Footprints on our hearts

I thought a good place to start with our foster care story was at the very beginning. So this is how we got called into our ministry. I remember it like it was yesterday. Our boys were four and five and our daughter had just turned one, we had started talking about possibly having more kids or were we done. When one morning I awoke with a dream that I could not forget. I had dreamt that we were foster parents and had a house full of kids...when I told Chris he wondered if it was in fact a nightmare. I remember not really being too affected....until a week later. We were sitting reading the paper, when what did I see? It was a ad placed in our local paper for...yes, you guessed it...for foster parents. At this point I knew, so I told Chris, I really think we should look into this foster care thing. He wasn't quite on the same page yet....but by the next week he was. It was about one week later when our boys came into the house with a little boy who lived on our block and asked if they could go play at Mikey's house. Since we were new to the neighborhood I said o.k. but I'll have to walk over and meet Mikey's mom and make sure it's o.k. We walked down the street to Mikey's and as I spoke with his mom she invited me in. It was then that she introduced me to her foster kids...I think I started crying right then and there. I remember staying for over an hour and just talking with her about foster care. When I got back home I did cry, I told Chris, we are suppose to be foster parents we can't ignore all these signs I think this is meant for us! He agreed!

So we talked and decided that instead of having anymore kids we would become foster parents to kids who were in need of parents. We made phone calls and had workers come out and do our all our paper work. And within a few weeks we had received our first phone call. That was fifteen years ago...God has blessed us so much during those years. I still thank God for all his "signs" and prompting and for using our family. And as kids have come and gone the one thing we have always hoped and prayed for was that those kids would feel God's love and know that at some point in their life they had felt and known Jesus and His love! We prayed and continue to pray that God's will, will always be done in "our kids" lives, we prayed for their forever families and that they would know Christ at a young age. And of course God was faithful and we have so may stories that glorify God and all He has done!

Foster care is not always an easy job, its usually like riding a roller coaster and never knowing when it's going to drop or turn. Foster parents in most states have a bad reputation, unfortunately most of the stories you hear are the bad ones. But there are a lot of good foster parents too. One of the hardest things about foster care is that the better you do your job the harder it is in the end.

Our motto was "Some people that come into our lives, make footprints in our hearts, and we are never the same." We'll we know that we have hundreds of tiny little footprints all over our hearts and we are so thankful!

Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."