Meet Trey Caster: Sacred Selections’ New Executive Director

Hello, my name is Trey Caster, and I am the new Executive Director for Sacred Selections. My wife Ali and I have been married for 14 amazing years and have been blessed with 4 children: Tessa, Crew, Holly, and Will. Ali and I met at FC Arkansas camp in Searcy, AR and became the best of friends. We ended up dating after graduating from high school and were married after my junior year of college. We lived on love that first year with both of us still in school but wouldn’t change it for anything!

Shortly after I graduated college, we had Tessa and 16 months after that, Crew. Needless to say, we waited a little while longer to have Holly. After she was born we thought our family was complete, but a year later we wanted another child. We mentioned to my mom that we were looking at adoption and she suggested we look into Sacred Selections for funding. In 2015 Ali contacted Dana and our adoption journey officially kicked off. We started compiling all our information for the Sacred Selections grant and got our home study completed in 2016. We got the call in 2016! After 6 long weeks, Ali and Will came home just in time for Thanksgiving. We finalized our adoption in May of 2017 and couldn’t be happier to be a family of six.

Sacred Selections gave us an opportunity to grow our family through adoption and we still try and pay them back for that gift today. In 2016 we attended the Sacred Selections Memphis fundraiser dinner and auction and took the opportunity to get ideas on running our own event. We started the Sacred Selections Arkansas chapter that same year to help raise funds for our adoption. Our inaugural event was a fish fry dinner and auction and, with a lot of help from our family and friends, was very successful.

Now, we now help with two events each year to help raise funds for other families wanting to adopt. We held an event in Arkansas, annually, until we moved to Missouri at the end of 2019. With covid causing issues with large gatherings in 2020, we decided to split our base and have one event in Arkansas and one event in Oklahoma. This helped reduce traveling and allow more people to be involved with each event. We were able to turn covid into an opportunity and have been able to reach more people because of it.

The 6-week waiting period to bring Will home was also an opportunity that we didn’t see until much later. At the time, we didn’t know what to do. There was no end in sight as we kept waiting and waiting to get the thumbs up to go home. I had been back at work after taking the first 2 weeks off to be with Ali and Will. We had to have a lot of help at home with the 3 kids and getting Tessa to and from school, so my aunt Cindy and Ali’s mom came. Ali was able to stay with her grandparents after Will was born and that was a blessing to have family there. The church in Arizona was amazing and supportive as well, but the wait was really wearing on us.

As the weeks ticked by, I started to looking into taking a leave of absence from work to be home to take care of our kids. Thanksgiving was coming up and we wanted to be together, so my parents volunteered to drive the kids to Arizona and I would join them after my work week. None of it was ideal, but we were desperate to finally be together as a family. The very next day, Ali was given clearance to leave the state and go home. We were elated and couldn’t wait to be back together as a family again!

While it took some time before we could reflect on those weeks apart, when we did it opened our eyes to how God’s way is always better. Will needed that time with his mom, and Ali needed that one-on-one time with Will so they could establish a connection as mother and son. He provided an answer when we needed it most and knew what our entire family needed.

No matter where we have lived or worshipped, when people learn about our adoption they are supportive, kind, and loving to our family. We love to spend time together as a family and attend each other’s concerts, games, plays, and school activities. We are active in the local schools as Ali is the homeroom mom for (3) classrooms, as well as a substitute teacher at the elementary school. I serve as a deacon at the Republic church of Christ where both Ali and I are Bible class teachers. We love the community where we live, and our church family is loving and supportive.

I have been in manufacturing as an engineer for over 13 years and was very happy with where my career was earlier this year. My wife told me about this opportunity to work for Sacred Selections in December of 2022 and I immediately wanted to apply and put my name forward for the position. We love the Sacred Selections organization, and I couldn’t think of a better job than to help families in the church adopt these children and bring them into their homes.

The application process was extremely difficult and took me 4 months to complete, but I really wanted to be considered for the position. Within the application process, both Ali and I started to question if we really wanted to go through with it. The application questions were very difficult and the realization that things in our lives could change dramatically really hit us. We decided that I would put my full effort and attention into the application and let God take care of the rest. It turned out that it was nerves trying to get the better of us and as time went on, we realized that this job was calling us to something much more important than ourselves. We truly believe that God led us to this opportunity, and we were going to do everything in our power to make the most of it.

Adoption was a wonderful way for us to grow our family and love for one another. Sacred Selections has made all this possible for me and my family and I couldn’t be prouder to serve as the new Executive Director for such an exceptional organization. There are so many families that have relied on Sacred Selection to help fund their adoptions and I want to make sure my kids, and their kids, can utilize Sacred Selections to grow their families.

David and Dana saw a need and an opportunity for Christians all over the world to bring children into their families and raise them up in the “nurture and admonition of the Lord”. God commanded us to care for the fatherless and Sacred Selections provides a way for all Christians to do just that. The board has provided a fantastic team for me to work with each day and I know we will be successful in reaching our goals each year of providing Christian homes to the fatherless.