know, literally we matched, think, March or April of 2020. So we were flying out back and forth to San Antonio in order to meet with them. We were meeting in parks in 105 degrees. Talk about hot. San Antonio is hot. It’s hotter than Atlanta. So we, he was born. We flew out, funny enough,
Aaron Smith (22:48.628)
huh. Yep.
Stephen Moore (22:55.17)
We got a call one Saturday morning, hey, we’re in labor with the hospital. We hop online, book some flight tickets, get out there two hours later from Atlanta to San Antonio, pull up to the hospital and our caseworker meets us in the parking lot. She’s like, it was a false alarm. And so like, that’s a that’s a false alarm. That’s like, okay, well, we just had childcare flown in for our, you know, two year old. So we were like, well, let’s just wait it out. You know, surely if there’s a false alarm.
Aaron Smith (23:10.6)
my goodness.
Stephen Moore (23:23.434)
I think he’s three weeks until due date. We’ll just wait it out. So we waited it out for a week and still know like more traction. So we’re like, all right, let’s fly home. We fly home, of course, the next day she goes back into labor. So we hop on the plane, fly back out there. so what a day, you know? So it was a little kind of like a week vacation, kid free in a new city. We got to explore. We were just on pins and needles waiting for birth mom to go into labor.
Aaron Smith (23:23.766)
It’s close.
Aaron Smith (23:36.056)
one day. wow.
Stephen Moore (23:49.034)
And so he was born, and this was also really neat, at the height of COVID, as you remember, you were only allowed certain guests in the hospital. I was not even allowed in the waiting room in the hospital. I had to sit in the parking lot because the birth dad and my wife were allowed in the room. And the birth dad just kind of had some jitters. He’s like, I don’t know if I can do that. So I kind of got bumped up into that position. my wife and I, by God’s grace, were in the room with him when he was born. Yeah.
Aaron Smith (24:14.906)
Wow, yeah, that’s another god thing.
Stephen Moore (24:17.952)
another God thing. So he was born in September of 2020. Birth parents signed all the paperwork and the documents. And because of state laws, you have to wait a couple weeks before you can fly home with a newborn. Got to process all the paperwork and stuff, especially during COVID, some of that was delayed. So we flew home with him early October. And so we were adjusting the life with a newborn in a
two years two years and maybe three or so months. And we were very thankful. We were very tired, as you probably remember. You’ve done it six times, so even more so. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so at this point, we’ve been married for nine years, trying to have kids for eight years. And I don’t know how many pregnancy tests my wife had taken, but
Aaron Smith (24:55.482)
I’ve been tired for 10 years.
Stephen Moore (25:13.334)
It was probably triple digits, probably into the hundreds and never had had a positive one, never even considered, know, we were told, well, we thought early on we would, but then, you know, once we were told that, we kind of ruled it out. But in the process of all this, being in Texas, flying back, she was just really sick and she couldn’t like shake it. She didn’t know what was going on. So when he was about two weeks old, we’d been home for about a week or so. So maybe it was three weeks old.
She was like, I’m just going to take a pregnancy test to rule that out. And she actually forgot she took it. And then later on that afternoon, I’m feeding him. I’m feeding a 20 day old baby while also playing with a two and a half year old. And my wife starts screaming. mean, just like this, my first thought, I don’t know why, was there’s either a mouse or a snake in our house. Like that’s the type of scream it was. It wasn’t a fun scream. It was like a, is scary scream. I’m like, no.
Aaron Smith (26:04.033)
Yeah.
Stephen Moore (26:10.008)
but I can’t just like jump up and go check on her. I’m feeding a baby. And she comes running in the room with a pregnancy test. says, I’m pregnant. Like she’s like, it says she’s pregnant. She’s crying, she’s screaming, all the emotions. And I’m just in disbelief. I’m in disbelief for multiple reasons. yeah, I’m like, we’ve been told this can’t happen. Like the doctor said this won’t happen. And I have a…
Aaron Smith (26:28.378)
And you’re like, what are you talking about?
Stephen Moore (26:36.686)
a 20-day-old baby. If it is going to happen, it’s not supposed to happen right now. But God’s timing is better than our timing. So we find out we’re pregnant after eight-plus years of trying to get pregnant. And we’ve been married for just over nine years at this point. And so we have two kids that are eight months apart. the way their grades line up, they’ll be in the same grade. So we call them the twins.
Aaron Smith (27:03.386)
That’s awesome. Yeah.
Stephen Moore (27:04.558)
One’s Hispanic and one’s not, so they don’t look alike, but they are incredible.
Aaron Smith (27:08.986)
They’re they? Was the baby a boy? Little girl. Okay, brother and sister. Yeah.
Stephen Moore (27:13.524)
little girl. we have, we have, yeah, we have two adopted boys and then a biological daughter that she’s now three.
Aaron Smith (27:19.95)
How amazing. So did you guys ever stop praying for a biological child?
Stephen Moore (27:27.766)
You know, we didn’t, we really didn’t. And what-
Aaron Smith (27:29.946)
Because you were told no, you were told this isn’t happening, it’s impossible, and you didn’t, why not stop praying? Why not be like, okay, the doctor must know.
Stephen Moore (27:38.166)
Yeah, and let me tell you this, not only that, but I’ve talked a lot, not a lot, I’ve shared a little bit about like the faithfulness of our family and our parents. I believe that my mom and dad, and probably hope my wife’s parents too, every morning prayed for it as well. know, like, so like, the faithfulness of believers praying is like, it’s a real thing. And I know my parents, they would tell us, hey, we’re praying for you and your family, and that the Lord would provide a family for you. Like, I mean, I know that they have
Aaron Smith (27:46.233)
Mm
Stephen Moore (28:08.302)
prayed that for all five of the kids for 50 years, know, or however long they’ve been married 50 years. So, yeah.
Aaron Smith (28:09.402)
Mm.
Aaron Smith (28:16.794)
I just want to like just expand on that. Like I absolutely believe that 100%. There’s been times like I’ve people have said that they can’t have babies and I and I and it’s a weird thing because like I’m a man and I remember being like, can I pray for your baby? Like, can I pray that you get pregnant? They’re like, well, okay. Like, but I can’t. I’m like, I’m going to pray anyway, because I believe you will. And I and I just want Christians out there to just realize like that. I’m sure there people that have been afraid to pray that.
they’re like, well, I don’t want to pray this and then they’re not going have a baby. I don’t want them to get false hope. I don’t want them to believe something’s possible that’s not possible. I think that’s the very purpose of prayer. So we’re asking God for the impossible, things that only He can do. And I just, there’s nothing wrong with—I think of David saying, I’ll become even more undignified. I’m going to dance before the Lord. And I just think like we sometimes were too afraid to pray.
Stephen Moore (28:51.596)
Mm-hmm.
Aaron Smith (29:14.212)
You know, big prayers. We’re too afraid to pray something that we think is impossible. But the Bible tells us to pray in faith, to believe what we have, you know, to believe that what we ask for that we have it. And so that I, I want Christians out there all the time. Like if you, if you know someone that’s going through infertility, pray for them to get pregnant and don’t stop praying until they get pregnant. that there’s nothing wrong with that. And don’t be afraid that it might take you how it was eight years of infertility. Yeah.
Stephen Moore (29:40.206)
Eight years, yeah. Yeah.
Aaron Smith (29:41.814)
of actively trying, actively praying, getting doctors, like all of the things. And then something changes.
Stephen Moore (29:48.504)
Yeah. And we, I mean, I believe it was prayer because nothing changed for us. You know, it’s not like we, let’s change our diet. Let’s change whatever it was. Like we didn’t, we didn’t make any changes like that. It was the Lord, you know, it was truly the Lord. Yeah. We, we had done all, we’ve done all the things short of IVF that you can do, you know, that the doctors like would do. So.
Aaron Smith (30:03.608)
And you had tried all of those things early on, right? Yeah.
Aaron Smith (30:12.526)
Yeah. It’s an amazing story. it just, again, shows God’s faithfulness of you guys. Like you’re going, like we’re going to have children, we’re going to adopt. And God sets up these stories, which I love adoption by the way. have, all of ours are biologic. We haven’t adopted any, but we’ve definitely prayed about and thought about and almost had opportunities in the past. But I love adoption. think adoption is, it’s essentially the gospel story. are the gentiles.
have been adopted in. we weren’t a part of the original, you know, group of people that God chose. He chose them to bring the Messiah. And now we’re adopted in, we’re adopted into the family. And so I think adoption is such a beautiful thing. And you have an extra special story with your kids, which I think all the things you’re talking about, you know, flying and like coming back and like, that’s amazing. And that’s something that I think it’s what, like all the stuff that you’re walking through.
might put a trepidation or fear in Christians of like, I don’t know if I can handle that. I don’t know if we have the money for that. I don’t know if, you know, we’re for that, but I just, if we shift our minds towards, okay, Lord, like, I don’t know if I can. Like, did you feel like you were doing it in your strength? Like you and your wife are like, we’re doing all this because we have the ability to do this. Or was it, Lord, we’re going to trust you as we do this.
Stephen Moore (31:27.936)
If we did, it was a hopeless feeling. Like, I mean, aren’t we thankful to be believers that are, like, we actually have hope? Like, even if we hadn’t got pregnant, we still had a hope in a, like, eternal Lord. Like, I can’t imagine trying to live this out without having, like, Christ as our anchor. I can’t.
Aaron Smith (31:35.353)
Yeah.
Aaron Smith (31:47.96)
Yeah, well, and it’s hard for people that don’t. It gets hopeless.
Stephen Moore (31:50.882)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think through, you know, when you just mentioned prayer, like, not only have you seen it, but like even, mean, how many times in Scripture do we see Jesus going to pray? Like, if Jesus is asking the Father for these good things, how much more should we as believers been doing that? I was just thinking through, like, the passage where He walks on water, that passage begins with Him praying through the night, and the disciples are out in a storm. So, like, in the midst of a physical storm,
Aaron Smith (32:12.538)
Thank
Stephen Moore (32:20.428)
Jesus is praying, He then pursues His disciples. He pursues His people that are in the midst of a storm by walking out to them, by inviting Peter to come to Him. Like, Hope and I, my wife and I, we were in a storm. It wasn’t a physical storm out on the offshore, but Jesus pursued us in that and gave us better than what we could have wanted, you know?
Aaron Smith (32:26.98)
Yeah.
Aaron Smith (32:45.592)
Yeah. And it’s often it’s how God meets us in our suffering. Like Paul said it, he said, I’m filling up what the suffering that Christ lacked on the cross, not that Christ lacked anything. What he’s saying is like Christ is in heaven now and I’m continuing on suffering. And that’s something that the believer does. Suffering does draw us closer to God. When we are in those moments where we absolutely – there’s nothing we can do. I just think of like Peter, he’s like, I prayed three times and got
Stephen Moore (32:58.658)
Mm-hmm.
Stephen Moore (33:12.588)
Mm-hmm.
Aaron Smith (33:15.086)
God’s like, my grace is sufficient for you for my strength is made perfect in your weakness. There’s certain things you cannot know or see or experience of God without being in the mud, without being in pain, without being hopeless sometimes. We have to find our hope in the one who brings hope. And I think it’s awesome that your wife’s name’s Hope. It’s like a story of your guys’ lives.
Stephen Moore (33:18.976)
Amen.
Stephen Moore (33:34.958)
Yep. That’s right. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Aaron Smith (33:42.562)
Just want to briefly, I just found this out before I hopped on here with you. There was a really cool story about you. Was it the day that you adopted your second child that you went to a Braves game? Yeah. I know the reason I like this story is because God used you in a really awesome way to bring light to adoption and the beauty of it.
Stephen Moore (33:53.87)
Yes. Yep. Yep. I’m happy to tell a little bit about that.
Aaron Smith (34:09.676)
And so I just, could you just shine a little bit light on that for a second?
Stephen Moore (34:13.526)
Yeah, know, know, Aaron, sometimes you hear people ask the question, hey, what’s the most embarrassing moment of your life? And sometimes it’s like really easy or really hard to think of something for me that’s never going to be hard because of this moment that you’re referring to. because of COVID, the adoption process took about 11 months. He was with us the whole time. So it wasn’t like we were he was in Texas or anything. He was with us. But he finally finalized in August 2011.
Aaron Smith (34:20.036)
Hmm?
Aaron Smith (34:35.887)
Yes.
Stephen Moore (34:43.054)
So our daughter was two months old at this point. And we went to celebrate. Our whole family was in town. We did the adoption that morning. We’re like, let’s go to the Braves game that night. Let’s go out to dinner. Let’s have fun. Well, the Braves were playing the Yankees. Obviously the Yankees are a good team. So it was a full house, 40,000 plus people packed into the park. The Braves won the war. Do what?
Aaron Smith (35:05.402)
Yeah, only a few eyeballs. Only a few eyeballs. Yeah.
Stephen Moore (35:09.12)
Yeah, only a few eyeballs and the Braves have this really cool like in game entertainment called Beat the Freeze. So it’s this guy he’s kind of dressed like Frozone from the Incredibles if you’ve seen it and he’s really fast. He’s a former like Olympian and the whole idea is you give the participant a really large head start. You know, it’s probably a 250 yard race. It’s from the foul pole to the foul pole in the outfield. He probably gives a 30 yard head start.
Aaron Smith (35:16.185)
Mm-hmm.
Aaron Smith (35:28.634)
Thank you.
Stephen Moore (35:38.336)
And he almost always catches the person. Like that’s the idea. He catches them. And because we were there early to celebrate the adoption, I was selected to race the freeze, which is just this really big deal. It’s like, you know, yeah. Like it’s out there like, Hey, do you want to, I was actually playing, playing with a ball with my two and a half year old and our three year old at this point. They’re like, you want to race the freeze? I was like, that’s a dream come true. Yes. I’m going to lose, but let’s do it.
Aaron Smith (35:50.202)
Amazing, praise God.
Stephen Moore (36:03.768)
So we live close to the stadium. actually my kids weren’t going to the game that night. I took them home. I did their bedtime. So my wife and I did all three of their bedtimes and she went to bed because she’s like, she’s tired. We have a two month old, 11 month old and a three year old. I drive back to the stadium and at the end of the fifth inning, and this is not something they put on TV. It’s like for the 40,000 fans that are there to see. And I ran the race of my life. I just like.
40,000 people cheered me on, I was feeling great, and I was about to beat the freeze. Like I hadn’t beat, I hadn’t beat, I mean, less than 10 % of the people beat the freeze. And then the Lord humbled me in a big way, feet from the finish line, my legs tried to go a little too fast, and I face planted. And not just like a casual face plant, like a pretty epic at the finish line.
Aaron Smith (36:36.474)
You? You for sure had him beat.
Stephen Moore (36:59.874)
face plant five feet, maybe 10 feet from the finish line. And sure enough, the freeze comes zooming past me and he beats me. And you would think, yeah.
Aaron Smith (37:10.276)
Yeah, but I watched the video and he turns around and he’s like, what happened? He’s like, you beat me.
Stephen Moore (37:14.454)
Yeah. Yeah. I had him beat. mean, literally it was, it was an epic fail, an epic phase play. It’s so much so that by the end of the night, it had gone incredibly viral. they never showed on TV. Well, this time they said, Hey, they came out of commercial break and say, you will not believe what this fan just did. He just blew it against the group. was the number one player on ESPN Sports Center, not top 10.
So they do a top 10 of the best plays. Well, once a week they do the worst plays and I was the top worst play. We were on college game day, good morning America. I had friends in Australia at a rugby match and they showed the highlights at a rugby match in Australia. So by end of week, probably 30, 50 million views of my epic fail. But the local news did pick up to your point what you were sharing.
Aaron Smith (37:51.769)
amazing.
Stephen Moore (38:12.31)
a little bit more to the story. They’re like, hey, this guy, you might think all that happened that day was his epic fail against the freeze. We’d love to tell you about what happened earlier that morning at the Cobb County courthouse. And so we were able, by God’s grace, to have a pretty good platform where we were able to tell people about adoption. And we were able to challenge, hey, if you’re a mom right now that has a pregnancy that you don’t feel like you can be a mom,
Aaron Smith (38:18.511)
Yeah.
Stephen Moore (38:39.512)
then we want you to explore adoption because outside of the faith, like these brave women’s choices, we wouldn’t have had our two boys, you know? you know, that is the avenue that the Lord sometimes give parents to have children. And also recognize it is in brokenness. Like these moms, you know, there is a broken situation that leads to this, but the Lord can redeem a broken situation. I mean, that’s the story of the gospel that you were just talking about, Aaron. You know, from our brokenness, Christ rescued us and He adopted us as His sons and daughters.
So we were able to do that and we were able to talk to tell people, even if you are battling with infertility, like there is a way that the Lord can redeem that story and consider adoption because it is a beautiful, beautiful thing for our family and something that we can’t imagine our family being a part of. sometimes people will still be like, aren’t you the guy that raised the freeze? And I’m like, yes, but also let me tell you about my now three-year-old son. That’s such a blessing to us.
Aaron Smith (39:38.26)
I just I think it’s so cool how God sometimes like he’s like hey I’m gonna get some people’s attention and I’m gonna use you. You’re like well okay. That was really cool. I watched the video and I was like that he you literally beat that guy. That was really good.
Stephen Moore (39:44.514)
Yeah. And in hindsight, like I wish I
Stephen Moore (39:51.094)
Yeah. And it would have been a very proud moment for me to be like, I beat the freeze. But it would have never reached people in a way that we’ve been able to, like, because, I mean, literally through the failure, the Lord has used that failure for us to be able to share about the beauty of adoption. And so that’s kind of neat, too. The Lord can use anything.
Aaron Smith (40:11.936)
Amen. yeah. So let’s as we get to the later end of this episode, I just wanted to talk about what do you do for work? Because people are probably like, why are we talking to this guy? And the reason I wanted to talk to you is the infertility story, the adoption story. And then I also want to talk about your love for children’s ministry and where you you work, because I grew up going to camps, Christian camps, and they their big part of my life.
I was a camp, I don’t want to say camp counselor, but what do you call it? I volunteered to camp for several years, youth ministry, loved it. And so what do you do?
Stephen Moore (40:55.574)
Yeah, so I work, well, I also share what my wife does because she was a nurse at the cancer floor for six years or so. But now she’s the nurse at my children’s school. So like that’s really neat. Like that’s a part of the story too. She rides to school with them, drops them off. She brings them home every day. If they get hurt at school, they go see mommy, nurse mommy. So she has a deep love for children and cares for them every day in her job.
Aaron Smith (41:07.862)
awesome.
Aaron Smith (41:18.575)
Yeah.
Stephen Moore (41:24.588)
And then I’m very blessed by my job. So back 40 summers ago, Truett Cathy, who’s the founder of Chick-fil-A, he founded a summer camp called Windshaped Camps. And Windshaped has multiple ministries, foster ministry for kids that don’t have parents. They have a marriage ministries to help build and strengthen marriages, college program, a teams ministry. And then they also have Windshaped Camps. So Windshaped Camps, we do…
Aaron Smith (41:38.33)
Mm.
Stephen Moore (41:50.978)
We do camp really worldwide now. We have five overnight camps in North Georgia. We have a family camp, a two week boys camp, a two week girls camp, and a one week boys and girls camp. But then we have traveling day camps that go all over the US. So we do camp in California, Arizona, New Mexico, South Florida, Chicago, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Florida, everywhere in between.
And we partner with local churches, and our hope and our desire is to help local churches connect to their community. A lot of parents, you know, are looking for something to do with their kids in the summer, and we want them to drop their kids off at Windshake because it’s a fun, safe environment where kids can have fun and learn about Jesus. And so, we are very upfront with the gospel. We are very much a Christian camp. Our mission statement is to glorify God.
by creating experiences that transform campers and families with the message of Jesus Christ. So we do camp eight to five, and then we want to bring in volunteers so they can connect with those campers. So these families that maybe never attend church, they send their kid to camp, their kid had a great time, they’re like, hey, maybe we should come back here for church on Sunday morning. And we also, the team I lead, we do that in Brazil and Costa Rica as well. So we take college students, we take teams down to Brazil.
Aaron Smith (42:46.948)
Love that.
Aaron Smith (43:08.058)
So wow.
Stephen Moore (43:11.788)
and teams down to Costa Rica. One during the spring for college kids spring break and during the summer for the whole summer. I’ll spend a few weeks in Brazil and Costa Rica this summer. In Costa Rica, we travel around to the coffee community. So these communities where these coffee farmers are growing coffee, we do camp for the kids up in these mountains of Costa Rica. And in Brazil, we do it around the capital city. So by God’s grace, we have around between 25 and 30,000 campers each summer come through our camp programs where we’re
Aaron Smith (43:25.657)
Mm-hmm.
Stephen Moore (43:40.354)
We’re telling them about Jesus, and we hire about 800 college students from all over the U.S. to come in and to do that. So it’s an awesome ministry that I’m very thankful I get to do each and every day.
Aaron Smith (43:49.85)
That’s incredible.
Yeah, what are some of the things, I mean, you’re seeing lots of kids come in, lots of teens come in, lots of adults come in. What are some of the themes that you’re seeing in families that, because like there’s a negative direction that the world’s going. There’s a, you know, with media and with all of the things that the world has to offer. What are some of the themes that you’re seeing come in that you guys are having to combat with the truth?
Stephen Moore (44:22.252)
Yeah, I think there’s a few. and also I’m in a city of Atlanta, busy city, so a lot of these kids are just oversaturated with activity. Like there’s just always something, whether that be sports, school, clubs, and even like, you know, devices, you know, their phone, their gaming system. So a lot of these kids, one thing I love is our counselors, our summer staffers, they’re not allowed to have their phone, you know?
Aaron Smith (44:43.656)
yeah.
Aaron Smith (44:51.832)
Nice, that’s a good rule.
Stephen Moore (44:52.072)
And wow, what a wake up for a 19 year old college student that probably has been on an iPad or an iPhone since they were nine, seven, eight, you know, to not have it for two weeks.
Aaron Smith (45:02.54)
Yeah. Do they do they go through withdrawals for their first couple of days? Yeah.
Stephen Moore (45:08.384)
absolutely. Absolutely. We have some opportunities for them to check it out and make, you know, get on it and make sure they’re checking in. But by the end of it, they are, they’re so thankful. I’m not kidding. Like it is like, they feel like they are connecting with people in a way that maybe they haven’t ever before. And sometimes, you know, like being device free, you know what they’re doing? They’re having a face to face conversation. They’re sitting around the table.
Aaron Smith (45:14.415)
Yeah.
Aaron Smith (45:26.276)
Yeah.
Aaron Smith (45:32.858)
Yeah.
Stephen Moore (45:34.388)
And instead of watching a show on their iPad while they’re eating a meal, they’re talking to the counselor or their camper next to them. So that’s both for our summer staffers and our campers. You know, when they come to camp, I think that’s a very awesome experience that they get to have while they’re with Winship.
Aaron Smith (45:50.094)
That’s something that, so the last handful of years I’ve been taking my boys on a four day fishing trip. We float down the river and we camp every night and there’s literally zero service. No service, so no devices work. We have to actually bring GPS phone just in case for an emergency. But it’s so amazing how like after you get past the reality of like, I can’t use my phone. And it just, changes everything. It’s like, everything’s much more enjoyable. You’re less bored.
Stephen Moore (45:57.312)
That’s awesome.
Aaron Smith (46:19.522)
You like it’s my kids love it. love it. Something I think everyone should do is have like a time of detox every single year. If not permanent detox, that’s my, my eventual goal is, get this phone out of my, my life, but it’s part of my life right now. So.
Stephen Moore (46:27.054)
Absolutely. Yeah.
Stephen Moore (46:35.022)
Exactly. Yeah, it is. And I mean, we have responsibilities, we have jobs, we have families. It’s a helpful tool that we need to make sure we do not fully rely on in a way that like we can’t disconnect. Also love fishing because you can’t fish and be on the phone. Like even if I don’t catch anything, you got to use this hand to cast it, this hand reel, can’t be on the phone while you’re fishing. So I’d love that you do that with your boys.
Aaron Smith (46:43.214)
Very helpful.
Aaron Smith (46:51.574)
Nope.
Aaron Smith (46:59.308)
Yeah, I’m not very good at fishing, but it’s so fun to do.
Stephen Moore (47:00.876)
I’m not either, but it’s it’s distraction free, so it’s awesome.
Aaron Smith (47:04.826)
So what’s some of the impact you’re seeing on these kids? You’re not a part of the camping, right? The marriage camp?
Stephen Moore (47:12.972)
We, with, with WindShaped marriage, we do marriage retreats on weekends at the same facility. So in the summer camps kind of takes over in the non-summer months. That’s when we’re having our marriage retreats and different events there in different groups. My wife and I have attended the marriage retreats and it has been a huge blessing for our family. And so, but I do not specifically work on the marriage team. There’s a team that does that. WindShaped has several hundred full-time employees that are working on the various ministries.
Aaron Smith (47:16.078)
Merit retreats,
Stephen Moore (47:42.862)
And so even today I was up there eating lunch and there’s marriage retreats going on. What’s awesome is they do just romantic adventures or just retreats where you can go play pickleball or go fishing in our lake there and just have like quality time. But then they do marriage intensives that are week or two weeks long where marriages are, some of them are like on the rocks. These couples are coming in two different cars and staying in two different rooms and we’re.
Aaron Smith (47:53.241)
Yeah.
Stephen Moore (48:11.328)
really diving in and have counselors there on site to help welcome through some of the things going on in the marriage. So it is a major blessing for many marriages all across the US.
Aaron Smith (48:24.548)
So Windshape is essentially, it’s a gospel focused, family focused ministry where you guys are trying to bless marriages, encourage marriages. Like you mentioned, you guys also do the foster care, working with that.
Stephen Moore (48:45.218)
We have group homes and we do individual homes too, but yeah, we have multiple group homes. think 10 or 11 group homes where these kids are living in a wind shaped foster home. Yeah.
Aaron Smith (48:56.248)
Amazing. So how often are you seeing these kids come to Christ through this ministry?
Stephen Moore (49:02.734)
Yeah. mean, again, by God’s grace, you know, 30,000 campers coming through ages 6 to 18, you know, each summer we’re so thankful for. Oftentimes it’s in the thousands of campers who accept Christ. And I know that’s a big number, and sometimes we can get caught up on that number. But the way we like to look at it, it’s like each of those, that number represents a soul, one child that like…
has gone from darkness to light, has been adopted into the family and the kingdom of Christ. And so we want to make sure, we don’t want it to be this like mountaintop camp experience. No, we want to like make sure that this is biblically rooted and true. And so that’s why even in our community camps, we connect them with those local churches. We don’t want this to be outside of the local church with our overnight camps. Like that’s a follow-up point for us as well. So.
We don’t want this to be a two weeks and then you do your Christianity thing for two weeks and go back home and live your normal life. No, this needs to be a transformative thing that takes root in your entire
Aaron Smith (50:07.226)
What I love about your story is you went from big families, you and your wife, desiring a big family, struggling to have children and then God in miraculous and powerful ways bringing you your own children. But then also now you both work with thousands of children. It’s it’s amazing. You have a large family and God’s given you, you were faithful with the little and he’s made you faithful with much. And I just think that’s such a
Stephen Moore (50:14.029)
Mm-hmm.
Stephen Moore (50:27.288)
Yeah, yeah.
Aaron Smith (50:36.996)
Powerful story, amazing, and I love the encouragement of continuing to press into God and never giving up in prayer and hope that God will move in your life. And He did and will continue to do so. I just pray that He has encouraged everyone who’s listening. What’s one thing you want to leave our listeners with as we close out here?
Stephen Moore (51:02.35)
Ooh, that’s a great question. think, you know, the themes that we’ve talked about, I think some of them are like, hey, the Lord’s timing is better than our own. So even in the midst of like a really dark season or if you’re suffering, like the hope that we have in the Lord, it doesn’t always look like happiness. Like hope and happiness aren’t necessarily synonyms. And sometimes that hope is coming from like our suffering, from situations that don’t make sense.
Aaron Smith (51:03.684)
Yeah.
Stephen Moore (51:31.97)
But through Christ’s sacrifice for us, God is our greatest hope. He’s our final hope. So even when things are really hard, challenging, difficult, our hope is in the Lord. And let’s even remember that. And the safest place we can be, even in our challenges, is pursuing Christ and with Jesus.
Aaron Smith (51:53.794)
Amen. Praise God for that. One last thing. I found out that you have a nickname that everyone calls you at Wind Shape. So your name’s, it’s Stephen Moore, right? And so they shorten that to S’more. Yeah. It’s very fitting. And I love S’mores. I always think of the movie Sandlot. S’more what? I haven’t had one yet.
Stephen Moore (52:00.919)
yeah?
Stephen Moore (52:06.05)
That’s right. Yep.
Stephen Moore (52:09.88)
This s’more, yeah. So, which is very fitting for a camp name, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Yep. It’s more what I’ve got to do. Yep. That’s, that’s also my favorite movie here. And so this baseball theme is good. Also coached by four year olds, T-ball team, the guy, the one we adopted the day at the Braves game. So I think that just birthed like this love for baseball in his life. So yeah, they call me score around here. The way we do our emails, first name, first initial last name. So my email is actually small. So that’s right. That’s it.
Aaron Smith (52:30.297)
amazing.
Aaron Smith (52:34.78)
yeah, there you go.
Aaron Smith (52:42.222)
There you go. It’s more that wind shape. That’s so funny. That’s so funny. Hey, so how can people check out Wind Shape? Where can they get, you know, find information about that and how can they encourage their churches to like do something with you guys?
Stephen Moore (52:56.502)
Yeah, yeah. So, like I said, we partner with hundreds of churches to do camp. have 12 teams that travel around, 25 college kids per each team. So, windshapecamps.org is where you can find out more about camp. Windshape.org is where you can find out more about Windshape. But in either place, you can get to our camp ministry. If you’re a church that’s like, hey, I’d love to bring this to our community, you can even, there’s an interest form where you can do that.
Aaron Smith (53:25.39)
Awesome.
Stephen Moore (53:25.944)
We haven’t quite made it up to Oregon yet, but maybe by God’s grace we’ll get up there at some point.
Aaron Smith (53:30.658)
Yeah, you got to get up here. So if you’re listening and you want to go encourage your leaders at your church to connect with Wind Shape, just invite them to do so and tell them that there’s an intake form and that their ministry’s, you know, affecting lots of people around the world now. And so, hey, Stephen, thank you so much for giving me your time and sharing your testimony of what God’s done in your life. I think people are going to be really encouraged. I know there’s a lot of people that probably need to be reminded of the hope that they have in Jesus and that they should continue to pray for those miracles that he has for us.
Stephen Moore (53:59.758)
Amen. Well, thank you. It’s been an honor and very thankful to be on here today.
Aaron Smith (54:03.992)
Yeah, praise God. Thank you so much, Stephen.
