just passing through

We celebrated a very special birthday of a very special child this weekend. It was a few weeks late, and the party itself was put together at the last minute. (I have a long ways to go in the world of motherhood.) But still it came together beautifully.

One of the hardest things with foster care is the knowledge that the kids you care for, shop for, pray over, and love are never really yours. It could be said that no child is every really yours as there is never a guarantee on what will happen. But this is even more true with foster care.

Knowing they aren't yours, recognizing that they could leave at any time, is terrifying. And heartbreaking. Because for the time they are in your house you do all the things you would do for your "own" child. (And if you don't, then you shouldn't be a foster parent.)

We had a cake for the party. Minimal decorations. A fruit dish, a veggie tray, and Chik-Fil-A nuggets. There were drinks as well, and lots of laughter. It was a combination of friends from church, our family, our kids birth family, and friends from OKDHS. Without the two kids we've been entrusted to care for, many of us had nothing in common.

And yet we all spent just over two hours together at the park. The sun blazed down around us, but we were protected by a pavilion. A nice breeze came off the pond, and we found enough things to do to actually entertain a 2-year-old (and slightly overwhelm her by the amount of gifts she received).

It's hard not to be attached. To not want to interject ourselves as the family. But what I continue to find, mostly by reminding myself and our teenage foster daughter, is that we are here to serve whatever role it is that these two girls need. If that's to be a foster mom only, then that is what we are. If it's to serve a role of NiNi and PopPop, as we do to the 2-year-old, then that is what we are. Our relationships and purpose are not clear. And that's okay - so long as both girls can look back at this point in time and know they were fiercely loved, fiercely protected, and put first.

Every person deserves those things. I would say every child, but I am learning, more and more, that the teenager we have is not a child but a young woman. And it is my job to ensure she has all the tools she needs to continue a successful life long after my direct presence in her life has disappeared.

It's hard to be in this position. To sometimes be the most hated person in the room. But it is also worth it when I catch glimpses of smiles, when I hear the way a 2-year-old stakes her claim on me as "my {her} NiNi," when I watch our family touch others with our story, and when I realize that by laying myself down I am opening up a whole new world and creating a life for myself.

My entire life is overcome with a need to care for the orphaned and the fatherless. And while exhausting, I simply can not see any other way. I want every birth mother, birth father, adoptive mother, adoptive father, foster mother, and foster father (as well as all the other important relationships) to know they matter. Because we all do matter. And how blessed for a child who was once fatherless to all of a sudden have so many people who fiercely love them.

the most hated person in the room

I am the social worker. Often I am the most hated person in the room. The one responsible for ripping families apart and placing children into foster care. I take recommendations to the court and am then at the mercy of the judge and whatever decision he may make. I have been the social worker for almost five years now. It is a role I never meant to play, and yet, it is a role I know I was born to play.

I am a foster parent. A non-relative kinship foster parent caring for a 17-year-old and a 2-year-old. Often I am the most hated person in the room. The one who is not quite a parent but also more than a friend. I care for a child who does not belong to me and work with a broken system. I hear insults hurtled my way and am constantly reminded that I do not have a family of my own. That I am not the "real" family to the children in my home.

My entire life is foster care and adoption. When I go to work, I do so as a social worker. Both for a private adoption agency and then also at a state run group home. When I return home, it is to foster care where I provide all the necessities to a child that could be gone tomorrow.

There are times when I wish my life were different. Time when I wonder why God has etched foster care and adoption so deeply into my heart. Times when I truly wish I had a real desire to have a normal family - the kind of family that involves marriage and then a baby that looks like me in the baby carriage.

But I do not have that desire.

Instead, I desire to have children who look nothing like me. I want the sort of family that makes no sense to anyone else. I want to invite children of all ages into my home and love them the way Jesus loves me knowing that they might walk away from me or be taken away from me. I also want to love the broken families - the ones that have somehow wound up in the broken system that is foster care.

And I want to love others like me. The ones that struggle daily to not snap at the children that do not belong to them. The ones that aren't sure how to handle a screaming and crying child that can not be consoled following a visit with their "real" family. The ones who never meant to do this but were thrust into foster care.

God has placed a burden on my heart. It is one I can not ignore even though I have tried and tried. It has been just over five years since I first became the social worker, and I have spent every day of the past five years running from the field. Once I stopped running in June of this year, God allowed my heart to burst for those who find themselves fostering and adopting as well as for those who find themselves in need of foster care and adoption.

It has been just over a month since we received placement of our two girls. A month of adjustment. A month of conversations. A month of trying to be a mom while also making sure not to take place of the birth mom. A month of my heart breaking for all the other children who do not have a place to call home. A month of wondering if I can truly do this. A month of praying and allowing God to lead more than I ever have.

And in the days of being both a foster parent and a social worker, I have seen that it works. I have seen changes in our girls. I have felt my heart swell with pride when the 17-year-old explained that my entire life is foster care and adoption. Not because it's me but because ultimately God gets the glory in the story. And because my story just might speak to someone else and spur in them a desire to help.

We do this because He has called us to it. I am able to foster because He has given me the strength. I am able to be the executive director of an adoption agency because He has blessed me with the knowledge and experience.

I have no idea where this adventure will take me. It could be to graduate school at the University of Southern California. It could be eventually back to the Oklahoma Department of Human Services. It could be somewhere else entirely.

Wherever it takes me, I am prepared to be the most hated person in the room because I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that God created me to be both a social worker and a foster parent.

I thought foster care would be easy. I thought that opening up my home would come naturally.

After fives years in the field of social work, I had it down. I knew what to expect. I knew how to respond. I could juggle life, work, friends, and having kids. There would be unexpected things, of course, and I wouldn't always be perfect. But I would be able to handle it all.

In case you hadn't already figured it out, I was wrong. Completely and totally wrong.

no one else is coming

honoring Dr. Deb Shropshire

A little over a week ago, I joined over 100 Oklahomans for a Foster Care Forum. It was a last minute decision bred of more unexpected time off following knee surgery and the sudden need to be a part of anything that had to do with foster care, adoption, and the orphan crisis. I volunteered and greeted people as they came in. And I reconnected with several past colleagues and friends.

For whatever reason, I was called to the world of social work and child welfare immediately following my college graduation. In fact, I was offered, and then accepted, my first adult job before even graduating college. Armed with a degree in journalism, a desire to change the world, and wide-eyed optimism, I began my career in social work at the age of 22.

A lot of people didn't expect me to last a year. But I did. I lasted just under two years in permanency before accepting a job recruiting and retaining foster parents and adoptive parents. I still can't tell you why I took a job in child welfare. It doesn't make any sense.

I never really knew about the orphan crisis or the need for foster care growing up. I knew people who were adopted but that was about it. Still, I always had a desire to help people. I wanted to make a difference and had dreams of owning a ranch on the beach where kids with nowhere else to go could live.

Looking back, I now know that the dream was placed on my heart by God. He has called me to social work, to foster care, to standing in the gap and doing something that looks odd to a lot of people. He has taken a girl who grew up never knowing abuse or neglect and decided that she is to be the mother to countless children who have suffered countless hurts.

I've often wondered why I want to foster. We get asked that question a lot. I don't think there's a really good answer for it. And I don't necessarily think it's something we just want to do. Rather it's something that we feel we have to do.

One of the speakers at the Foster Care Forum said something that has stuck with me. To be fair, ALL the speakers said things that have stuck with me. But there's one thing that has stuck with me more.

It was a story told by a woman who ventured into foster care by taking a child home from the shelter for the Christmas holiday and then took two other children home for a weekend. She talked about the kids they cared for and how their stories touched she and her husband. And then she said this "I realized that no one else was coming." (Thank you, Susan Binkowski, for this.)

Right now, in Oklahoma, there are over 10,000 child in state custody. Over 10,000 children who have been neglected or abused and sometimes both. Over 10,000 children who won't sleep in their own homes. Over 10,000 children who won't wake up tomorrow morning with their birth parents.

And no one is coming for them. Social workers will seek out family members to take the children. And if there aren't family members, they will look for other people those children may know like teachers or friends. About half of the children in state custody will be placed with kinship foster families - these families who get calls in the middle of the night and of the day begging that they take placement of children who only want their mom and their dad. These families who will care for these children and try to make sense of why they're put in this position and try to figure out how they will pay the bills and feed extra mouths.

But what about the other children? The ones who don't have any relatives who can be approved or any other non-relative connections who are willing to take them. For them, no one else is coming.

People need to come. People need to open up their lives and invite in the mess that is foster care. People need to open their eyes and see the devastation that exists. And that's why we're fostering.

We're one of the foster families that is considered a kinship foster family. We're not related to the kids we're taking in, but we know them. We know their story. And when we heard they didn't have a place to go, we contacted OKDHS and said we would take them.

Our classes started on Saturday. It's the second time I've taken the classes. I took them a little over a year ago for my job, and so I was a bit bored on Saturday. I knew the material, had seen the videos, and I was just going through the motions.

We broke for lunch and went to a little Mexican restaurant. On the way to the restaurant, I commented to my husband that I wish we had invited the couple sitting next to us to have lunch with us. They aren't kinship. They're one of the ones welcoming in children they know nothing about, and I wanted to talk with them more.

God had other plans, and just after we ordered our food, we noticed a couple who was in our class sitting down at another booth. And we invited them to eat with us.

They were a kinship foster family and had taken in three children of the wife's sister. They were tired and broken down and in need of support. They needed someone who understood and were trying to wrap their minds around how they ended up as a kinship foster family. So we talked for over an hour. We let them spill their hurts and their frustrations and tried to offer some sort of support, some knowledge. We just tried to love them and tell them that we got it.

I realized then how much God has done to bring me to this place. I saw His sovereignty as we were able to be there for this family, to be the church to them and to stand in the gap along side them.

Foster care is hard. And it hurts. It makes you realize all the things about yourself that you ignore. It ostracizes you from society. People start to look at you differently. And you will lose friends.

You will always just be the foster family. You'll be the safe place for a child to sleep, but they will likely always want their parents. You will be the one to deal with anger and rage following a visit. You will also be the one to say positive things about a birth parent after they miss or cancel a visit. You will invite a child into your family and your life all the while knowing that they will choose their birth family over you.

You may not be considered a real parent. People may call you just a foster mom or a foster dad. And it will hurt. Because it's true and because you miss those kids, as difficult as they are, every single time they choose their birth family over your family.

But you will do it. You will do the sleepless nights and the angry outbursts and the parents who think you are trying to take their children. Because if you don't... then who will?

And, as Megan Dunham said, if it doesn't hurt so much then you haven't done it right.