UNWANTED: The Quincy Haynes Story

It's another school morning. Nine-year-old Quincy opens his eyes. The first thing he feels isn't excitement for the day ahead.

It's fear.

"I was terrified every day," Quincy says. "Nothing I did was ever right." He doesn't have a bed. He sleeps curled up in the bathtub. In a few minutes, he'll pull on the few clothes he owns before zipping a bulky winter coat all the way to his neck, no matter the weather.  "I wore that coat every day," he says. "I zipped it up to hide the scars because I was embarrassed."

His mother beat him relentlessly. Never the children she had with his stepfather.

Only Quincy.

Growing up, Quincy knew one painful truth. He wasn't wanted. The violence reached its peak when his mother used the drawstring from a hoodie to strangle him until he lost consciousness. When he came to, she was pointing a handgun at his head, threatening to pull the trigger. The whole thing was recorded on a cell phone by a friend visiting the house. His mother was arrested and soon after, Quincy entered foster care. "I was excited," he says. "Finally, the beatings were over."

The next five years were anything but easy. Quincy bounced through several foster homes and attended six different high schools. “If anything ever became uncomfortable, I would just call my case worker and leave.” It was how he protected himself. After a lifetime of being hurt, Quincy learned that leaving felt safer than staying. The trauma he carried often looked like anger, and people were quick to label him "the bad kid." Few bothered to ask why. 

At 17, he walked into the Haynes home through AGAPE—and began learning what it meant to stay.

 "They sat me down and told me exactly what was expected of me," he says. "They listened. They tried to understand my perspective." There was structure. There was accountability. And there was something else: Church every Wednesday and Sunday. “I probably went to church five times in my life before that," Quincy says. "But God had a plan the whole time. Truly." For the first time, Quincy was home. "They weren't just Clint and Lacie," he says. "They were my parents."

Then something extraordinary happened. At 18, Quincy was adopted.

A high school diploma. A college degree. And, at long last, a family. Today, he proudly wears the name Haynes—literally. It's tattooed on his arm, a permanent reminder that he finally belongs. "I adore my little brother and sister," he says. "That's my family. I feel so loved every time I come home." Now 24, Quincy dreams of becoming the kind of father he never had. He wants to break generations of abuse and build a legacy defined by love instead of fear. He has even found room to forgive. "What happened to me is part of me," he says. "But it isn't who I am." The little boy who woke up every morning terrified and unwanted, now smiles easily and says three words that once seemed impossible:

 “I made it.”

Tags: adoption, foster care