The Things On My Mind

As of today, Chris and I have 27 hours of Foster Care classes under our belts and 9 more hours to go. My brain is cram jammed full of terms like 'Primary Family', 'Safety Script', 'Arousal Relaxation Cycle', 'Triggers', 'Child Protection Team' and that all inclusive answer to almost every question involving foster care -- 'It Depends'.

I've been keeping kind of quiet about this over here, I admit. It's something that I really never saw coming, to be honest. It's not some dream I/we have always nourished; not some idea we've had for years. It had crossed my mind a time or two, just because there's some people we know who do foster care and the county we live in has a desperate need in that area. But a while back when Chris nonchalantly threw out the idea that maybe we should consider foster care, I think my mouth dropped wide open. It just wasn't something I had ever imagined we would consider.

About a month ago, we attended an information night. It turned out that the meeting they had advertised hard for in order to spread awareness brought in exactly two people: Chris and Bethany Eicher.

We sat there with four members of the Guernsey County Social Services team that night and listened to staggering statistics and heartbreaking scenarios. We heard how the number of children coming into care in our county has more than doubled in the past two years due to the drug abuse going on. The same cannot be said of foster care homes available and you could hear the pain in their voices when they shared the difficulty to find placements and the devastation of needing to separate sibling groups and send children to other counties.

We came away from that meeting a bit overwhelmed and with an even lower sense of feeling qualified for the job. But we also came away with a deep impression of "Why not?"

Do we not feel a call to be the hands and feet of Jesus? Is there not a tremendous need right here before our eyes? Is there any reason to not at least make ourselves available to pursuing this idea? Why not?

And so, we enrolled in Pre-Placement Training and have spent the last three Friday nights and all day Saturdays sitting in a conference room, taking in information. To say the least, it has been stretching. Stretching and eye-opening and quite, quite interesting.

Frankly, I think all parents could learn a thing or two from taking Module VIII: Helping The Child Manage Emotions And Behaviors. It's not just foster kiddos who could benefit from some of this training.

So, now you know what's been consuming my mind lately. I still have lots of questions and feelings about all of this. We're still holding this idea loosely, waiting to see what God has for us; how He will choose to lead. Just because we take classes doesn't guarantee we will ever actually foster children but we're open to that; we're making ourselves available. It's a bit of a struggle for me to consciously keep my hand in the open position.

It's felt a little scary and somewhat unnecessary to put it all out there for everyone to see. A bit like the early weeks of a pregnancy, perhaps, when you're not sure if you want to tell people yet or not? So I haven't talked about it -- which, in turn, has seemed to effectively shut off my ability to talk about anything at all! But I'm kinda tired of hiding over here in my corner. I believe in honesty and openness and I sure would welcome any prayers you feel led to pray on our behalf. We don't know exactly what we're doing in all of this but we're pretty confident God does.