Eternal Family Adoptions
Eternal Family Adoptions
Podcast Description
Eternal Family Adoptions explores the sacred journey of building forever families through faith-centered adoption. Host Donna Pope, Executive Director of Heart To Heart Adoptions, brings 25+ years of experience to every conversation, alongside co-host Nathan Gwilliam, founder and former CEO of Adoption.com. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints share their stories of divine guidance, spiritual preparation, and eternal connections formed through adoption. Birth parents discuss how faith supported them through difficult decisions. Adoptive families reveal how prayer and spiritual discernment shaped their journey. Adoptees share both the challenges and joys of their unique stories. Faith leaders explore how congregations can better support adoption. Each episode honors the sacred nature of family creation while providing practical guidance for those called to grow their families through adoption. This podcast creates a space where spiritual principles meet real-world adoption experiences, helping listeners understand how faith can guide every step of the adoption process.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
This podcast focuses on the sacred journey of adoption, highlighting topics such as spiritual guidance, challenges faced by birth parents, and the joys experienced by adoptive families. Episodes like An Adoption Story that Traversed 8 Countries examine unvarnished truths about international adoption and the emotional realities therein, while other episodes explore barriers to adoption within the LDS community and ways to overcome them.
Eternal Family Adoptions explores the sacred journey of building forever families through faith-centered adoption. Host Donna Pope, Executive Director of Heart To Heart Adoptions, brings 25+ years of experience to every conversation, alongside co-host Nathan Gwilliam, founder and former CEO of Adoption.com. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints share their stories of divine guidance, spiritual preparation, and eternal connections formed through adoption. Birth parents discuss how faith supported them through difficult decisions. Adoptive families reveal how prayer and spiritual discernment shaped their journey. Adoptees share both the challenges and joys of their unique stories. Faith leaders explore how congregations can better support adoption. Each episode honors the sacred nature of family creation while providing practical guidance for those called to grow their families through adoption. This podcast creates a space where spiritual principles meet real-world adoption experiences, helping listeners understand how faith can guide every step of the adoption process.
Brett and Bonnie Hilton have been married for 34 years and are parents to nine children. Four quadruplets born at 24 weeks through surrogacy passed away shortly after birth. Five children joined their family through adoption, including two domestic infants, two sisters from Ukraine, and a special needs baby who lived briefly. Bonnie was born without a uterus and learned this at age 14, a painful discovery for a young Latter-day Saint girl. In this episode of Eternal Family Adoptions, host Donna Pope speaks with the Hilton’s about their faith-filled journey through loss, adoption, and divine guidance.
Love Learned Through Faith
After losing their quadruplets, Brett and Bonnie Hilton adopted two infants through LDS Family Services. Years later, they felt led to adopt internationally and traveled to Ukraine before the Hague Convention, where they adopted two biological sisters, ages two and four, while navigating a corrupt system that required bribes to move the process forward. Bonnie initially struggled to bond with the girls, feeling like she was failing as a mother until prayer confirmed that she was exactly what her daughters needed. Over the years, through love, service, music, and play, the connection she longed for finally grew.
Love That Never Lets Go
Bonnie and Brett Hilton’s family story is filled with redemption and faith. Their eldest daughter, Rebecca—once a rebellious teen who proudly went against church standards and secretly stole the family car over 100 times—has grown into a loving mother with a close relationship with Bonnie. Years later, while working as a social worker, Bonnie and Brett adopted baby Isabella, born at 29 weeks with severe anomalies and a short life expectancy. Isabella lived for two weeks, surrounded by her siblings on earth and in heaven, reminding the Hilton’s that love, no matter how brief, is eternal.
Discover faith-based adoption support and resources at eternalfamilyadoptions.org.
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Website: EternalFamilyAdoptions.org | YouTube: @EternalFamilyAdoptions | Twitter/X: @ef_Adoptions | Instagram: Eternal_Family_Adoptions | Facebook : Eternal Family Adoptions | LinkedIn: Eternal-Family-Adoptions
Follow Nathan Gwilliam: LinkedIn: @nathangwilliam
Follow Donna Pope: LinkedIn: @donna-pope-41652ba
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