Our Foster Care Journey, Part I

Phew...deep breath.  I have stalled on doing this post long enough.  Why have I stalled?  I don't know.  Partly because this journey has been deeply personal, partly because I don't want to run the risk of offending or being judged.  And, very practically, I knew it would take me a while to put it all on paper.

Lastly, we wanted to wait until we'd completed the last hurdle, which happened this past Thursday.  Though we are not officially licensed, its looking pretty good.  :)

Are you ready for lengthy story?  I'm going to take some or all of this week to write about our road (thus far) to foster care.  (I was going to use flower photos, but for fun I think I'll use newborn photos, because really...can you ever get enough of that?)

After what has felt like a long journey to foster care, I think we are finally almost there.  And I'm excited, albeit hesitant, to share our story here.  We've gotten quite a few questions in talking with the few people we've shared with.  If you have any questions shoot me an email or leave a comment and I'll do my best to answer those in a Q & A on Friday.

So...how did all this come about?

Honestly, I don't even remember our first conversations about doing foster care.  It was shortly before or after Amanda was born and I don't even think it was much of a discussion....more like one of those times when we did little more than look at each other and we both knew.  God had already spoken to both of us individually.

When Amanda was about one, so four years ago, we went to a Department of Children & Families (DCF) open house to begin the licensing process.  That meeting went well so we took the next step and had a social worker come out to our house to begin the home study piece.

We talked for 15 minutes and then she took a quick walk around the house.  Her message: when you have removed every speck of lead paint from your (1895) home then you can give us a call.  We'd been so ready to dive in and felt like we'd gotten the wind knocked out of our sails.

Remove ALL traces of lead paint in a house this old?  Impossible!

So...we did a quick eyebrow raise to God as if to say, What's up with that?  We thought we'd heard from you!  and then moved on.

Once Aiden was here and more than a year old, we decided to step our toe in the foster care water again.  This time I made contact with what I thought was a private agency (turns out they are separate but still a state agency), thinking the rules & regs on lead paint would be different.

Afterall, we are raising three small children in this house who get tested regularly for lead and they are fine.  Plus, nearly all of our community is comprised of pre-1970s homes.

The worker, Cindy came out to our house for an initial meeting in February 2011.  She met me and the kids, talked about their program and then did a walk-through of the house.  The outcome was somewhat expected though still disappointing: all flaking lead paint would need to be removed inside and out.  That meant the wrap-around porch would need to be taken down and rebuilt.  Something that clearly needed to be done...oh, about 10 years ago.

Its been on the to-do list for years, but time, money and circumstances have prevented it from happening.  Just when Shaun was getting ready to finally do it, an apartment would become vacant and be in desperate need of a major remodel, for example.

Again, we had to wonder why we felt so called to this, but seemed to be so far away from ever making it a reality.

I'll share some snippets from my prayer journal on July 31:

Last night at church Eliezer (our amazing youth pastor) talked about living the "i" Life, as in lowercase "i", not capital...that your life does not have meaning until you're living it for others.  I thought, yes, I desperately do not want to live the "I" Life.


As he was giving the alter call, one of the scenarios he gave was that maybe there were circumstances at this point in life that are beyond your control prohibiting you from helping others....the porch, the apartments, all seem like big circumstances right now...


....I know you've spoken to us about it and I'm frustrated we are not "being about Your business" right now....