It all began, from what I remember, during my second full-time year of teaching back in fall 2004 when I had "that student" in my class. "Oh, that student," as teachers would say, means one of those students that is known for their behavior issues and most teachers dread having them in their class because of all the extra classroom management issues that will arise. I'll admit that one semester of teaching was my most challenging and yet most memorable. My classroom management skills were so refined by the end of that semester it was so helpful for future years.
One of my big motivations/realizations as a teacher was that for a whole school year I was a constant in 20 students lives. I had no control of their homelife but I knew that I could possibly be their refuge away from home and a place to thrive, grow in character, and learn to think. The song "Family Portrait" by Pink was something I would listen to to remind me of where some of my students may be coming from. I tried to be a place of peace and a reflection of the love of Christ (without even speaking His name since I was in the public school system) to these students and their parents.
How does that tie in to foster parenting? "The student" had serious issues. He would get angry and hit his head on the wall. His parents were separated and his father had been in and out of jail. My heart just broke for this kid. I found myself often wondering what he would be like if he wasn't in his home environment. Not that I had any evidence of parental wrong-doing worthy of a call to Child Protective Services, I could just tell things weren't good. I found myself wondering what he would be like if I could take him home for 6 months (not that I had any realistic idea of how to parent back then but that is what I thought). He moved after one semester and other teachers commented to me about how he was so much calmer and enjoyable to be around since being in my class. I tucked that affirmation away in the back of my mind knowing that I saw truth in that and realizing it as a strength in me.
Around 2005 or 2006 I was walking through the hall of my church where they use it as sort of an art gallery to allow people to worship God through artistic expression or the leadership would purposefully display things to inspire or draw us closer to the heart of Jesus. This particular week they had beautiful pictures of students in the adoption system that had been waiting to be adopted. I was reading the descriptions of these children and trying to fathom what it must be like for them. One common statement in each of the descriptions said something along the lines of, "[insert child's name] needs a family with patience and love to handle their special needs." As I read these descriptions their was a stirring within me, that I have come to know as the Holy Spirit, seeming to prompt, "You could do that." I also sort of heard, "Put your money where your mouth is," in regards to me often wondering what students in my class would be like if I took them home. I tried rationalize why that prompting wasn't true but found myself telling my husband of the idea and that it might be something we should pray about. My hubby also discussed with me about how we weren't in the right place in life to do that.
Fast forward a few years to when my husband started to read through the new testament of the Bible focusing only on the words of Jesus. From that experience he was overwhelmed by how often Jesus says to care for the widows and orphans. So he started to say that maybe we should seriously pray about doing something to obey Jesus' words.
At some point I got connected with a foster agency and started to tutor two sisters and their brother. I tutored them while they were in their foster home and for about a year after while they were back with their biological mom. I loved those kids.
My husband and I discussed whether we should just adopt or foster kids instead of having any of our own. We thought, "Why produce more children if there are plenty already around that need homes?" We decided that we want to have atleast one biological child to see what our DNA would create (that was our fun reason). We also wanted to know what that love is that parents experience with a blood of my blood child so that we could know what we would be trying to experience with foster or adopted children.
We welcomed Sarah into our family in July of 2008 after 9 months of talking to her and praying over her in my tummy. I survived one of my biggest life fears . . . childbirth. There were some interesting possible health issues that we dealt with for the first 13 months of her life (if you are curious I documented that on another blog). Around when Sarah turned a year old we started the process of becoming certified as foster parents.
We chose foster parenting instead of adopting because it seemed like while we were looking into the causes involved with orphans many people were willing to adopt but not many liked the idea of needing to give a child back to possibly crappy parents after they had bonded and spent so much energy on a child. We feel like foster kids deserve a loving environment during this confusing and difficult time of their life. We know that these kids will have issues and we will do the best we can to protect Sarah and any other biological kids that we have but we also know that God is good and He loves all these children.
