Jessica Bates

Jessica Bates has a heart for those in need.

Look no further than the Bateses’ burgeoning home: Jessica and her five children boast a collection of puppies, cats, and horses. Their home is full of life and love.

Inspired by her faith, Jessica’s heart for others extends beyond the sweet creatures she has taken in. After listening to a radio program about adoption, Jessica sensed the Lord telling her to consider adopting children herself.

She followed the Lord’s leading and started the adoption process—until the state of Oregon brought it all to a screeching halt, simply because of Jessica’s Christian faith.

Who is Jessica Bates?

Jessica grew up in a close-knit family of six in Boise, Idaho. Much like the home she now shares with her children, it was happy and loving. And their faith in God was at the center.

“My mom had a really strong faith,” Jessica says, “and she encouraged our faith, too. She’s why I’m a Christian.”

Her mother, saved when Jessica was young, led Jessica to the Lord as a child.

Jessica held onto her faith throughout her growing-up years, through college, into her marriage with her husband, David, and her entrance to motherhood.

And it was that same faith that carried her through seasons of tragedy and loss—and later encouraged her to adopt.

Jessica’s life changes forever—but God does not

Jessica met David while she was finishing her last round of student rotations as an ultrasound technician at a hospital in Ontario, Oregon. David, a radiologic technician, asked her to dinner.

She was hesitant at first, knowing that she would only seriously date someone who shared her faith. Little did she know, David was a Christian himself.

Nine months later, the two married. Within a few years, their family had added five children—Dominic, Emmett, Dani, Jordan, and Darian—growing like the same big, lively households they were both raised in.

“I used to catch David saying nice things about me behind my back,” Jessica recalls. “We had a wonderful marriage…peaceful, joyful, tranquil. I remember thinking, ‘Is it always going to be this easy?’”

And then, one morning as David was driving her to work amid a snowstorm, their lives were upended.

A man who had just kidnapped and murdered his wife was fleeing the police in his car. He swerved and hit the Bateses at high speed. Jessica was seriously injured in the crash. David was tragically killed.

“The first year, everything just felt so unbelievable,” Jessica says. “Like a bad dream I kept waiting to wake up from. It was really overwhelming. Just…shock.”

Her community of friends and family rallied around her. And her faith in God sustained her.

“God doesn’t change,” she says. “He’s reliable, and He’s faithful. He knows what we need, and when we need it.”

She began to navigate her children’s teenage years as a single mother, thinking about how David would respond to the different challenges and reminding her children of how much their father loved them—just as God loves them.

Jessica notes, “God says He is a Father to the fatherless. We’re just relying on that.”

Jessica feels called to care for God’s children through adoption

On her drive to work one morning in 2022, Jessica heard a Focus on the Family interview about a man who adopted a child out of foster care.

The story intrigued her. A moment later, she sensed a voice saying, “Those are My children.”

“It was the voice of a dad,” Jessica says. “I felt like it was God speaking to me as a protective father, speaking His love for foster children and orphans. He cares for them.”

She felt called to take action and possibly adopt a sibling pair out of the system.

So she prayed.

Jessica is turned away due to state’s discriminatory policy

One by one, Jessica’s children came around to the idea. They seemed to share her conviction.

“This is something God is calling us to do,” her son Emmett told her.

She began applying to become an adoptive parent in Oregon—an involved process that includes paperwork, fingerprinting, and training.

In the training sessions, Jessica learned about the struggles of the children who are living in foster care and felt compassion for them—and realized she and her children could relate, to a degree.

“[My children] know what it is to lose someone—and hurt,” she says. “They know about trauma and grief…but they also know how to move through that. They know what it is to come together and support each other.”

But as she continued her training, Jessica realized there would be bigger obstacles standing in her way—not the needs of the children, but the demands of the government.

State officials instructed that adoptive parents must be willing to promote gender ideology—including using incorrect pronouns for a child, taking a child to LGBTQ events like pride parades, and even facilitating the use of cross-sex hormones on a child.

Jessica sent an email to a state official outlining her religious convictions: she would love any child placed in her care, but she would not say or do anything that contradicted her faith.

“If you believe in biblical sexuality, you understand that we’re made in God’s image,” she says. “He gave us what we have, and our identity is in Him.”

The state pressed Jessica about this view, but she stood her ground. She was informed that her application would likely be denied.

All of this did not sit right with her.

“They’re saying you have to support something you completely disagree with,” she says. “That anyone applying to adopt a child—and who objects to this—is excluded from this process. You either have to lie or abandon your beliefs.”

Jessica wasn’t willing to do either.

Jessica stands up for her rights—and for children across the state

Thousands of children are touched by Oregon’s foster care system each year.

There’s such a shortage of families to care for them that many children have in the past been placed in emergency housing, from hotel rooms to social workers’ offices. These children—some as young as four—have lived through perpetual instability and even abuse.

The state is in no position to turn away eager, loving families like Jessica’s.

“These are God’s kids,” Jessica says. “I don’t think He’s happy with the law, either.”

Because of the generous giving from friends of the ministry, Alliance Defending Freedom came to Jessica’s aid—for the defense of her rights, and for the thousands of children who may be affected by the policies denying loving families the opportunity to care for them.

In April 2023, ADF filed a lawsuit on Jessica’s behalf. After a federal district court ruled against her, ADF appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit and asked that her application be allowed to proceed while the case continues.

Just as she has done since she turned to the Lord as a little girl, Jessica is trusting Him to provide.

“We’re going to keep our eyes on Him and see where this goes,” she says. “But … I don’t think our family’s quite complete yet. There’s still supposed to be a couple more.”

What now?

By the grace of God, Jessica is praying that this discriminatory policy will be changed—giving good news for thousands of children across the state of Oregon.

But her case is still ongoing. And this legal battle can only be fought through the support of our friends.

We don’t charge Jessica a dime to represent her in court, thanks to the generous support of our Ministry Friends.

Your gift today helps us stand alongside Jessica for the defense of her rights.

Will you give whatever you’re able right now to support clients like Jessica?