This is an article that Wray and I wrote for our monthly church newsletter, The Chatter, about our foster care journey:

The smell of urine and filth assaulted my nostrils as I opened the car door to catch a glimpse of our new guests with their matted brown hair and dirt smudged faces. At 18 months old, the twins slept soundly in their car seats before the caseworker and I roused them to carry them into the house. Their huge brown eyes missed nothing as they entered our world leaving behind the neglect and abuse they had suffered at the hands of their own mother and her boyfriend.

God brought the twins into our home 11 years ago, and on their third birthday He gave them an incredible new family-a mom and dad that claimed them as their own. The twins are now in middle school and we continue to pray that God will direct their lives, and that their painful start is just a distant memory.

Our journey as a foster family began 14 years ago while in Houston after hearing about the desperate need for foster parents on the nightly news. A six year old boy carrying his baby brother was picked up by police along the freeway where he was looking for his mom who had abandoned them. The older child was taken to a foster home, but with no foster homes available for the baby, he was returned to the hospital. How could that be – no homes for children in need? We could take care of babies! And so we made a call the next day to start the process to become a foster family.

A precious 2 month old baby girl was our first guest. She arrived suffering from failure to thrive and malnutrition as her young homeless mother struggled to care for her and her 7 siblings. On her first visit to church, she would meet her future father, a nursery volunteer who showed up on the “wrong” day, but decided to stay anyway. Little did we know that he and his wife were waiting to adopt a girl from foster care, and they wanted to name her Christina. This little baby girl’s name was Christina! “Coincidences” such as this continued to happen over the next two years as God was very clearly at work leading this family to adopt little Christina. With a start like that it was impossible to not keep traveling the foster care journey.

Since then God has allowed our family the opportunity to take abused, hurting, and broken children into our home and love them as He worked out the details of their lives. Whether their stay is counted in days, months or even years, it is always a tremendous blessing to watch each scared and scarred soul blossom into a beautiful happy child. Each child arrives as a “guest” in our home, but leaves as a family member – and they all take with them a piece of our hearts as well as our love and prayers.

Navigating the foster care system has not always been easy. Revolving caseworkers, slow court proceedings, government bureaucracy, and under funding are the pitfalls that make up a less than perfect system. But regardless of the frustrations or imperfections in the system, we were always reminded that it was not the children’s fault. Children in foster care are there because of abuse, neglect and abandonment, and our goal has always been to provide a safe, loving family experience while the system makes decisions about what is best for the and their future.

As a result of our foster family journey we have a treasure trove of memories! Our little boys were 3, 6 and 9 when we made the call to Child Protective Services and began our training to become foster parents. As men now in their 20’s they have been big brothers to over 50 children of all shapes, sizes, colors, and nationalities! Our boys can change a diaper, fix a bottle, play Dora or dinosaurs, brush hair into a ponytail, and calm a crying baby. The realities of other people’s bad choices were evident in our home everyday. We didn’t have long talks about drug use or premarital sex. The boys were there as we rocked a newborn going through drug withdrawal and when we talked to a 14 year old mom about the importance of cream on a diaper rash. They also celebrated the developmental milestones of our 4 pound preemie, practiced their Spanish with many of the children, and learned how to rap from a three year old beauty. God has used every child who came into our home to teach our family about His love and compassion for each of us.

Each time our phone rings with the promise of a new guest, we begin to pray for not only their time with us, but also for their home going—whether they are adopted into a “new” family or returned to an “improved” family that is safe and whole once again. Our prayer is that someday the phone won’t ring, and there won’t be a need for foster families. But until that day comes we want to be ready to answer God’s call to take care of His children.