Embracing Faith and Family Through Adoption w/ Spencer & Ashton Draper
Marriage After God
Aaron & Jennifer Smith
4.9 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 31 July 2025
⏱️ 69 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In today’s episode, Aaron Smith sits down with Ashton and Spencer Draper to share their inspiring journey of adoption, faith, and perseverance. Spencer and Ashton met through a mutual friend at a youth conference, drawn together by their shared love for Jesus and a heart for faith-filled living. Through the ups and downs of a difficult adoption journey and ongoing health challenges, they’ve learned to walk in grace, patience, and purpose—anchored by God’s faithfulness. Spencer works as a planner in manufacturing, while Ashton is a sign language interpreter and author of the book “Big Yellow House.” Whether playing games, watching movies, or raising their family, they’re committed to living faithfully and using their lives to serve Christ’s Kingdom.
From their early years of marriage, to adopting their son Bismarck from Ghana, the Drapers open up about how God has worked through health challenges, biblical counseling, and their passion for adoption to strengthen their marriage and deepen their faith.
Key Topics:
- The Drapers’ early marriage and decision to adopt
- Ashton’s lifelong passion for adoption and its roots
- The challenges and blessings of adopting Bismarck
- Navigating health struggles and their impact on marriage
- The transformative power of biblical counseling
- Encouragement for couples considering adoption
Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
- The Big Yellow House by Ashton Draper – Purchase on Amazon
- Gobena Coffee – Adoption fundraising support
- Parenting by Paul Tripp
- Forgive by Tim Keller
Connect with the Drapers:
- Follow Ashton Draper on Facebook
- Purchase The Big Yellow House https://a.co/d/4IEmWCd
Follow Marriage After God:
- Instagram: Marriage After God - https://www.instagram.com/marriageaftergod
- Instagram: Unveiled Wife - https://www.instagram.com/unveiledwife
- Instagram: Husband Revolution - https://www.instagram.com/husbandrevolution
Support this podcast:
- Shop: https://shop.marriageaftergod.com/
- Become a patron: https://marriageaftergod.com/patron
Smith Family Resources, Inc © 2025
Keywords: adoption, marriage, parenting, faith, family, communication, fundraising, counseling, health challenges, community support
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, marriage after God, friends. Thank you for your continued faithfulness in listening each and every week. Jennifer and I have often shared with you about how important prayer is in the life of a believer. It's so important, in fact, that we're told this in First Thessalonians. Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God and Christ Jesus for you. It is God's will for us to pray. And we want to inspire you to begin praying for your spouse and marriage every day. This world hates marriage, and so does our enemy, because he knows the power that your marriage is meant to have in this world. He knows that if you and your spouse are praying and chasing boldly after God together, that the impact Christ will have in and through you will be powerful. So we need to be praying more than ever before. |
| 0:38.0 | Our heart is to encourage you along with everyone who listens to this show to be praying for your |
| 0:41.1 | spouses and your marriages, to be strengthened, renewed, healed, prepared and empowered to do the |
| 0:46.4 | ministry that God has for you to do in this world together. So Jennifer and I would love to invite you |
| 0:51.0 | to join the thousands of other couples and taking our 31-day marriage prayer challenge. This is a completely free and fun way to build a habit of prayer in your |
| 0:59.4 | marriage. All you have to do to join is visit marriage prayerchallenge.com and fill out the registration form. |
| 1:05.2 | Once you do that, you will begin to receive an email every day from us during the 31 days |
| 1:09.2 | to not only remind you to pray for your |
| 1:11.2 | spouse, but we'll also give you various topics and prompts to help you know what to pray for. |
| 1:15.3 | We dare your marriage to start praying like never before. Start the challenge today at |
| 1:20.1 | marriage prayer challenge.com. We're looking for people who have been blessed by this free |
| 1:24.2 | podcast and our free daily marriage prayer emails and who want to help be a |
| 1:27.9 | blessing to others. Creating and hosting this podcast and sending out our daily emails do incur |
| 1:32.3 | financial cost, and we want to invite you to join our faithful patron team to help financially |
| 1:37.0 | support these resources so that they can remain free for all who need them. Please join our patron team |
| 1:42.4 | today and become one of the faithful financial supporters |
| 1:44.8 | who desires to help bless thousands of marriages around the world. Your support will help us pay for the |
| 1:49.1 | creation, hosting, and promotion of our podcast and daily emails. Thank you, and we hope to see you |
| 1:53.8 | become a marriage after God patron. Hey friends, Aaron Smith here just wanted to take a moment and share with you something really special. |
| 2:02.6 | You know, as parents, we're always looking for ways to encourage our kids' faith journey. |
| 2:06.6 | Recently, I picked up some amazing highlighters and Bible resources from Mr. Penn as a gift for my daughter. |
| 2:12.6 | She's been diving deeper into scripture and wanting to highlight her favorite verses and passages and wanting |
... |
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