It’s a story that makes blood boil. Five Black children adopted by a white couple were found inside a shed and allegedly forced to work their abusive “parents” farmland in West Virginia. While no child should suffer this type of treatment, the parallels to America’s horrific historical narrative of enslavement are painfully obvious. How is America protecting our children from such a fate?
One Black couple had a solution nearly 30 years ago. Pastor Bishop W.C. Martin and his wife, Donna Martin of Possum Trot, a small community in southeastern Texas, stepped up when they adopted two Black children in need in 1996. They encouraged several other families from their parish to do the same.
Nika King as Donna Martin in Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot. Image: Angel Studios.
“Children are a gift from God. They are to be loved, protected and not to be given over to a slave master to any degree,” Donna Martin emphasizes to EBONY. The couple’s remarkable story is told in the new movie Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot.
The death of Martin’s mother spurred her to seek answers from her higher power. “I began to complain to the Lord for many months that no child should lose their mother,” she tells EBONY. Already the mother of two children, her anxiety and depression grew as they went to school.
“I was in the kitchen doing the dishes, and I spoke these words, ‘Okay God, I can no longer bear this pain of emotion. Either you heal me or let me die.’” The voice of God then spoke to her. “I plainly heard the Father say, ‘I have heard you, but what about those kids out there that didn’t have a mother or a father? Give back!’…I went back inside the house, picked up the yellow pages and called 1-800-adoption. I said, ‘My name is Donna Martin, I want to adopt children.’”
Martin shared the news with her husband and sister and then with their church family. “We just simply told the church what adoption means to the body of Christ.” Obedient to her calling, this was the Martin family’s way of meeting humankind’s needs.
Many of the children that the town adopted had been in unimaginable foster care situations and had never experienced life without hardship and pain. In 2021, Black or African American children represented 22% of all children in foster, despite the fact that Black children were only 14% of the total child population. Interrelated socioeconomic factors, like poverty and racial bias in adoption, played into these numbers.
“Our faith upheld us by making a commitment to love children with the love of Christ unconditionally and meeting their needs as parents,” says Martin, “to protect them and to train them up in the ammunition of the Lord so that they will know their self-worth.”
Understanding that the call to adoption is not an easy one. Martin states, “Adoption is a calling of obedience and to know that you cannot do it without the power of God. Everyone is not called to adopt but everyone can help assist in the process of adoption. For in all, we are all our brother’s keepers. How can we find the patience to give love to a child whose former experiences have been traumatic? The Bible says that love covers a multitude of sins, and it also says that Love conquers all.”
Martin believes that the film is a second calling from God. “He is moving in a direction to show the world that He wants his children saved and loved unconditionally. To sum it all up, it’s amazing to see the amazing hand of God, to sit back and watch Him do his work by bringing this all together and to light the path of those who don’t know how important it is to give a child a chance.”
This is a call to action “to annihilate the foster care crisis,” she declares. “We want to see this movie open up the hearts and minds of people so that they can see that it can be done. If we can do it in Possum Trot with limited resources, then what about you?
“We understand that the bigger states may have more available resources and reach and can teach others about what adoption is and what it can do for a child. We feel that if everyone puts their hands and heads together, then we can save so many more children from the system.”
Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot is now playing in theaters.
