His, Mine, and Ours: a little background

In 2006 our family of four moved into our brand new house. We had only been married a little over a year when we purchased our "first" home together. In a weeks time, we signed the papers on the house, found out we were pregnant, and I lost my job. Several weeks after that, we lost our first baby together. It was kind of a devastating time in our lives. Without our faith in Jesus, I'm not really sure we could have made it. It was then that I first asked my husband if we could be foster parents. We had an empty room, and I couldn't bear to see it stay that way. It would be four years (and another baby) later before he would actually consider my desire to be a foster parent (God's calling on our lives).

On November 13, 2010, my husband and I attended the Wait No More conference sponsored by Focus on the Family. I think we were both dreading it a little. I had this strange idea that it would be a much smaller church than it was. I envisioned us being two of the very few there, sitting towards the back, and hoping no one would call on us or expect anything from us. This was not at all the case! Over 900 people showed up!!! We still sat towards the back, but it was nothing like I thought it would be. It was a large auditorium, and they had several guest speakers giving us insight on what it's like for children in foster care, parents who decide to foster and eventually adopt, and even a child of a family that decided to foster. It was eye-opening, to say the least. I kept looking at my husband to see if it was getting to him like it was me, and I can honestly say, I watched his heart break for these kids. My husband, the police officer who, more often than not, sees these kids in a worse light. The ones who are trying to run away from their foster families, or who have committed a crime. The ones that age out of the system because of the "bad" reputation kids in foster care get . God moved some serious mountains that day!

Immediately following the conference, we "found" our agency! We were very excited to start the process (actually, I was a little bit scared that he might change his mind if we didn't act FAST!), and I think our expectations were a little too high. A week went by and we hadn't heard a thing from the agency or any feedback from the conference after submitting our request for more information. I started calling the agency, hoping to get some info, and never could get a person to answer (apparently I was calling the wrong number :) ). I finally got the right number, and a week later received the disappointing news that the agency we had chosen didn't serve our area. We were hoping to have a little more info to give our families when we made our announcement on Thanksgiving day. No such luck! Later that week we found our agency (thanks to a friend who's daughter is adopting through foster-care), and it was a week or so later that we finally had paperwork in hand.

The process is as much as we thought it would be and then some. We've only barely begun, and we know it will probably be at least February before we're even close to having a child placed with us, but we are daily praying for our son (age 5-10)! :) Please pray for us, as well as him while we are waiting. We don't know what he's going through, or what he will go through (emotionally) after being placed in foster-care if he's not already, but God knows.