Caryl Watson

Adoption Specialist

Caryl has always had a heart for children, which led her to pursue a Bachelor's Degree in Speech Pathology, and then a Master’s Degree in Early Childhood Special Education. She taught for 6 years in Early Childhood programs with young children who had special needs.

She and her husband married in 1990. That same year, she joined staff with The Jesus Film Project, a division of Campus Crusade for Christ. They moved to the Jesus Film headquarters in California and then to Kiev, Ukraine for a year!

They served with that ministry for 5 years, but came back to Little Rock for her husband, David, to take over his family’s business. They had two children at the time we moved back, Hannah and Jacob, and Ella arrived in 1997.

In the summer of 2001, she was introduced to the ministry of foster care. She was immediately interested and felt like this was something God was calling their family to, but David wasn’t so sure. God moved in his heart, and they opened their home with Bethany Christian Services in January 2002. They fostered through Bethany for 3 years and then moved over to foster with the state in 2005.

They closed our home as a foster family this year after 21 years of fostering! During those years, they added two daughters, Mariah and Makayla, to their family through adoption.

Caryl shares, “Foster care and adoption have made the biggest impact on our family. It’s taught my children how to love big and serve others in ways that I wouldn’t have been able to teach them otherwise. They’ve walked through hard things with foster siblings and their biological families, and they’ve learned that when you love well, you’re going to grieve hard, but that it’s so worth it. Foster care and adoption have given me a community to learn from, and many opportunities to support other families who are struggling or just need someone to walk with them on the journey.”

Some of those opportunities include:

Being a co-founder of Project Zero.
Sitting on the committee that helped launch The CALL.
Helping start and lead the Orphan Ministry at Fellowship Bible Church.
Was on the executive committee for the Central Arkansas Orphan Coalition which formed and launched the HOPE Conference in 2013.
Participating on the committee that organized Walk for the Waiting event.

“Most of my adult life has centered around children and families! It’s my passion! And now, through this role with ABCFM, I get to love on another group - expectant women in crisis. I love rallying around them, offering support and direction. I am able to help them get to a safe and healthy place so that they are equipped to parent their child, and if they decide that adoption is the best parenting decision for their baby, I get to help them navigate that process too.”