Why do we do it?

– Because we can: we are willing, able, have the extra room in our house, and have enough finances to do so
– Because we are passionate about children
– Because God has a heart for the orphans (we stretch the definition a little bit to “those without parents willing or able to take care of them) and we feel called to help more locally than internationally.

What do we do?

We are required to take continuing ed classes to maintain our license. I feel like every parent out there should have to take a few of the classes we have taken, but we don’t always agree with all of the classes. Many are based on science or psychology and our child rearing philosophy is biblically based. We treat our foster children the same way we treat our children. In our experience, the majority of the children are not the horror stories you hear about on the news, but just normal kids who happen to have parents who have made a few (or a lot) of mistakes. They just want to be loved and taken care of. We have been very surprised by how quickly some of them will call us mom or dad. To them, it is just a word for “the person in charge” instead of “the person who is my keeper, protector, provider”. They are all very attention starved and need just as many hugs and kisses and people who will play a game of Uno with them as any other kid out there.

How’s it going?

We have had four full time placements; a 3 1/2 year old for about 6 months, and a 4 year old for 3 months, and a sibling set of girls 5 and 6 for 9 months.

Our first placement ended up moving into kinship care with her biological brother and her bio mom eventually cleaned up her act, got a job and an apartment, and got her back. I consider this a success! Our second one went to live with his grandparents. 🙂 The sibling set of girls went back with mom and we are still in touch with them. Continuing to pray for a ‘happy ending’.

We have also done numerous “respite” placements. These are short term care for when a current foster family needs a break or would like to go on a vacation where the current foster children are not allowed to go (sometimes out of town isn’t allowed, usually out of state isn’t allowed, and definitely not out of the country). Since we have been licensed, we have had many children come through our house. We usually don’t see them again, but sometimes we will do a second respite. A few of these we have heard how their cases ended up and a few of them we know were adopted by their foster families.

Our Philosophy

I tried to write this up for a friend of mine who asked us about foster care:

“Nate and I have an entirely different view on foster care from most people. We look at it as a ministry to everyone involved instead of just the kid. I think a lot of people look at is as what they can get from it (a new child, love, money, . . . ), but we want to serve in whatever ways we can. And in most cases, we hope that will not be adoption. The point of foster care is to give the parent(s) a chance to look at what they are doing and try to turn their life around. Yes, I know that the ‘system’ has not been very successful at this goal (it has been for a small number of cases), but we want to help change that. If all foster parents adopted, there would be no one left to care for the children who are not adoptable. Besides, what greater gift could you give to someone, who in my opinion has reached the bottom by having someone else tell them they are not fit to be parents, than to show them grace. Give them a second chance. If this could happen more often, we’d have less kids in the system and still have foster families for when we really needed them.

When I think of it this way, I feel I can love the child from day 1, knowing and praying that they will get to go home, to the parent who just doesn’t realize what they are missing out on or to a family member who can take care of them. And when they get given back, I will believe that it was God’s plan and even if I had more money or a bigger house, that child is with the parent they were intended to be with, and more than one life just might be restored.”

Foster Care Blog Posts

We can’t share a ton of stuff online, so we usually send emails. But for generic stuff, you can read a selection of blog post regarding things going on with us and Foster Care on our blog under the “Foster Care” category.