A much needed update

I always have good intentions of updating my blog. Especially this one. There have actually been some big changes since my last post.

We had our third home visit about 3 weeks ago. It was during this home visit that the case worker advised us that someone really should have told us up front that they really are looking for people who can take in children that are 5 years and older. We were asked to kind of put everything on hold for about 6 months. I don't know whether or not we will pick it back up in six months.

From the start, we knew God wanted us to start the training. I stated in the beginning that I didn't know how far in the process we would get. That I didn't know what God would bring about through this journey. I find it interesting that our third home visit, where we were asked to wait, coincided with the training regarding discipline. Kris and I discussed from the beginning how great it would be to have some training and guidance with regards to the discipline of our own children. We had hoped we would find some valuable practices to put in place, and we did. I know that God used this foster training experience to teach us and show us some things he needed us to see. And for that I am extremely grateful.

I probably won't update this again until I know if we are going to restart the training. Thank you to everyone who bathed this in prayer. I have peace about what God chose to show us through the training and we will see if this is still a path he leads us down a little farther down the road.

Home Visit #2

Our second home visit was moved from last Wednesday to last Friday. Everything went really well, at least it appeared that way to us! We meet with the case worker again for home visit #3 this coming Thursday. On Saturday we will spend the day becoming certified in CPR and First Aid. That's really all there is to add at this point. So, there's my really short update.

Classes have begun

I have meant to sit down for the last 3 weeks, since our training started, and update on the progress. We have turned in all of our paperwork now, except for one or two stray forms. Kris still has to get a physical and TB test done. I finally got mine done and have to turn the form in Tuesday night.

We've gone to 3 training classes. They have been very enlightening, and each one leaves me longing to help fulfill the Great Commission by becoming a foster parent. It has been very enlightening. I didn't even realize that I had misconceptions about foster care and the 'system'. I think I have said it before-the ultimate goal for foster care is reunification of the child with its birth family. This is the #1 goal. If for any reason the child cannot return home, either the child is adopted by the foster parents, or by another family seeking to adopt.

One thing that really became clear to me during our last session was how involved you actually are, as a foster parent, in the life of the child's birth family. At first, the typical response of the birth parent is anger. They tend to think that you are taking their child away. One foster mother (on a video we watched) pointed out two weeks ago "I'm not taking your child. I'm taking care of your child." This struck me and has really stuck with me. I think it is a good thing to remember. And so true. My job, as a foster parent, isn't to take a child away from its family. It's to care for the child until the birth family is capable of doing it on their own. And something I learned was that we will end up being very involved with the birth family, not just the child. Foster parenting is a team effort, made up of the birth parents, the foster family, caseworkers, lawyers, etc...it takes everyone working together to meet the goal, which again is reuniting the child with its birth family.

I'm not sure how this will all play out. I do know though that we are taking the steps God has called us to. Week #4 begins on Tuesday night. November 21st we have a day long training to become CPR and First Aid certified. In December we will spend a day being certified to administer medication.

The newest development is the date for our second home visit. We have officially been assigned a case worker. His name is Mark. And he will be coming over on Wednesday night (11/11) to go over our big 500 page questionnaire. Ok, it's not THAT long...but it was probably at least 15 pages long, full of questions, deeply personal questions. I think it is this questionnaire that they will use to gauge our mental/emotional/spiritual ability to provide a home for a child in need.

That is really about all I have right now. More to come as I know more. Continued prayers are appreciated!

Very, very brief update

I am primarily updating this to say a special thanks to my mom for calling the courthouse in Martinsville and finding out that she could get our marriage certificate for us. And an even bigger thank you for sending us a couple copies of it!

There isn't anything new to report. We're still filling out paperwork and still have to go and get fingerprinted. I think that Kris and I may need to take some schedule time off work to ensure that we get all of that taken care of; otherwise we'll be looking at our training in October and have nothing completed. Except those marriage certificates! Thanks again Mom and Dad!

Please continue praying for us as we approach the training in October.

The Official Date

I got a call this morning from the Missouri Baptist Children's Home. It's official. Our class for foster parenting training begins on October 20th. I don't know why it got pushed back so far, as I thought they started a new class each month, but that's OK. It gives us a little more time to get our fingerprints, background checks and get back to Indiana to get a copy of our marriage license. I don't know many details, but the class will be every Tuesday night, 6:30-9:30pm, for 10 weeks. If you are in the St. Louis area and would be interested in taking a Tuesday to watch our wonderful children (for free), please let me know.

Home Study #1

We had our first home study tonight. I didn't get myself all worked up about it either. Our house is insanely clean, primarily because the kids aren't here! :) We worked some over the weekend and this afternoon getting the house presentable. The house is at least clean now until Thursday night, when the kids come home of course!

There were a lot of papers to sign and some forms to go over. We have a ton of paperwork to fill out before the training starts. The biggest hurdle we will have to overcome is our marriage certificate, seeing as how we don't actually have one. We're not legally married. Just kidding! When we were robbed shortly after we got married, we lost everything, including a safety deposit box that had passports, birth certificates, and our marriage certificate. When I checked a few years ago into replacing it, I found out we would actually have to both be at city hall in Martinsville, IN to get a copy of our marriage certificate. It sure would be nice if things have changed and I could just order it online! But, if driving to Indiana to get our marriage license allows us to be foster parents, we will do it! DAY TRIP!

Beyond that, we need to purchase a 5 lb. fire extinguisher, have a fire escape plan, purchase outlet covers, and tighten the railing on the basement stairs and our house will completely 'pass'. It was a lot less invasive (so far) than we had anticipated. We do have to get fingerprinted for the State and for the FBI. Fill out paperwork for background checks. Standard paperwork, that neither one of us are worried about. We don't have any criminal history or anything like that. All in all the prep work I think will cost us about $50 (not counting the household safety items we need to purchase). Not bad.

More updates as they come. It feels good having the first 'big' step out of the way. Thanks for the prayers. Keep them coming!

Here we go!

Well things are finally starting to move with foster parenting. I just got off the phone and we have our initial home study scheduled for 6pm on July 27th! At that time, the case worker will drop off all the paperwork we need to complete in order to start the training in September. I'm a little nervous but mostly excited. It's hard to be patient, but as this process requires patience, I am learning. Please keep us in prayer as the date approaches and on that day as well. I will definitely post how everything went!

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." - James 1:27

Waiting...

I know I haven't updated this for a while. The primary reason is that there is nothing really new to say. We're still just waiting until September rolls around and we begin the training. I did get a follow up call from the initial meeting; they wanted to make sure we were still interested and schedule our home study. Once I told her we wanted to wait until the training class in September she said she would call me back closer to that time. So we're still on board with this. Kris and I have talked over a lot of details and are trying to decide what is best with our current house, as far as providing a room for another child. We really have plenty of space here (with the exception of NOT having a second bathroom). Kaleb is in a big room by himself, and Livvy is in a much smaller room by herself. Katherine and Abbey are sharing a large room and then Kris and I have our own room as well. So there is no doubt that we will have room enough; we are just trying to figure out what arrangements work out best. If we had a boy come to us, he could easily go in Kaleb's room. If it were a girl, we could put Kaleb and Livvy together, unless there are some sort of local regulations against that. It isn't ideal (why wasn't she a boy??) :-) but it will work and then the small room would be available for our foster child. In a few years we hope to be able to save enough money to move from this location, but we're happy to know that our house would be large enough for at least one more little person.

And so begins a new phase

Kris and I are about to embark on an exciting journey into the world of foster parenting. I know that to some this may seem sudden, but I want to assure you that this is something Kris and I have #1. Always been open two and #2. Talked about over and over again during the last ten years. Two weeks ago I wouldn't have been able to tell you that I could see us starting the process so soon. But two weeks ago, God wasn't moving and working in my heart as He is now. Let me rephrase that. I WASN'T LISTENING TO GOD SPEAKING TO ME, AND ALLOWING MYSELF TO BE MOVED!! To really understand our certainty that this is God's leading for our lives, read the following two posts from my personal blog, in this order:

http://love2cook05.blogspot.com/2009/06/joy.html

http://love2cook05.blogspot.com/2009/06/complacency.html

That being said, Kris and I have ALWAYS talked about foster parenting/adoption. From before we got married, throughout the last ten years, and recently. When Crossroads (our previous church until about 3 years ago) decided that it was time for everyone to go their own ways and find other places to serve, Kris and I sort of got lost. We wandered from church to church, never really feeling at home anywhere. Never feeling as if we belonged. Two of the last churches we tried about a year ago seemed to have fliers for Christian Foster Care/Adoption posted everywhere. And every time we went and I saw one of the fliers, I would point them out to Kris. When I saw them, I just felt this pulling in my heart. But I was too far away from God's heart that I didn't realize the pulling for what it was.

And then we found Cross Keys Baptist Church. A friend that I work with attended there, and she invited us to come. My first Sunday there, I knew it was right for us. I knew it was where God wanted us to be. Kris was less convinced than I was, but by the end of the second week, he too began to feel like maybe that was where God wanted us. Within a month, we were convinced that we would 'settle in' there and finally give ourselves and our children a church 'home'. It was time to stop wandering around and settle in. And everyone was so kind and sincere, including the pastor, that Kris and I couldn't help but stay.

Remember those fliers I told you I would see and tell Kris about? Well, I didn't see any fliers at this church. What I did see instead was a couple who currently had two foster children (and have helped many others), another couple who was in the process of adopting twins, and then later, the pastor and his wife beginning the process of adopting a child. In the beginning I thought, "That's interesting..." I didn't really carry the thought out to completion, or dwell on it much, because as my posts about JOY and COMPLACENCY clearly expressed, I was not listening to God's voice; however, I did take note of it. I came to see later that it was no coincidence that we settled into a church where children were extremely important and people were willing to sacrifice themselves and their time to give a child in need love and a home.

I had talked very briefly about foster parenting to the couple with the foster children, but never anything serious. And then about a month ago, I mentioned something to Tim, the foster father, about getting more information on foster care. While Kris and I were on vacation in Miami, Cindy (Kris' mom) took the kids to a meeting/gathering where foster parents and children who had been in foster care gave testimonies. The kids were eager to tell us all about this meeting and all the children that were there, even telling us which ones we needed to take in.

A week ago, we got into a lengthier conversation about the ins and outs of foster parenting, and I found out there was an opportunity to attend an informational meeting regarding foster parenting through the Missouri Baptist Children's Home. I was able to secure a babysitter at the last minute (Kris had a meeting for work so he couldn't come), and I attended the meeting. I walked away from the meeting knowing that this was the next step for us. Kris and I talked about it and went over the details and decided that we would begin training to become foster parents on September 15th, 2009.

There are still a lot of things to decide, but we have narrowed down our preferences (based on taking our children into consideration) and we will begin the training and home study in the fall. Between now and the time we begin the training, we will be praying about this decision and that God will use us to share the love of Christ, as well as our own love for children, with someone who is in desperate need. We hope that you will join us in prayer regarding this.

I know this is getting long but I wanted to just share one last thing that confirmed this decision in my heart. Since I was in high school, God instilled in me a love for foreign missionary work. I've been blessed to go on many mission trips and I think that the love is always going to be there. Recently, I was able to reconnect with a missionary from India that I met at my church in high school. It was in that reconnecting that God rekindled the flame and my love of missions. He was stirring my heart and I was longing to be involved in missions, but with a family, solid job and four kids, God wasn't calling us to uproot our family and move to a foreign field. At this same time, I found out about that foster parenting meeting. Upon leaving that meeting, I made the connection that, though it is not on a foreign (overseas) field, foster parenting IS a mission field. It is a fulfillment of the Great Commission and Kris and I are going to do our part to honor God's command to share Christ with others. A lot of people have asked me how I will 'handle' having to send a child back to his/her home. My friend Gayle said it best (I'm going to paraphrase) when she said that when it comes time for them to say goodbye to the children, they remind themselves that it is a mission field and all missionaries have to say goodbye at some point; God sometimes calls missionaries to different areas. So, with the support of Kris and our family and friends, and most importantly the deep love and comfort of God, we will be able to do what God is calling us to do.