Fostering Faithfully

Fostering Faithfully’s largest initiative will always be our resource center, a hub of fostering activity and connection. If you have ever received something from the center, it is due to Lindsay Alexander’s vision for providing for foster kids since 2015. To say that she has put sweat equity into the foster closet over the years is an understatement! Lindsay is the center’s founder and current Director, who knew well as a foster parent herself, that a clothing closet was a necessity for fostering families accepting placements suddenly. The first days of a placement there is so much lost sleep, so many tears and appointments, so much holding and cuddling, a lot of life and home re-arranging to be done for the new family member, and so there is little time or energy to run all over town (usually with many kids) shopping for basics a child needs the next morning. The clothing closet began with what Lindsay had to share: a utility/storage building outside of her daycare with no ai...

Sibling Struggles in Foster Care -Submitted By Oconee County Foster Mom The bubbly six year old was showing off his trademark gigantic smile, teasing my 16 year old about how beautiful she was. His effervescent personality had the entire family in stitches. How was it possible that this child could not find a place to call home? An emergency placement, “Andy” came to us at 1am with his older brother and slept until a caseworker picked him up the following morning. We bid him farewell. Andy was placed in another foster home, but the brother, being a teen, was unable to find a place to live so he came back to stay with us another night. It turns out that Andy had severe separation anxiety and really needed to be with a sibling, so Andy and his older brother came back to us for a long weekend (this was the second time he was placed with us). Fining a place for a teen and a younger sibling together in foster care is VERY difficult, so the older brother was placed in a group home an...

Never..."just a foster kid"   One Sunday, I walked up to the check in kiosk at my church with my typical 4, along with a set of sibling brothers that had joined our family.  The 5 year old was listening to me check in everyone, and then I said, "and this is our friend Ben here with us."  He looked up at the check-in volunteer and added, "I'm just a foster kid."   My world stopped spinning.  It was a great opportunity to take him over to the side hall, get down to his level, and look him in his precious brown eyes and say, "You are NOT just a foster child.  You are loved, you are special, you are important to us, and you are our friend."  Sometimes foster kids really hate being a foster kid . You may mistakenly think that since their biological families could not raise them for a season that they are magically grateful for their new place with 3 meals and plenty snacks a day, a loving family, and a safe home for a time, but even i...

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...

  If She Didn’t Say Yes, I Couldn’t Say Yes: Ode to Alternative Caregivers Every foster parent needs someone who unequivocally will step in and pick up where the foster parent runs out of time and energy. Every foster parent needs someone who might not sign the foster care contract, but signs up all the same to come alongside you and get the work of loving a traumatized child done! My alternative caregiver has stayed up all night at my home and hers with a newborn when there is no maternity leave, so I can work the next day or be coherent to spend time with my other children. When I take kids late at night, she stays with them the next day so I can get to work and they can sleep late and stay home to unwind for a day. She meets social workers when I can’t. She picks up at day care, and she’s taken foster kids to the dentist. She doesn’t ask what the child is like and doesn’t expect him/her to be an angel; She still says yes when I do. She lets us use her pool to teach fost...

In May of 2016, our family made a decision to change our lives forever. We decided to join a system I'd been part of as a baby over 42 years ago. We believed God called us to grow our family one little life at a time through foster care. We were licensed in September, and then by October we were picking up the 2 week old baby boy we'd been praying for. For 18 1/2 months we helped him grow and learn. For 81 weeks, we watched as he explored this awesome world. For 567 days, we taught him what a safe, stable and loving family/home is like. Now, this baby boy lives with his forever family, a family we love, who will give him a lifetime of chances and opportunities. Is foster care difficult? ABSOLUTELY! God never said following Him would be easy. It's hard to see his empty bed and it's quiet without his footsteps. But, it's incredible to see how God protected him from harm, used us to care for him for a season, and then provided him a family that will be th...

This foster mother shared her reflection on Mother's Day, and I thought I'd share it with you! "When I left you today I was driving to Ingles and got emotional thinking about the first time I met Jeremy. You texted in a group message that foster parents volunteers were needed to sit with a very sick baby. I actually was supposed to go to a work Christmas party that night. I decided not to go to that party because I needed to be at GHS that night. I’m so thankful I received that text, and the Lord let my heart receive him. Gosh, Jeremy has blessed my family in immeasurable ways. Every single person who meets him is crazy about him, I can’t blame them! He’s precious. I never thought my love for my biological children could ever be equal to a child I didn’t birth! Boy, was I wrong!" The rest of her story is certainly worth sharing!  The part of the story she didn't mention is that she still said that yes, to show up at a hospital for that baby, when he...

Jessica Edhlund, Mama of 2 and foster mama the past two years to nine children (so far) shares her heart today on the blog! No one understands the need for more foster parents better than foster parents themselves. Many of us are maxed out and doing more than we ever thought we could. Foster care is a community issue, not an individual one. Community members who have the great fortune of having a stable home environment and an extra bed or two can consider pitching in. Foster parents are not special people with extraordinary talents or the super human ability to not get too attached. They are regular people who decided that vulnerable children in their community deserve a safe place in a family instead of having to move far away or live in a group home. Yes, sometimes there is discomfort or emotional pain that is endured by foster parents. Better us capable adults than them. Imagine this: a child with no where to go and a dangerous living situation shows up on your doorst...

Ann Voskamp, in her book The Broken Way, dares readers to consider that life should be lived backwards if we want true abundance Jesus talks about believers experiencing. "When you are filled to the brim with the enoughness of Christ, the only way you can possibly have more is to pour yourself out. The only way to more life is by pouring out more of yourself." Feel something missing in life? Why not consider giving and serving instead of another temporal trip or purchase? Voskamp adds, "What if living the abundant life isn't about having better stories to share but about living a story that lets others live better?” Consider eternity, she says, and live backwards from there. “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what’s coming to you in this kingdom. It’s been ready for you since the world’s foundation. And here’s why: I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was hom...

Our Foster Care Journey: Stepping out to try Respite Care By Mary H, Fostering Faithfully Respite Care provider, now licensing!   Just over two years ago I began to feel the tug on my heart regarding children in foster care. I felt like I heard the need for foster parents advertised everywhere and even spent time crying in our living room floor heartbroken for the children with no one to tuck them in at night. So I started praying. God, what can I do? I need to do something, but I don't know what? Well, the Lord answers prayers and soon after Foothills Community Church played a video talking about foster care in our area advertising an evening class to get more information. I told my husband I had to go and he, not quite sure what to do with my new conviction, went with me. The class and continued prayers only increased our belief that we were supposed to get involved with foster care and it gave us a place to start. A big part of me was ready to jump right in...

We desperately need foster parents for teenagers!

March is National Professional Social Work Month Social workers are unsung heroes in our community. Unless you are in the trenches of foster care, (which so few are) you might not know that social workers have a thankless, disturbing, and overwhelming amount of work to do each day. Just this past week a caseworker was at my home at 9pm one night, and then again at 7pm another night bringing my beloved foster child home. Social workers are a gateway for many families in crisis to receive much needed services to repair their families. They are also the first point of contact for a foster child, guardian ad litem, and foster parents who are all working together to care for an abused or neglected child. Caseworkers are expected to take a work week with 173 hours and cram about 300 hours of work into that week. Caseworkers at DSS often have at least 30 children/families to serve. That may not sound like too many except that due to our shortage of foster homes half or mo...

Fostering Faithfully's subtitle is often "working together to serve foster children in our community." There is nowhere this is more apparent then at the Fostering Faithfully resource center. The center is centrally located in Oconee county at Bountyland Baptist Church/LifePoint Church in Seneca, who so generously lends us their space and also allows the Oconee Foster Parent Association to meet on campus monthly so that our families can also have a monthly time to pick up things they need! Donations from kind community members are dropped off at Upstate Children's Center in Walhalla or Oakway. We take clothing/shoes/equipment for kids ages newborn-12/14, and we keep a few things for teenage placements. Fostering Faithfully also spends funds being sure there are cribs, car seats, lice treatments, care bags with toothbrushes, etc., stocked at the center for DSS or foster parents. We have had many student organizations, community and church groups, and busines...

In 1961, Kennedy’s Inaugural address made famous the line, “ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country.” May I say that your country needs you to consider foster parenting in 2018? In SC last year, there were 18,000 reports of abuse and neglect, and we are about 1500 foster families short of what we need to care for these children who deserve a family (June, 2017). In case you didn't know yet, your state is currently fleshing out a federal lawsuit. Under the new Michelle H law, federal monitors are keeping SC Department of Social Services more accountable for a few improved outcomes for children in foster care, especially children over 6 years old. They could really use your help to do it! One of these outcomes is getting children in families where they belong, and out of hotels/group homes/institutions. When the lawsuit was filed, South Carolina placed a higher percentage of children age 12 and under in group facilities than an...

Birthdays in foster care can get BIG!   Two families recently wrote to us to thank us for birthday sponsorships for their foster children and explain that they had a beautiful day celebrating their children.     Birthdays can be an opportune time to show a child in foster care that they are loved by so many different people who are all on the same team FOR them!   One party consisted of a slumber party of all the biological children in foster care living in 4 different homes.  The foster mother wrote:   "There are six people from the biological family coming to bowl and have pizza and cake, and the cost of being hospitable added up quickly.  I am so thankful to Fostering Faithfully for helping us make it possible to invite her family to join ours to celebrate her special day."   Another foster mother wrote, " At our pizza party, w e had my family, my sister's family,  a group home coordinator ...

Faith involves more than just going to church and those idyllic motions to grow your own faith.  When many people desire to grow in their faith, they choose a mission trip as a next step.  Fostering might very well be the most affordable way to go on a mission trip, and revitalize your faith, while still getting some sleep in your own bed.  It is true that there are no real end dates for your trip, no clean-cut airplane rides home, no great sightseeing adventures to speak of, but you can certainly impact a life forever and share the gospel with a child from a different background right here in your own community!   Many forgo considering this type of mission work since fostering involves the kind of training and commitment of a marathon, not a sprint. These kinds of mission trips require the endurance that the Bible speaks about in Hebrews that you’ll have to depend on God for. Hebrews 10: 23-24, 36 (NLT)  23 Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hop...

This letter says it all!  We support foster parents as they change lives with the love they share! It really is this simple.   John 13: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.

There is nothing like the wide-eyed wonder and sparkle in a child’s eyes and sweet smile at Christmas. All year long, some foster children come into care having lost their sparkle. I met a little boy last summer, placed in a family we serve, whose personality had disappeared due to neglect and trauma. Like many foster kids I’ve known, he was withdrawn (understandably so) when I tried to chat with him on the floor criss-cross applesauce while we enjoyed some birthday cake, and quite simply he had a flat affect. But this week, months later, I got to enjoy his giggle, shoulders bobbing up and down and nose-wrinkled as his foster father affectionately told a funny story about him that week. He was so delighted to re-laugh over it. I have seen it time and time again, that as foster kids experience the cherishing and unconditional love of a family, good nutrition, safety, regular sleep, structure, and new experiences their light comes back on! Foster parents make g...