I shared with you in my Christmas newsletter that we were praying about foster care. We definitely feel it is God's will for us to open our home to children in the foster care system and we are currently in the process of getting licensed. Last November, God just really started laying this on my heart strongly. In our family prayer times, we had been praying for a way to serve others as a family. It can be hard to find ways that you can serve that include small children and some places won't even let you bring kids due to liability concerns. So John and I had been a little frustrated that we hadn't found anything constant. There were little things here and there. But we want to put action to what we say we believe. We want to serve and to love and to share the gospel....and we want to do it in front of our children so they can learn to do the same. We want to train them by example and not just in words and memory verses.
Now, if you have been my follower for awhile, you will know that this blog actually started out as an adoption blog. When we were going through the process that lead to Hannah's adoption, there were so many people who wanted to be keep abreast of all that was going on. So I started this blog for the purpose of keeping everyone up to date. I had a different mentality back then. I have always been a supporter of adoption. I have several adopted family members and have always had a heart for children. I remember always wanting to run and get the babies that were featured on the news as having been abused or left out in a dumpster and take them home with me. But that was about adoption. I was not open to foster care. I said that I would adopt as many as God wanted me to, but I would not foster. Do not give me a child and let me get attached and then take that child away from me. I'm not willing to do that. John was not of the same mindset. He's always thought getting involved in foster care would be a great thing, but I didn't want to do it...until the day that the Lord changed my heart. He reminded me that the four children I have now are not my own. They are his and I have even given each of them back to him in baby dedications at church. They belong to Him. And he can use them as He sees fit. He can even call them home at any time. It is not guaranteed that I get to keep these children. Of course, I pray nothing bad ever happens to them, but that just isn't promised to me. God told me that I had to love Him more than them. I had to be willing to pour myself out for them for His sake and love them, not knowing how long I will have them with me. Then he told me that it was like heavenly foster care. I was just caring for them temporarily, but they were really his children, not mine. He showed me that earthly foster care was the same way. I need to be willing to pour myself out and love the children he wants us to love and then be willing to let them go. He was showing me that He did want us to foster----and that we had already been doing it for years, with 4 of his children. He spoke some other things to me too and also used the experiences of a very close friend of mine who had a difficult childhood and spent some time in foster care to really change my heart. So while we were still in VA, we started looking into what it would take to get licensed for foster care. We had signed up to take the classes, but then all the stuff with possibly moving to Iowa started happening and foster care went on the back burner. Why get licensed if we might be about to move? Fast forward a bit and now we are living here in Iowa. It's been a big adjustment, so foster care was not really something that we had even started to think about again yet.
In November of last year, when everything else was going on in our little whirlwind of life,
the kids and I were doing a character study on servanthood. The Lord really
began laying foster care on my heart very strongly. It seemed kind of out of the
blue, really. I had not even given it one thought since our move. But suddenly, every Scripture seemed to point to it,
many conversations lead to it- even random ones with other people. Our character
study never mentioned it, but we saw it in every one of the lessons on
servanthood and the lessons on hospitality as well. We even got in the van one day and the kids asked to listen to
Adventures in Odyssey. I picked a random one on my phone, and wouldn’t you know
it, it was the one on foster care! So I started asking God if he was trying to
tell me something....and He showed me he was indeed. So through a series of
events, John and I found ourselves sitting at the info meeting less than a week
later and turning in the initial paperwork to start the process. Just the fact that he was off work in time to go and we had a sitter was a little miracle in itself. There were some
concerns, however. There are ten weeks of classes that you have to take to get
licensed. They are 3 hrs per class. With John’s schedule being so crazy, we
weren’t sure how we were going to make that work. But I told the Lord that if He
wanted us to do this, I knew He could work it out. We had initially been told
that classes were on a weeknight, but at the info meeting we learned that the
next set of classes in our area was going to run on Saturdays from January 9th
to March 12th from 9a-12pm. We thought there was a possibility that that could work. There would not be another class in 2016 that we
could even think about taking because they were during peak seasons of farm life. A farmer cannot regularly miss work during planting or harvest... it just doesn't work and the time in between the two wasn't going to be able to work out either. We
wanted to make that class work, but we had several potential issues.
1- We only had one babysitter. Ten Saturday mornings in a row for almost 5
hrs (adding in drive time) is a lot to ask of a 16 year old. And what about if
she got sick or had something come up? I told the Lord I would need another
sitter if we were to take those classes.
2- All three boys had already been signed up for winter basketball, and I
had already paid. Games are on Saturday mornings. They were so excited to play,
so I did not want to ask them to give that up.
3- I have a Saturday morning Zumba class that does really well. It ran from
8-8:45. Foster care classes were 30 minutes away and started at 9. There is no
one else who teaches Zumba at my Y and the Y instructors in the larger towns refuse to come sub
for me because 35 minutes is further than they want to drive.
4- After our background checks came back clear, we were emailed in order to schedule
which training classes we could attend. We were told the January class was full.
We were put on the wait list for that class and were #1 on the list, but it was
not guaranteed that we’d even be able to get into it. Do I cancel my Zumba class
and withdraw my boys from ball when I don’t even know if I can get into the
class?
We prayed and prayed that if it was the Lord’s will, He would open all the
doors that we needed open. Here’s what happened.
1) The Lord dropped another homeschooled teen into my lap who was willing
to babysit for us because she believes in helping the children. She is the oldest
of 8 and has 5 younger brothers, so she knows how to handle these crazy boys.
She and my other sitter were willing to swap Saturdays so that neither of them
got overwhelmed with the many hours of care we needed.
2) Without being asked, all three boys volunteered to give up basketball
when they learned about the conflict. They love basketball. I have never been so
proud of them. I couldn’t get a refund, but I was offered a Y credit that could
be applied to future sports or swim lessons. That was acceptable to me.
3) I talked to my boss and explained what was going on. We decided that
instead of canceling, we would move my class up by 15 minutes so that it ended
at 8:30. This would allow me to run out of class to the foster care classes and
only be a few minutes late. We decided to move the class no matter what. That
way if I got in, everything was already in place. If I didn’t, no big deal- I’d
just be teaching a little earlier than usual.
4) This was the only hurdle left, but it was a big one. We had asked if an
exception could be made for us, since there was no other class we could attend.
We were told that an exception had already been made for someone else so, no,
one could not be made for us and we could only get in if someone else dropped
out.
We were gone for the holidays from 12/23 to 1/3. The entire time we
were gone, we did not get any phone calls about the foster care classes. We were
supposed to get back on 1/3- a Sunday night. The classes were to start the
following Saturday. My two sitters were waiting to hear from me if we were going
to actually need them or not. No one knew what was going on. We got home around
11pm. John headed downstairs to turn the water heater back up. When his foot hit
the bottom level, he heard a slosh sound. Our water heater rusted out and leaked
while we were gone, causing some flooding in our lower level. All the boys sleep
down there, but thankfully it had not gone into their room. But we didn’t want
them going down there, so I was upstairs unpacking the van and setting up
alternative sleeping spots for my boys, while John was downstairs trying to shop
vac the water out of the carpet. The next day, he got up super early to drive 45
minutes to Lowes before work. He got a new water heater and dropped it off while
I was gone teaching Zumba on hardly any sleep. He went and worked a full day
(kids and I had no hot water on that cold January day) and then came home and installed the
new one. I had the thought while we were dealing with the mess Sunday night, “I
wonder if this means we are going to get into that class?” I had been planning
to call them in the morning for an update. I have seen patterns in my life and
in the lives of others that when you are about to do something big for God,
there is opposition to it. It was funny because my mother, a close friend, and
my MIL (mother in law) all said they had wondered if our water heater was more than just a leak.
MIL said that every time she and FIL are about to step out in faith, something
bad happens. So then I called the foster people on Monday after Zumba. I asked
if there was any update and I was told that no one had dropped out of the class,
but that the lady had been given permission to add us into the class anyhow! So
John installs the new water heater that night. The next day our septic tank
backs up into part of the basement. Then I realized this was a bigger deal than I had previously understood and I started praying differently. ;) We started
classes that Saturday. As we sat in that first class in an overly full room,
watching the teachers stress out because “they had never taught a class this big
before and there should not be this many people in here”, John just looked at
me and said, “ I can’t believe we got into this class.” I said, “It’s because
God wants us to do this and He knew we had to go to this class. And it’s no
coincidence that this class is during the timeframe where you are not required
to work on Saturdays and ends right before spring planting craziness starts back
up and you have to work Saturdays again. We are meant to do this.”
So we have been crazy busy with foster care prep since that first week of January until just a few days ago. That class has a lot of
assignments to complete that took up a lot of time. Plus, there is also the
homestudy and homestudy paperwork that needed to be completed......75 pages of
stuff you have to think about to answer. I started praying for a Christian
social worker for our homestudy and the Lord answered that prayer. We have the
sweetest lady doing our homestudy and I am thankful. I can talk to her without
reservation and she just loves my kids. Another thing that added
to the craziness was a need to remodel part of the house in order to make this
work. We have four bedrooms. The boys all share and Hannah has her own room and
the 4th room is our office. Our bookshelves, John’s computer and desk, our file
cabinets, our office supplies, and our printer/copier are all in there. There is
not room for it in our room and there was no other room in the house for John to
use. However, the kids have a very large playroom downstairs. I had taken part
of it to be my school area. But I really didn’t use that, as we seem to prefer to homeschool upstairs in the living room and kitchen anyhow. So even though my
stuff is downstairs, we bring stuff up and do school up here. We take it back
down and put it away if company is coming, but otherwise leave our piles of
books on the floor in the living room corner. So I realized that my schoolroom space could be spared.
What I felt led to do when I asked God how we were going to make this work, was
to wall off a section of the playroom (my school area) and turn that into John’s
new office. Then John’s office could be the foster kid bedroom. So we have also been
doing all the stuff to make that happen. Once the new office was done, I realized that the former office space was painted too dark to be a room for young children. It was dark tan on three walls and a dark red on the fourth. There had previously been a boy in that room, and he probably liked those colors. But I did not want to put a child who was going through traumatic times to be in a dark room. So I just felt like I had to paint it, even though I really didn't want to. Like I said,
it’s been so crazy and it was all we could do just to tread water during that time. The boys are
preparing for another piano competition, so I can’t slack on their practicing and we still needed to stay on track with schoolwork as well.
Saturdays were so nuts here during that time, but it all worked out by the grace of God. I prepped breakfast and lunch for the kids for Saturdays on Friday night. I wanted to make it as easy on the sitters as possible. I also had to pack my Zumba bag and another bag with a change of clothes and hygiene stuff. On Saturday morning, I get up really early (still NOT a morning person, so that alone was really hard) and pack myself a portable breakfast because I can’t eat before Zumba but am starving afterwards. I leave for my Z class before the kids are awake and before the sitter is here. The sitter arrives and then John comes to the Y and waits for me. As soon as my class was over, I would run to the bathroom, freshen up as quickly as possible, put on fresh clothes and deodorant, and tear out the door as fast as I could. John was usually waiting in the parking lot for me. I'd jump in the car and eat my little GF breakfast sandwich while he droves the 30 minutes to class. We are about 7 minutes late each week, but they said that’s ok since I told them I was coming straight from work. We get home from class at 12:45. Then we'd have to work on all the things that needed to get done that weekend, while also trying to work on the office project. It was so exhausting!! The foster care classes themselves were alright, I guess. We don’t really feel like we are learning a whole lot in them and the homework was driving us nuts. They are very modern/worldly in their child psychology and that's not how we roll here. But it was what we needed to be done in order to help the children, so we did everything required of us and fully participated in our classes. We just had our last class this past Saturday and our final homestudy visit this past Monday. We are so happy to be done with our part of the licensing process. Our SW (social worker) said it was rare that people actually did everything they were supposed to do by the third visit and she seemed pleased that we had. Now we wait for her to write up our homestudy report (she has 45 days to do this and said it will probably take her about that long since she is completely overloaded with cases right now). She will then submit it to DHS (Dept of Human Services) and they have the final say in our licensing. She said we should be licensed by May 1st at the very latest, but it could be earlier if she's able to get our report written up sooner.
But don't you have enough kids to take care of already????
I have been asked this several time already. Here's the answer.....NO!!! And just because someone loves kids and wants more than the average family has does not mean they are trying to be like the Duggars either. There, glad we covered that. No seriously, we are open to more kids, whether they are here temporarily or permanently. But this really isn't about growing our family, even though we are open to adopting should that become an option with any of the children we are placed with. For us, this is about doing what God calls Christians to do- loving others unconditionally, serving others sacrificially, fighting injustice, clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, sharing freely what He has blessed us with, opening our home to those who have nowhere to stay, and letting others know of God's love for them. The Lord told me a few years back that He wanted to use my mothering if I would let Him. I thought then that it meant that we were going to have a bunch more kids, but now I see that it will be through foster care. We prayed for a way to get our hands dirty instead of just writing checks and a way to serve God as a family while still being able to keep our focus at home. The Lord was faithful to show us how to do that. Do I expect this to be easy? No way. It will be very, very hard at times. But we don't want to shy away from what God calls us to do just because it's hard. We will look to him to be our strength during the hard times, and we will learn to let him use those times to refine our faith. We will have the chance to put all the character qualities we have been studying into action. We are all looking forward to getting a chance to just love on those who are hurting and broken and being able to sing Jesus Loves Me over them. It's not just a Mom and Dad thing...the kids are totally on board and keep asking me how much longer until someone can come be with us. They have all these plans for how they will help me care for little ones.
At this time, we will only be taking kids 3 and under. That is what we are feeling called to do. We may make an exception for a 4 yr old in a sibling group with a younger child. We prefer to have just one child at a time, but we are willing to take a sibling group of two if it will keep them from being split up. We will be sworn by confidentiality laws to keep all the child's info private. We are not even allowed to say they are in foster care. So if you see us with a child that you know is not ours, please don't ask if it's a foster child. Just know that it most likely is and that we cannot tell you about the circumstances that child has been through.
Do you need anything? How can I be praying for you?
I'm getting asked these questions too, so I want to answer those here as well. We have all of Hannah's baby clothes and her old crib. So we are set for girl clothes. I gave away all the boy clothes for kids 5 and under to a struggling mother. I do have a friend that has some boy clothes she can share if the sizes work out. I gave away much of my baby gear as well. However, I have been able to get some things for free or cheap on Craigslist, and a friend has given me an infant seat and a cradle swing in excellent condition. I did not sell my stuff. I gave it away to those in need, and I am fully expecting the Lord to honor that and supply whatever we need now. I still need a unisex convertible seat (Hannah's old one is very girlie and expires in July) and a stroller that I can snap a Baby Trend brand infant seat into. I'd like to get a unisex bouncer seat and an activity mat as well. Our biggest need is one we are praying to see a miraculous provision for. We need a bigger vehicle. Our van seats 7 and we are 6 already. Taking in a sibling group of two will require us to have to take two vehicles to go anywhere as a family (and it takes 30 minutes or more to get to most places since we live in the country). And I'll need space to add in two more bulky carseats (we are still using two seats and a booster for our kids). John's truck is a gas guzzling work truck and it's usually dirty. We try not to use it much for personal use, because it belongs to his grandpa. I have found that my minivan was great for suburbia, but not for the life of a country living, farmer's wife. I need 4WD. It gets icy here and country roads are not the first to be plowed. Winters are long here. I have fishtailed much more than I am comfortable with since moving here. I was also unable to get up the incline to our piano teacher's house. Furthermore, I need to be able to drive out into the middle of a bumpy field to bring my husband more water on 100 degree days or dinner on late days. (And sometimes I'm bringing him a son who wants to ride along in big machinery and spend time with his daddy.) My van is not made for off-roading in fields and I'm afraid I'll break it every time I try to bring John something. So between those needs and after talking with several large farming families, we feel a Suburban is what we need. They make a kind that has 9 seats, and we are asking the Lord to provide us with one. We do not have the money to get one at this time. Will you please join us in prayer for the provision of this need before a sibling group might come to us? I'm totally ok with Him providing a used one, but I'm specifically asking that it not be terribly old and that it be in excellent condition because John does not have a lot of free time to work on it and I certainly don't want to be stranded somewhere with no cell reception with 6 kids.
Other things to pray for:
- For the children who will come here. We want them to know God's love for them while they are here.
-For the families of those children. We want them to know of God's love for them and His power to heal and forgive and redeem lives. We hope they will allow us to minister to them as well.
Saturdays were so nuts here during that time, but it all worked out by the grace of God. I prepped breakfast and lunch for the kids for Saturdays on Friday night. I wanted to make it as easy on the sitters as possible. I also had to pack my Zumba bag and another bag with a change of clothes and hygiene stuff. On Saturday morning, I get up really early (still NOT a morning person, so that alone was really hard) and pack myself a portable breakfast because I can’t eat before Zumba but am starving afterwards. I leave for my Z class before the kids are awake and before the sitter is here. The sitter arrives and then John comes to the Y and waits for me. As soon as my class was over, I would run to the bathroom, freshen up as quickly as possible, put on fresh clothes and deodorant, and tear out the door as fast as I could. John was usually waiting in the parking lot for me. I'd jump in the car and eat my little GF breakfast sandwich while he droves the 30 minutes to class. We are about 7 minutes late each week, but they said that’s ok since I told them I was coming straight from work. We get home from class at 12:45. Then we'd have to work on all the things that needed to get done that weekend, while also trying to work on the office project. It was so exhausting!! The foster care classes themselves were alright, I guess. We don’t really feel like we are learning a whole lot in them and the homework was driving us nuts. They are very modern/worldly in their child psychology and that's not how we roll here. But it was what we needed to be done in order to help the children, so we did everything required of us and fully participated in our classes. We just had our last class this past Saturday and our final homestudy visit this past Monday. We are so happy to be done with our part of the licensing process. Our SW (social worker) said it was rare that people actually did everything they were supposed to do by the third visit and she seemed pleased that we had. Now we wait for her to write up our homestudy report (she has 45 days to do this and said it will probably take her about that long since she is completely overloaded with cases right now). She will then submit it to DHS (Dept of Human Services) and they have the final say in our licensing. She said we should be licensed by May 1st at the very latest, but it could be earlier if she's able to get our report written up sooner.
But don't you have enough kids to take care of already????
I have been asked this several time already. Here's the answer.....NO!!! And just because someone loves kids and wants more than the average family has does not mean they are trying to be like the Duggars either. There, glad we covered that. No seriously, we are open to more kids, whether they are here temporarily or permanently. But this really isn't about growing our family, even though we are open to adopting should that become an option with any of the children we are placed with. For us, this is about doing what God calls Christians to do- loving others unconditionally, serving others sacrificially, fighting injustice, clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, sharing freely what He has blessed us with, opening our home to those who have nowhere to stay, and letting others know of God's love for them. The Lord told me a few years back that He wanted to use my mothering if I would let Him. I thought then that it meant that we were going to have a bunch more kids, but now I see that it will be through foster care. We prayed for a way to get our hands dirty instead of just writing checks and a way to serve God as a family while still being able to keep our focus at home. The Lord was faithful to show us how to do that. Do I expect this to be easy? No way. It will be very, very hard at times. But we don't want to shy away from what God calls us to do just because it's hard. We will look to him to be our strength during the hard times, and we will learn to let him use those times to refine our faith. We will have the chance to put all the character qualities we have been studying into action. We are all looking forward to getting a chance to just love on those who are hurting and broken and being able to sing Jesus Loves Me over them. It's not just a Mom and Dad thing...the kids are totally on board and keep asking me how much longer until someone can come be with us. They have all these plans for how they will help me care for little ones.
At this time, we will only be taking kids 3 and under. That is what we are feeling called to do. We may make an exception for a 4 yr old in a sibling group with a younger child. We prefer to have just one child at a time, but we are willing to take a sibling group of two if it will keep them from being split up. We will be sworn by confidentiality laws to keep all the child's info private. We are not even allowed to say they are in foster care. So if you see us with a child that you know is not ours, please don't ask if it's a foster child. Just know that it most likely is and that we cannot tell you about the circumstances that child has been through.
Do you need anything? How can I be praying for you?
I'm getting asked these questions too, so I want to answer those here as well. We have all of Hannah's baby clothes and her old crib. So we are set for girl clothes. I gave away all the boy clothes for kids 5 and under to a struggling mother. I do have a friend that has some boy clothes she can share if the sizes work out. I gave away much of my baby gear as well. However, I have been able to get some things for free or cheap on Craigslist, and a friend has given me an infant seat and a cradle swing in excellent condition. I did not sell my stuff. I gave it away to those in need, and I am fully expecting the Lord to honor that and supply whatever we need now. I still need a unisex convertible seat (Hannah's old one is very girlie and expires in July) and a stroller that I can snap a Baby Trend brand infant seat into. I'd like to get a unisex bouncer seat and an activity mat as well. Our biggest need is one we are praying to see a miraculous provision for. We need a bigger vehicle. Our van seats 7 and we are 6 already. Taking in a sibling group of two will require us to have to take two vehicles to go anywhere as a family (and it takes 30 minutes or more to get to most places since we live in the country). And I'll need space to add in two more bulky carseats (we are still using two seats and a booster for our kids). John's truck is a gas guzzling work truck and it's usually dirty. We try not to use it much for personal use, because it belongs to his grandpa. I have found that my minivan was great for suburbia, but not for the life of a country living, farmer's wife. I need 4WD. It gets icy here and country roads are not the first to be plowed. Winters are long here. I have fishtailed much more than I am comfortable with since moving here. I was also unable to get up the incline to our piano teacher's house. Furthermore, I need to be able to drive out into the middle of a bumpy field to bring my husband more water on 100 degree days or dinner on late days. (And sometimes I'm bringing him a son who wants to ride along in big machinery and spend time with his daddy.) My van is not made for off-roading in fields and I'm afraid I'll break it every time I try to bring John something. So between those needs and after talking with several large farming families, we feel a Suburban is what we need. They make a kind that has 9 seats, and we are asking the Lord to provide us with one. We do not have the money to get one at this time. Will you please join us in prayer for the provision of this need before a sibling group might come to us? I'm totally ok with Him providing a used one, but I'm specifically asking that it not be terribly old and that it be in excellent condition because John does not have a lot of free time to work on it and I certainly don't want to be stranded somewhere with no cell reception with 6 kids.
Other things to pray for:
- For the children who will come here. We want them to know God's love for them while they are here.
-For the families of those children. We want them to know of God's love for them and His power to heal and forgive and redeem lives. We hope they will allow us to minister to them as well.
-For our family. I'm praying that God will prepare us in whatever ways we need to be prepared. We ask for provision and protection and the strength to do whatever He asks us to do. We want to love fully, no matter how long or short of a time someone is here. We will need his help when it is time to release those children back to their families.
-For us to be able to get along with all the different workers involved in each child's case and also with the birth families.
-That our foster care license is approved
So that's the majority of what has been going on in our lives. We've been pretty much consumed by the licensing process, but that is over now. John is now gearing up for spring planting in our garden and at work, and the kids and I are working on finishing up our school year over the next two months or so, preparing for piano competitions, and preparing our hearts for foster care. I'm still currently teaching three classes a week at the Y too. Sorry this is so long, but a lot's been going on and I wanted to share all of it before I forget any of the details. I will post before and after pics of the office move and the new nursery soon.
