Fostering Faithfully

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 ...