Tuesday, August 28, 2007

How we got here.

I often get asked why we chose foster care. I came from a big family, didn't really enjoy being pregnant, my husband's grandparents were foster parents way back when. It was just the perfect storm.

Our journey into foster care began almost five years ago. We attended an orientation that wanted us to be involved in a local church. We were not even attending a local church, let alone involved in one. I had been a Christian for a long time, but I was run out of the church in my late teens. I was not the type of girl that most churches welcomed with open arms. My husband wasn't even sure he believed in God at the time. We decided to give it a try, if it didn't work out we could always find another foster agency that didn't have such suggestions. We were not sure where to go, but we were sure where we would not go.

Well, our journey brought us to a church we'd heard about. We had met someone who went there and LOVED it, most people however, rumored it to be a cult or something of the sort. There were a couple thousand people in attendance every weekend, we were sure we could get in and out without notice so off we went. Traditional they were not, it was more like a rock concert for God. At the end of the service all adults were asked to take a red envelope. Inside that red envelope was a hundred dollar bill and a request to bring it back tenfold the following week. Well that guaranteed us coming back next week. Not with two thousand bucks, but to return the two hundred dollars, we did not want to take God's money.

Two weeks has turned into five years. Two thousand will soon be ten thousand. It's still a rock concert for God every week. And we are involved. The funny thing about it is, the agency who originally had asked us to be involved in a local church had to leave town due to budget cuts and never placed one child with us. We have had several kids in our care, most for long periods of time. We are praying that our fostering days will soon be over and we can adopt the kids that have been with us for the last two and a half years.

This may not seem like a foster care story, but believe me. Without the local church involvement, we would not be foster parents, and we would probably not even be married at this point. Bay Area Fellowship welcomed us into the house of God, where God could change our lives, and equip us to be a family. A family born from the heart of God

2 comments:

Christina Ketchum said...

That is an amazing story!!! BAF is blessed to have you attending and leading in the church!!!

Christina

Canadian Bird said...

That IS an amazing story! I've heard of the "red letter day" at BAF, but that was a little before my time. Isn't it amazing the people (or agencies) that God places in our lives to lead us back to Him!