Fostering Faithfully

This Father's Day, I'd like to pay a tribute to all the Daddies that love kids that are not really "theirs" just like they are.  This hard calling might be easier for a mama that's nurturing and typically wired more for compassion and empathy, but foster Daddies are right there in the trenches cleaning up spit up or vomit-filled car seats, and changing plenty of dirty diapers for kids that will never remember their sacrifices. He gets up with another man's baby in the middle of the night. When no one shows up for visits, He shows up to play Legos. He speaks gently and graciously to a single mother whose drug abuse impacted his life greatly. When no one else is willing to step up for a child, He does. He puts together a crib suddenly for a teen foster child, and her new baby. When his wife has no dinner plans due to the chaos that reigns and 400 minutes she spent on the phone with child welfare issues, he scrambles eggs or hits the drive th...

A Stranger A stranger hurt them. A stranger took them into foster care when he found them living in a car. A stranger kept them for 3 nights. Strange doctors checked on them. A stranger brought them to me, another stranger, over an hour away. Another stranger kept them while I worked, then I took them to a school of strangers. Another stranger picked them up for an appointment and brought them home to me for a month and we became no longer strangers, but family.  Last night, me, a former stranger, cried a lot since I don’t know anyone I trust personally who has an open home to be their next stranger. I can’t do it long term, or I can’t be a stranger to another child who might needs us next and the 5 other former foster kids I’ve committed to already in some way.  This morning, I met another stranger (a new caseworker) who will take them to back to stranger #3, and then they’ll move to stranger #4. I don’t even know her name when they ask. I wrote a le...