Back on the List

Time to get back to work.

Our last placement went to live with his Grandparents in June. We haven’t had much contact with them since he moved and knew that his hearing was supposed to be in August so don’t know how things worked out. We had a month long respite for a baby in July and since then we’ve been on the respite list. We’ve only had one set of kids as emergency placements (we picked them up at 10:30 PM and they were placed with a family the next day).

Since our last placement we’ve had a lot of requests come up for our extra room; visits from family, we let our neighbors borrow our bed, and we had a couple friends that we’ve offered the room to for short term needs. Each time, it was a difficult decision process that we entered into which usually boiled down to, “If we offer the room to someone else, we can’t do foster care during that time.” We’ve always chosen the immediate need over the chance that we might have a placement, but it just seems like we’ve been under attack in our resolve to do this ministry.

We’re getting our bed back this week and we’re going back on the list for a placement on Monday. It’s always surprising to me the emotions that I cycle through when I’m preparing for the kids.
– A bit of fear for the unknown which is conquered by my conviction that we’re doing what we’ve been called to do.
– A bit of guilt that by bringing another child into our home, we are taking some of our attention away from our bio-children. Now that we’ve had a few experiences to look back on, I can say that so far the extra child in our home has been beneficial to our children in different ways that I couldn’t have forseen, and I’m glad it worked out. Our kids haven’t complained about other kids in the house (they are a little young to vocalize that yet) and always seem to enjoy having more playmates.
– A bit of oh my gosh, I’m not ready, I have to clean the room, and make sure I have clothes, and toothbrushes, and . . . just a little bit of my normal craziness. Wanting to have everything we might need just in case so that we can be sure to help them feel safe and taken care of while they are with us. I don’t know why I feel the need to have it all before I even know what the kid is like, especially since its so easy to make a Wal-Mart run when we need to.
– A lot of mental preparation. It’s a major struggle to not judge during this process; the parents, the system, the case manager, the people who see us at the grocery store. So much going on and so many times it seems like things would have been so different if someone would just make a “better” choice in my mind. I have to focus on us doing what we can while we have them and leave the rest to God. It’s also difficult in the waiting time (surprised? I’m not really Mrs. Patience). I just want to get the kid on the first day we’re on the list and not have to wait, get called, maybe get picked, get called again, turn them down for whatever reason (which makes me feel guilty), get called again and finally get a placement.

So, sometime in the near future we should have a 4-10 year old boy or girl who will be going through a major upheaval of the life they have been living. We pray that we can be a safe haven for them as long as the state deems that they need us to.