To give just a short back story... Tom & I went to a meeting at the Hills (our home church) a couple of years ago to find out more about foster care. We knew God was laying the burden on our hearts of orphan care but weren't sure what that should look like for our family. At the meeting we learned about Safe Families, a ministry that "hosts" children in homes while their parents deal with crisis situations. These kids aren't in the CPS system & their parents retain custody, but they need a safe place to love on them while their parents deal with some challenge - homelessness, drug addiction, joblessness, incarceration, etc. After much prayer, & some waiting on His timing for our Anna to settle into middle school, God called us into this ministry. We completed a couple months of paperwork & online training over the summer... then two days after becoming an official "host family", we took in two little boys for a 4 day hosting right before school started in August. Those four days were a trial by fire... hard, hard, & more hard. We had to pull out of the agreement to watch these boys every weekend after just those first 4 days. It was crushing & emotional. Satan was trying to change our minds & make us doubt our call to this ministry but we were determined not to let him have the last word!
Several weeks after our first hosting a 3 year old boy was placed with us for several weeks. Those weeks had their ups & downs... without going into too much detail we had more hard moments than easy ones, but overall survived with lots of funny stories (after the fact!) of our crazy days in October.
In November we had a quick overnight hosting for 2 little boys. An easy visit but it involved a tense & interesting pick up -- we were (& are still!) learning as we go what our limits, guidelines, & safety nets need to be as we figure out what we are doing!
At the beginning of December, God brought us full circle with our first hosting when that mom reached out to us to host again. This time we took in her 12 month old boy (who we had hosted for 4 days in August) & 2 month old little girl. To say our December was hectic is a huge understatement! School busyness, Judah's birthday, Christmas & ski trip preparation... all while juggling a crawling, busy one year old & tiny newborn (she had been a month early, so was still on an eat every 2 hours schedule). But it was also full of snuggles, laughs, & sweet support from neighbors, friends, & family. We got to see our big kids step up & change diapers, rock babies, give bottles, & offer grace when I lost my mind a little each day. They went back to their mom before Christmas, but we hosted them again a couple more weeks after the holidays. In February we had just the baby girl (who by then was 5 months old) for much of the month. I hope we will continue to be involved with this family as they (Lord willing!) find stability & get back on their feet.
This ministry is wonderful. It is also a hot mess. As with anything that involves loving on other people as Christ did, it's not all rainbows or happy endings. We have really ugly moments where we question what in the world we are doing. Each of our kids have questioned our family's involvement at some point. But overall, we see our family being stretched in the most beautiful ways. We see our kids being Jesus' hands & feet, which is the hugest blessing as a parent. We have grown in our marriage & deepened our friendships as we have to rely on others to just get through the week (we have had up to 3 different neighbor families helping with our kids & bonus kids at the same time). Our parents have stepped in & helped with over scheduled weekends & loved on our extras like they were their own grand babies. When we are hosting we go to bed knowing that we depended on God to get us through every hour of the day. He has been so good to us & we know that He will continue to be faithful as we continue to be involved in Safe Families.
On to the sweet pictures - we have loved on the cutest babies ever!
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