Foster Care- A Story of Justice & Hope

    The foster care system in and of itself is a only needed because of the brokenness of our world. Having been involved in the world of fostering for the past 6 years has shown me more of the reality of just how broken it is. Don't misunderstand me, I know I don't have to look farther than my own heart to see this brokenness and I am understanding my need for Jesus the more life I live. However, we have entered into more messiness and seen some up close suffering as we have opened our hearts and home to loving some very venerable children and their families. Our most recent fostering experience was one that showed us both the justice and the hope that can come from a very broken situation. 

    Dan and I felt like we understood the goal of fostering pretty well prior to our last little foster being in our family. We know, agree, and believe whole heartedly that the goal of every foster situation is reunification between the foster child(ren) and their birth family. Often times, people don't fully understand this part of foster care. The foster care system has a purpose. The purpose is to bring children back together with their families. We also know that, unfortunately, this isn't always a possible or healthy outcome for every foster child and their family of origin. But when we agree to open our home to a new little one in foster care, our prayer is always for reunification with their family. 

    Some of you know many details about our past foster daughter being with us. And others may know very little, but I wanted to share it with all of you for several reasons. One reason is to thank those of you who walked closely with us through this journey. We couldn't have done it without our family, friends, and church who came alongside side us and truly lightened our load both in tangible, physical ways and in support through prayer and friendship. Another reason is to offer encouragement to those of you who find yourself in the current trenches of fostering or maybe just considering this ministry of foster care. However, the biggest reason that I would like to share our story is because God told me to. The day after our 8 year old foster left our home, I read the following scripture in Psalm 96: 

Sing a new song to the Lord!
    Let the whole earth sing to the Lord!
2 Sing to the Lord; praise his name.
    Each day proclaim the good news that he saves.
3 Publish his glorious deeds among the nations.
    Tell everyone about the amazing things he does.
4 Great is the Lord! He is most worthy of praise!

    If I'm being honest, I was feeling the demands of my job and life and didn't know if I had the time to really process and put into words what God had done in our lives and in the precious life of our little foster. But when God speaks to you directly like he did to me through His word, I knew I had to share out of obedience to Him, so here goes...

    We received a call about an 8 year old girl on Wednesday, April 28 from our placement agency, Miracle Hill. They told us the small amount of information they knew of her situation over the phone and we said we would pray for her and her family and call back with our answer as to if we could receive her into our care. Dan felt a little hesitant with some of the information that was shared with us. We were both concerned about the situation she was being removed from and knew our calling was to pray for reunification for her with her birth family. It was clear that it was a necessary removal on DSS part and we felt like it would be very difficult on our end to really want this little girl to be put back into the situation in the future. That evening, we were taking a class at our church with our community group. The class was on race and justice, not necessarily connected to fostering. The class was really incredible and we learned a lot (but that is a story for another day). However, during the class, a scripture was shared that I truly felt like God was speaking intentionally and specifically to me about this little girl and what our decision should be. We had been praying all day asking God to tell us if we were supposed to open our home to her. And just like our faithful God always does when we ask him for help- He answers. Here is the scripture:

    God presides over heaven's court;

        he pronounces judgment on the heavenly beings:

    "How long will you hand down unjust decisions by favoring the wicked?

    Give justice to the poor and the orphan;

     Uphold the rights of the oppressed and the destitute. 

    Rescue the poor and helpless.      Psalm 82: 1-4 NIV

    As soon as it was read, it took all I had to wait until the end of the class to tell Dan that I felt like God had given us an answer to our prayers. 

    We met our little 8 year old girl (I will call her E for the purpose of protecting her) the following day,  Thursday. April 29 to be exact. It wasn't exactly the day we would have chosen to add an addition to our family, but Dan and I have come to the realization that there will never be an ideal day or time to welcome a foster child. If we were to wait on a perfect day, we would likely never have the opportunity to foster. Most of the time, we just need to have an open heart and an open door in order to allow God to show up and allow Him to work. So, for us, this time, it meant that the 8 year old showed up an hour before we were hosting our son's soccer team for an end of the year soccer party with about 40 people in our home. This is how our first night began with her in our home, crazy and full! We all just smiled as she arrived and agreed that we were all in it together and so we all needed to just hold on tight and get going on our mission.

    Early on in having our newest family addition, we knew there were paternal grandparents who lived in Florida who had expressed a desire to take care E. We were thankful to know that there were options for our little girl to have for her future. We knew that DSS was also trying to help her mom and dad by giving them the support and education they needed in order to be able to properly take care of their daughter and be reunified. However, DSS was also considering her grandparents as caretakers as their home was checking out to be a safe and healthy option. There were many obstacles in place of this option such as a language barrier (E only speaks English and her grandparents only speak Spanish), a long distance between them and us, and the fact that our foster's daughters relationship with her grandparents had not been a priority and therefore they were not given many opportunities to grow their relationship prior to her being with us. 

      E was primarily with us for our summer break, so we mostly just had a lot of fun together. We went to the beach, lake, waterparks, and made lots of memories. We also began to have weekly video calls between E and her grandparents. These were mostly uncomfortable for E in the beginning as she didn't know how to communicate with them because of the language barrier. DSS provided a translator, but E was often frustrated and wanted to end the call. We encouraged her and over time the calls got easier and E began to enjoy the conversations more. She was able to see how much her grandparents loved her and were eager to see her and talk to her. 

    As time went on, it became more apparent that the best place for E was in Florida with her grandparents. DSS made the decision to move her on Monday, August 2. On that day, they gave us a two week notice to begin preparing E for her move and preparing all of us for our time with her to come to a close. Originally, DSS planned to fly E down to Miami to live with her grandparents. Dan and I didn't feel like this was the best way to transition E from our care to such a new and unfamiliar home for her. We realize that is often how foster children experience being placed in a foster home and these placements can often times be traumatic for a child. These transitions are not ideal, but necessary in order to get them into a safe home. But we felt like E's transition from our care to her grandparent's care shouldn't have to add more trauma to her life. 

    We asked DSS if we could propose an idea to them and E's grandparents. We asked if they would consider driving to Greenville from Miami and staying with us for a few days in order to make E's transition a better experience for her. After some consideration, they agreed and plans were made for them to make the trip up to spend the weekend with us in our home. As the weekend approached, we were all a little nervous, especially with the language barrier. They only speak Spanish and our family and E only speak English. What we didn't know prior to their arrival was just how beautiful our time with them would be, despite our different languages. We were soon to find out just how much we had in common and each of us able to experience more of God's kindness and love for us. 

    On Sunday morning of their weekend with us, we went to a Spanish service at one of our church's campuses. When we began singing during worship, them in Spanish and us in English, her grandparents started crying and her grandfather reached over and hugged us and started thanking us for taking care of E. It is difficult to put into words how incredible this was to experience. Worshipping God together brought us together like nothing else in this world could have done. We were truly unified in the name of Jesus. I couldn't quite grasp how BIG God's kindness and how generous He was being to us in this moment. I tried to soak in His power and goodness as much as I could. It was one of those times where I wanted to freeze time so I could truly remember how much God loves me. How much He longs to love us and give us good gifts. 

    We spent the rest of the time that weekend with them depending on the gracious help of translators, one from DSS and some from our friends who spoke both Spanish and English. We shared stories of E during her time with us and they shared stories about their home and culture with us. 

    Looking back, I can't imagine our lives without this little girl becoming a part of our family. And although she only spent 4 short months with us, it felt like in a way, we had known her for most of her life. We also felt like even though she was moving 10 hours away, she would always be a special part of our family. It also felt that our family grew that weekend as we added her grandparents and her 14 year old uncle to our family. It was especially amazing to look back at all the times that God had given us answers and direction on how this foster care story would go. He had written it already and allowed us to join in on His plans for E's life. We consider ourselves the recipients of God's favor and kindness just as much as E was. 

    In the beginning, we couldn't have foreseen a good outcome to E's situation when we first heard about it. However, this experience will forever mark us all as the time that God took a broken story and displayed His justice and hope for us all to witness. God is at work and longs to give justice and hope to all of us...both foster children and us. It is only our God who can orchestrate such a beautiful outcome.  

PS- A quick update on E- we talk to her weekly via Facetime and she is adjusting well. She has started school and slowly learning some Spanish, with the help of Google Translate! We miss her dearly but know our presence in her life was purposeful. We are grateful to have been given the opportunity to be a part of her life.

Ashes into Beauty

April 24, 2015. 6 years ago today. I have retold the events of this day many times and those who know me have heard this story over and over for six years. But I will never tire of sharing it and am hopeful others don’t get tired of hearing it. There are many reasons I love to tell it, but mostly, I tell it because it helps me remember God’s faithfulness. 

Last night at the dinner table, I asked everyone the question, “Do you know what tomorrow is?” After several incorrect guesses, I revealed it. 

Six years ago, we drove to a Cracker Barrel on 1-85 and met our two boys for the very first time. As I was telling the story again last night, the boys were half way listening, as they’ve heard the story countless times by now, when Chris said, “It seems like it’s been longer than six years.” After I explained that it indeed was six years, I told him that our memories are funny that way because we often think of significant events from our lives as being a “long time ago” or “just yesterday”. Although we have lived a lot of life over the past six years, for me, it feels more along the lines of "just yesterday" as I can clearly remember parts of that day like it was only yesterday.

As we drove into the parking lot of Cracker Barrel that day, Dan and I were just as scared as our boys were. We were all entering into new territory and our circumstances felt out of our control. Looking back, I now believe that we needed them that day as much as they needed us.

The drive home that first night consisted of questions like, “Are you hungry?” and “What is your favorite food?” and “Do you like pizza?”. We still laugh at Jacob’s response to the last question. His seven year old self answered, “I can tear up some pizza” We all laughed and found some common ground that night. We all loved pizza and we’ve eaten our share of pizza over the past six years. 

As I mentioned earlier, we were all living in an area that felt out of control for us. Our boys were entering into the foster care system because they needed someone to care for them. They were fearful as they didn't know what the future held for them. Similarly, Dan and I were fearful and didn't know what the future held for us as well. Dan and I had found ourselves right in the middle of a season of infertility. We were asking, and even begging, God to give us what we wanted, which was a baby. Instead, we entered into a season of confusion, brokenness, and mourning as we weren’t able to get pregnant. What God did give us was exactly what we needed, which was an increased faith. We were able to trust God to give us not what we wanted or thought we needed, but what He knew we needed. What we needed was an opportunity to trust God. And we found that opportunity when we started to foster our two boys. 

After dinner last night, I was thinking back on the past six years, God reminded me of this promise in His word to us from Isaiah. 

He will give a crown of beauty for ashes,

a joyous blessing instead of mourning,

    festive praise instead of despair.

In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks

    that the Lord has planted for his own glory.

Isaiah 61:3

In a way, we were all bringing ashes to that parking lot that night we first met. And now, it is a miracle that God has brought beauty out of our ashes. For all of us. Although we all had found ourselves in a place of brokenness and sorrow that day, God has been faithful to us. He calls us onward and forward. He doesn’t want us to stay stuck in our hard places. He wants us to call on Him and trust him to take care of us, in spite of the hard places we find ourselves in. This is what He wants for us, to recognize our need for Him to do what only He can do for us, give beauty for our ashes.

So, whatever hard place you find yourself in today, I challenge you to draw near to your creator and ask God to show you His great love and kindness to you, even right in the midst of your hard place. He longs to show you his goodness and faithfulness and wants us to come close to him and ask for His presence. He wants to enter into our ashes and transform them into crowns of beauty. While we don't ignore the brokenness that we've experienced, we believe that God has been faithful to help us heal and see how He has given us an opportunity to praise Him and how our lives are ultimately meant for His Glory. Yes, even the hard parts. Especially the hard parts. All parts of our lives were created for Him and His glory.

So, thanks for reading and in a way, sharing in our 6 anniversary of seeing our ashes turn to beauty. I hope each of us will pause and look back at God's faithfulness to us. It's a beautiful reminder when we do, and it also helps us to move forward believing that He is able to continue to be faithful in whatever our current circumstances are.

PS- The first picture is one of the first pictures we have of our boys. It was taken after their first shower. The second picture is our most recent picture with the boys from Easter this year, 2021. I love both of these for different reasons. Mostly, they are sweet reminders of God's faithfulness and love for me.

PSS- Also, if you feel led, pray for our family as we are entering into a new season of opening our home again to some little fosters. Stay tuned for updates!