The Blog // ONE HEART Family Ministries

Foster Care & Adoption are interesting scenarios — especially in the world we live today.  We generally like to know what to expect, when to expect it and then of course any other details we can gather.  We are not typically fans of the unknown.  Sure we like to go on vacation and ‘see new things’ or go have an ‘adventure’ — but those are short lived ‘unknowns’, we settle back into the ‘normal’ when we’re ready.  Major life shifts, like having a baby or getting married are permanent changes, you cannot click the undo button (without more major permanent change).  In most scenarios however, we have time to prepare, process & ready ourselves for those permanent changes like having a baby or getting married — they are rarely immediate.  We have time to ‘expect’ the coming changes.

Foster Care is a very different scenario — not better or worse — just different.  We had dinner last week with a lovely family of 8 who was also in our Foster Class (long story, but they are Mom & Dad pros!).  In our conversation with them we were struck with a beautiful thought I have been mulling on for nearly a week — that we (Clara & I) are indeed ‘expecting’.  It’s an exciting thought — but one that usually is not associated with Foster Care.  That said, we were talking about how excited we were, how we know nothing about the kids (ages, numbers, gender, anything) who will be coming to our home soon — and how exciting that is!  It is of course the exciting/anxious/nervous/thrilled feeling… you know what I mean.  The indescribable emotion of anticipation in the total unknown!  We had not thought about it like that prior to last week, but we are expecting — and it looks totally different than the normal ‘pre-kid’ expecting.

Now we don’t have children yet, we have not tried to have children by birth yet — so my knowledge is limited to watching family and friends go through the 9 months of anticipation for their newborn baby — which is beautiful!  It’s a joy to watch them get excited, shop for baby stuff, be blessed by family and friends with support and prayer, and wait with eager expectation.  Of course there are some unknowns, and a variety of things can happen unexpectedly — but by and large we know what is to be expected at the end of a generally consistent amount of time.  A beautiful baby!

We are expecting, but don’t have much of a time frame, knowledge of how many kids, their ages, their health, their background, etc.  It’s all up in the air.  And it’s been really good (something I can certainly attribute to a great deal of prayer from friends and family).  It’s been really good because it’s caused us to lean into Trust — trusting God that He called us to this, and He is preparing us.  It’s helped us to surrender and not hold onto trying to ‘figure everything out’.  We can’t!  We can only wait in eager expectation.

Whether it’s a direct result of that trust or not, I have slowly and steadily seen my wife flourish and grow.  She is becoming a Mom, even though we have no idea what to expect.  Watching her enthusiasm for decorating the ‘kid bedroom’, shopping for bunk beds, mattresses, bedding — sorting through toys and stuffed animals given by friends — is amazing.  The transformation, in a relatively short amount of time is so beautiful.  She is quickly growing into a Mother — one who eagerly is expecting a child (or children) in her home.  I have even seen my priorities shift dramatically — when in the position to spend money on a new ‘toy’, I quickly realized it was time to set that phase aside and choose to make a ‘Dad’ decision — and say no to the purchase that is non-essential, because the kids we are expecting are so much more important.  In some ways slowly, and in other ways quickly — Clara & myself are being given the mind and heart of parents.

So in all of that — we have grown to be very ‘content/anxious’ with our period of ‘expectation’, which thank God, because it’s an expectation that may not have a sense of finality.  And depending on whether kids come and go or stay, we could be in a period of expectation for a long season.  I suspect God will teach us more than we can fathom through it all.

So we are overdue for a Foster Care Training update!

So last night was our 3rd week of STARS Class (Foster Care Class), and this was probably the heaviest week of material thus far.  Everyone ‘knows’ or has ‘heard’ about abuse, whether they have experienced it or not.  Most everyone says it’s horrific or unbelievable, but emotionally we are rarely engaged — perhaps more sympathetic than empathetic.

So the backstory — every week we watch some videos portraying situations and scenarios with Foster Kids, their birth families and their foster families.  They are pretty enlightening videos because we can conceptually ‘know’ the hardships, but seeing them portrayed on screen completely engages your mind to process and ’empathize’ with the situations.  This weeks video was predominately about abuse — verbal abuse, physical abuse and sexual abuse.  It hit both of us hard, we ‘knew’ those awful abusive things happened to kids, often being the very reasons they are removed from their homes, but we just knew it as a concept.  Seeing it portrayed was truly horrifying — to ‘experience’ the things that innocent children are subjected to is overwhelming — very emotional.  It wasn’t easy, but I am thankful we had an evening on that topic, because it is prevalent.  And ‘knowing’ is completely different than ‘seeing’ the realities played out before you.  For me, it helped me understand the shift from sympathizing to empathizing — and I hope that we will continue to grow in that understanding.

In all of that however, it reminds us exactly why we are doing this.  It’s easy to forget, or quickly & quietly slip back into the ‘fear’ or desire for comfort, but there are kids who need a safe home.  Maybe they need a safe home for a season so their parents can get life back in order, or maybe they need a safe home forever.  Regardless, we believe we are called to “stand in the gap” and help however we can, however God leads us.  It will not always be easy, there will be good days and bad days.  But God has called us to this, and He will be faithful to guide us on those awful days as well as the good days.  No doubt this process will grow our faith tremendously, when we know we are completely unprepared, ill-equipped and inpatient humans!

As hard as last night was, we are still excited.  This journey has been fun so far, we have met some really amazing couples in our classes at OneHeart.  There are 8 couples in our class and a couple Singles, all have unique stories and all are compassionate folks.  One family in particular has 6 kids they have adopted, and they are renewing their license to open their home again!  It’s a blessing and encouragement to have a great class & the excellent trainers we do.  We definitely have a lot to be thankful for.

Not to mention, we have had SO much encouragement from our friends and family — THANK YOU!  We actually are going to be blessed with some bunk beds from Mama & Papa Madden (Clara’s Mom & Dad), even better they are bunk beds that convert to twin beds, so we can do either if needed.  That alone is a HUGE load off.  We still need to do some prepping for the bedroom we are converting.  Clara has some really neat plans to make it very homey and welcoming, so when kids come into our care and are struggling through a lot, at least they have a safe, comfy and cozy room to make their own.

We do still need to work on a few things — the baby gate for the basement stairs, fire extinguisher, replace the cracked shower in the bathroom with a new tub, get some ‘kid’ stuff to decorate the room with, and I am sure there are other things Clara can remind me of 🙂 but regardless, it’s all fun to tackle!

Thanks for your prayer, encouragement and asking questions!

 

So we had our first home study last night.  We were pretty nervous but our Social Worker is amazing!  She was helpful, very encouraging and excited for us — which was definitely an affirming step in this Foster/Adoption process.  Even more encouraging, she’ll be with us as long as we’re licensed as Foster Parents — big relief.

We are SURE that we’ve only learned less than 1% of everything we need to know, but we are excited.  We also learned that once some basics are done, fingerprinting, background checks, etc., we can be signed up to provide respite care!  Respite Care is temporary care for Foster Families.  For example, say a Foster Couple needs a break for a weekend just to get away, we could step in and provide care for the weekend, Respite Care.  We didn’t know this was an option for us so quickly — needless to say, we were thrilled!

Along with some paperwork last night, and a walk-through of our home we also got confirmation of some things we need to do at home to be ‘ready’.

1. Fire Extinguisher (at least 5lbs) — clearly we needed this before… haha.
2. Baby Gate for the Basement Stairs since they’re open to the kitchen, might be something I make, we shall see if there are rules about that…
3. Carbon Monoxide Detector — for some weird reason ours is in the basement, but we need one in the kitchen!
4. Bunk Beds — we have full-sized beds in both spare bedrooms, but converting one bedroom to a more kid-friendly space would be great, not only for welcoming the kids, but for practicality as well.  So I am on the hunt for a good deal.  I could probably build them, but my mother advised against it — haha!  In addition we’ll need to get bedding and mattresses.  Probably need to get some stuffed animals as well… ALL bedrooms need them obviously — even if Clara objects to Black Bear (who resides on our bed… when it’s made 😉)
5. Finish some more paperwork, including Safety/Escape Plans, emergency phone numbers posted, etc.

We have a lot of other tasks we want to tackle too, like cleaning out all the junk in the basement storage rooms, getting some kid stuff at garage sales, etc.  But those are fun and not super urgent.  But we are excited — last night was a great meeting and helped confirm we are on the right path.

Thanks for all the prayers!  We know hard times will come, but so far this process has already been a blessing — and we thank God for that.

If you have advice or questions, NEVER be afraid to let us know 😊 Like Clara had said before, we didn’t realize how excited our family & friends would be — and it because obvious that we needed to keep everyone updated!