As Jacob handed his apartment keys over to me, I beamed. On this sunny May morning, Jacob was completing Olive Crest’s program for Transitional Age Youth, or former foster youth aging out of foster care. After spending four years studying and working after high school, he was ready to launch onto his own, having secured …
Foster Care
If you have had the opportunity to care for a child or children from foster care or adoption, you know the trauma they have experienced. It is difficult to look into the eyes of a child affected by trauma and not want to find help for the child. For seven years, A Home For Me …
We were sitting on the edge of our seats. Our hearts were beating a little faster by the minute. We exchanged nervous smiles. I had rehearsed what I was going to say…in the car, in the mirror, during my evening walks. Still, I had a checklist to make sure I didn’t forget anything. Finally, I …
Working in foster care is both rewarding and extremely challenging. It reaches out to the most vulnerable children. The children who have been disappointed by their birth parents. The ones who should care for them the most, helping them to know and believe that they are precious and valued! Foster Care establishes hope in a …
Not everyone can be a caseworker or a foster family, but everyone can do something. Growing up in a pastor’s home, I believed God had called me into full-time ministry. I went to Bible college, thinking my ministry would be as a pastor’s wife. (It was 1979, and there weren’t a lot of opportunities for …
I heard a slap, followed by an infant’s cry, as I approached the front door. The voice on the other side of the door said, “There. That’ll give you something to cry about, Chloe Renne”. The voice belonged to Stacey, a 20-year-old single mom. The child was 8-month-old Chloe. Chloe didn’t have a bed, …
Often, the experiences that bring children into foster care are frightening and traumatizing. They have never a experienced a love that never fails.
The couple sat nervously in my office, and the wife held a tissue to her eyes. They had come to talk to me about becoming foster parents. The concern is always the same. They have felt God pressing on their hearts that they should become foster parents for more than two years. They hear story …
“A foundational truth: Connect before correct.” Dr. Karyn Purvis
Kevin had always known he was adopted. When he was 18 months old, he had entered foster care because his mother had died from an undisclosed illness, and his father, in distress, left him with a neighbor and never came back. That was the story he grew up with, shared by his adoptive parents. The …
I believe it is imperative for families in the foster care system to have a compassionate, knowledgeable caseworker who can display empathy towards families. Many families coming into the foster care system are dealing with an array of emotions from being angry, fearful, hurt, and disappointed with themselves. It important for a caseworker to be …
When Jonathan and Lynne Walker decided to become foster parents, their three children, ages 7 to 14, both biological and adopted, were excited. They gave an enthusiastic “yes, let’s do it.” Believing the adjustment to having more children in the home would be relatively easy for their children, the Walkers had yet to experience the …
Father’s Day is to me is about being thankful to the men in our lives who take on the responsibility and obligations of guiding us through life. Most of the time, taking that responsibility begins at the birth of their child. But, sometimes God gives children their father through other paths. When a man becomes …
Psalm 68:5-6 says that God is Father to the fatherless and that He sets the lonely in families. As God’s adopted children, it is in our DNA to care for the fatherless as well. Doing so, according to James, constitutes religion that is accepted as pure and faultless by God. Right now, there are more …
I miss him. I miss my dad. My grandparents had two children, a son, and a daughter. For most of my early life, we were a family of six, my parents and four girls until my brother came. There was something special being my Dad’s girl. I was the second eldest, and it didn’t …
For years, researchers have shared how the quarter to a third of American children who grow up without a father are more likely to drop out of school, become drug addicts, and end up in poverty…or in prison. Even more heartbreaking is that some of the three million vulnerable children in America’s foster care system …
On June 21, we will recognize Father’s Day. For many, whose relationships with their fathers are strained or marked by abuse, or whose fathers are absent from their lives, this will perhaps be a difficult day. For others, who enjoy healthier relationships with our fathers, we will honor them. And, depending on our circumstances, will …
Some years ago, at a retreat for adoptive moms, I asked the question: “What do you wish you would have known before you fostered or adopted?” I wasn’t surprised by the answers. I wish I had known that I could get so angry at a child I really loved. That this would expose my wounds …
Children entering a new foster care placement need time to fit into your home.
Several years ago, while training our trauma curriculum in Armenia, I described two principles: Abuse happens in the context of an interpersonal relationshipHealing only happens in the context of a healthy, stable interpersonal relationship. Pastor Raphael, a local minister, raised his hand, stood up, and asked if he could share a story. I invited him …