HUMAN THREAD PROJECT

May 18, 2026
By Taylor Whitley

Jordan has lived through life… and loss… a journey that has led her to where she is now.

As the Executive Director of Faith Alive Ministries, Jordan never thought her life would look like it does now. Serving widows and orphans in Stanly County, NC and around the world. If you would have talked to her when she was living through her year of loss, you’d see a woman trying to muster the broken pieces of her life so that someone could put her life back together. To talk to her now would be to talk to one of the most influential and impactful women in her community yet growing in her international impact.

Jordan was a nurse, married, with two beautiful little girls when the year of loss came upon her life.

On December 25, 2016, Jordan’s grandfather passed away, Clarence, leaving behind his wife, Doris.  Jordan was close to her grandfather and spent time there growing up as a child, but the family was anticipating the moment, because it was expected. Although she experienced the loss of a grandfather, Jordan said, “I remember it was a little bit easier to stomach the loss, because a couple weeks prior to my grandfather passing away, I found out I was pregnant.” Jordan and her husband at the time were excited to be expecting their third child. Although it was a hard Christmas, it was also an exciting Christmas for their household and family, because they were also celebrating new life.

However, six weeks later, things took a hard turn for their life as the year of loss continued to spread.

Jordan went for a routine ultrasound at her OBGYN when things started to take a turn. The ultrasound technician said that she needed to get the doctor, and Jordan, knew that something was different. The doctor gave the chilling report that the baby’s heart wasn’t beating, and it looked like it had stopped growing around week thirteen. Jordan was offered a pill to help her miscarry, but she said she refused that, because she was believing in God for a miracle.

This was a defining crossroads for Jordan and her husband at the time. Although he had the belief of God, he’d also struggled with his faith. However, Jordan was raised in church, taught the scriptures, and had a relationship with Jesus. Although the devastating news was the same, what it drove them both to was vastly different. Jordan said she just knew that God was going to heal the baby and that she was going to witness a miracle. She said that Faith was always a source of contention in their marriage, but she just knew this was going to be a stark moment of God’s miraculous provision for her, her husband, and their marriage.

However, things in life don’t necessarily end up how you hoped…

Calling on all the prayer warriors of the church, Jordan said she went back a week later expecting good news – that God had healed her baby. However, no heartbeat. They went back again, no heartbeat. This went on for four weeks, to no avail. Even the doctors suggested she have a DNC, because the risk of carrying around dead tissue and the potential concerns for any future pregnancies. Jordan was heartbroken, but knew it had to be done. She said the morning of her procedure, she asked the medical staff to do one more ultrasound, hoping, praying for something, any semblance of life.

“I was just holding onto faith that God would still move and there would be a miracle.”

Imagine the hardship, the pressure, the warring in her mind as Jordan is taken back for the procedure. She describes that DNC as the hardest moment of loss she’d been through. However, this wasn’t just a loss for Jordan, but for her husband as well. She said he saw her faith and knew that if anyone deserved to see a miracle in that moment it was her. That’s simply not the case this time.

“I really clung to my faith, just because it’s all I had.” Jordan said as she describes the moment of pain through seasoned life experience. She said she found herself poring through scripture and clinging to the Body of Christ, but for her husband at the time, it had the opposite effect. Jordan said the two of them started to drift apart.

Jordan said that about six months later, her husband told her that he no longer wanted to be together and that he was leaving. Jordan recounts the losses of her grandfather, a baby, and now a marriage, but if that wasn’t enough, the year of loss extracted one final blow… She lost her grandmother six days after the message from her husband at the time.

“God, am I like Job?”

Jordan

Jordan asked. She said she didn’t know how much more she could have lost during that season.

By this point, Jordan had lost her grandfather, a baby, her marriage, and then her grandmother within the span of a year. However, she said, with confidence in her eyes that only moments like this can bring… “That was the defining moment in my faith.” Before this moment she had grown up in the church, experienced God, and had never strayed from her faith, but in this year of loss, Jordan describes her walk with God as one that was so very near to the One she needed so dearly.

The most broken, the most desperate moments, she said drove her to truly understanding her need for Him. The foundation her parents gave her sustained her through the highs and lows of all that came next.

Most people would have thrown in the towel at this point, but Jordan saw this as an opportunity to grow her family through other means. She chose to foster two little girls as a single parent. She said they remained a part of her life, although she didn’t adopt them. Divorce led to dating, which led to ultimately telling God, she was ok being on her own.

August 15th, 2019, enter Taylor.

Jordan and Taylor immediately fell in love. Their hearts for Jesus and following Him, and their similar pasts seemed to have built them into exactly what the other needed. From meeting each other in August of 2019, to getting married in February of 2020, to trusting in the Lord and following Him wherever He would lead… They would tell you that Life’s an Adventure… You might as well enjoy it. Oh, did I mention they had two more children?

The year 2020 didn’t only bring joy and goodness to the newlyweds, however, it also brought new grief. Jordan’s mother, Myra Ledbetter, passed away in September. Jordan and her mother were very close, and she was the reason she chose to be a nurse. It’s easy to see and understand that after her passing, Jordan felt as though that season of her life was closing. However, they had no idea what to expect for their future.

As the two of them were praying over direction for their family, Jordan posed such a difficult question to Taylor. She asked, “What are we doing in our lives right now that truly takes faith?” The two of them were working steady jobs, making good money – her as a nurse, him as a sergeant in a police department… Everything they were doing in life was being done within their capability… Within their own power and strength.

Through many conversations and a lot of prayer, they were trying to decide if Jordan should step away from working. However, turns out, during that same week, Jordan’s job was making transitions and asked for anyone that would like to step away to do so and they would be compensated with a severance package. This was an answer to their prayer! Although it was difficult, they decided that Jordan would step away and stay at home with Mira, their newborn girl.

At this same time, Taylor had met a man on the other side of the world and the two of them had started supporting the children that he took care of in his church. Stepping away from her work meant the two of them could no longer send monthly support, and they felt they were supposed to continue this effort that God had given them. Jordan and Taylor realized they would be limited by their own giving and started enlisting the financial help of families and friends.

The two decided to start a non-profit organization that would sponsor children from this ministry in South Asia, to families here in the States. Jordan said it was a random day of the week that she was reading the book of James in the Bible when she read, Faith Alive, and thought that Faith Alive Ministries (FAM for short) would be the name of the new ministry. They started Faith Alive Ministries to target Widows and orphans like it also says in the book of James. FAM was born as a volunteer ministry and Jordan had the time and capacity to lead, and since Taylor was still working at the Police Department, they knew it was best for her to step into this role. Faith Alive Ministries will celebrate its fifth year on August 21, 2026. Jordan says that God took two nobodies from nowhere, NC and allowed them to do some amazing things, not only internationally, but locally as well.

“When have I not seen God move?”

Faith Alive Ministries has been given such wonderful impact across the globe, internationally and locally.

When Jordan and Taylor first met the Pastor in South Asia, the children were sleeping on the hard floor of a church building. Since they began partnering with the Pastor, FAM has built and furnished two orphanages, a church, a buffalo shed, and a stage for large scale outreach, and they are currently building another desperately needed girls home due to the massive growth and need.

In 2025, Faith Alive Ministries began partnering with a children’s home in Kenya where a widow was raising 20+ children on her own. Jordan and Taylor visited the village 2 hours from Nairobi in 2024, but since that visit, Bishop Catherine’s husband, Bishop Stephen Kamau passed away, leaving her behind to tend to the needs of 20+ children. Since FAM exists to serve widows and orphans, it was such God’s timing that they would get involved at such a perfect moment. Now, because of our partnership, we have built one boys’ home and are currently building a second home to house more children in an area that desperately needs it. Faith Alive Ministries has impacted thousands of people’s lives, giving the gift of Jesus through food, education, and hope.

“The stuff that God is letting us do is incredible.”

As a little girl, Jordan wanted to be a missionary. She said she even started going to school to become a missionary but ended up allowing others to talk her away from doing it, because “it wasn’t a real job.” She said that the things FAM is doing now is such an answer to prayer.

“God is letting me travel the world and share the Gospel and His Love with people.”

Locally, Faith Alive Ministries has had tremendous impact on widows in Stanly County and surrounding areas. They built a community of widows who share life together, help each other grieve, and maintain that community through monthly gatherings. These widows, called the Women of Purpose, have been recipients of special community projects from local youth groups, men’s groups, and other local churches as they have stepped up to love the widows in our community.

FAM also has been given such impact within the Foster Care system. North Carolina doesn’t have “orphanages” in the traditional sense of the word, but there are still many children in dire need of a care who may not have parents. FAM is seeing great strides in Stanly County’s adoptive, foster, and kinship families, due to the heart to see orphans taken care of as it states in James 1:27. FAM has increased the foster families in Stanly County in one year by 33%.

Jordan went on to say that we were even sitting in an answer to prayer. She said the Dream House was prayed for and sought after because of the need to help provide a space for those children in transition. “We found out that there were children sleeping in DSS. This is unacceptable, we should be outraged and we should do something about it.”

In September 2025, Faith Alive Ministries closed on the Dream House. This house is their base of operations, true, but it also provides DSS a space to give a child a bed, shower, bathroom, and living space when they’ve been displaced or removed from their home. The Dream House is open four days a week but is open 24/7 to DSS to use the space for children that need it.

Jordan said that in five years God has done so much, but their life is so different now. They gave up much but gained so much more. She said although this life has come with its own set of challenges, she doesn’t regret it all. God’s been faithful and has overwhelmed them with so many things.

In a life marked by deep loss and overwhelming favor, Jordan says she’s learned one thing above all else:

“Just trust God.”

---

Check out more about Faith Alive Ministries and what Jordan and the FAM are doing at https://jointhefam.org.