A few months ago I met this lady. She had everything going for her. Great family. Nice house. Lots of control over her day. But she had this little voice in the back of her head telling her to get involved with foster kids. It had been there for a long time, and every once in a while she would explore her options. Attend a class. Sign up for more information. That sort of thing.
Then everything changed.
She heard about a kid who didn’t have anywhere else to go. Who desperately needed a family. She mentioned it to her husband, who didn’t hesistate. She made the phone call, and the next thing you know, their family grew.
To a casual observer, she may come across as reckless. After all, getting involved with this kid will take time away from her family. Will cost her some money and some tears. Will mess up her schedule. But the truth is, she isn’t reckless at all. She is simply wrecked. She can’t stand the idea of a kid who has no mom. Can’t imagine a teen who has no home. Can’t tolerate knowing about foster kids without doing something about it. Her heart is wrecked.
Or, perhaps you could say she is wreckless.
I wonder if Webster will add that one to the dictionary…
So I have this friend. Actually we have only been friends for a few months. But it turns out that we have something unusual in common. We both love foster kids, but that isn’t the uncommon part. What sets my friend apart is that she loves the birth parent of her foster kids. In case you blew past that, let me say it again.
She loves the birth parent of her foster kids.
She believes that she is called to do that – to create opportunities for a mom that has never had anything. To offer relationship that doesn’t have strings attached. Her husband believes it too. And her friends are starting to. In fact, she is rounding up a whole army of people who are willing to go deep with her.
To get dirty. To work hard. To hurt. To get frustrated. To pray. To encourage. To support. To hope. And most of all? To love.
It’s really what we should be about.
For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love. Galatians 5:6 (MSG)
When I was growing up, safety was the last thing on my mind. We didn’t lock our house, left our car running when we made a quick trip into the store, and walked everywhere without our parents. Not only was my community safe, my home was safe. There were no locks on bedroom doors, no worries about what might happen when my dad came home, or what my mom might be doing in the next room.
That is not true for every child.
She was 10 when I met her. She still possessed a child’s frame, with barely any evidence that she had begun the journey to womanhood. She looked fearful as she entered the exam room, and that fear increased in magnitude when I shut the door. I quickly explained that nothing would hurt, there wouldn’t be any shots – assuming that like most kids, her concern was about seeing a doctor. But the look on her face didn’t soften. I touched her arm, hoping to reassure her. She recoiled as if I had punched her. I saw her glance quickly at the male medical student who was with me, and I began to understand her concern. He and I had reviewed her basic info – the police report stated that she had been sexually abused by a male family member for a couple of years. She had finally told her best friend at school, who told the teacher, and now here she was.
Safe.
At least from our point of view. But safety is not just a location, not just about being in a place where you aren’t harmed. It is a state of mind. It is being in a mental place where a door closing doesn’t cause your heart to race. It is being able to experience healthy, normal human touch without withdrawing. It is being able to sleep without wondering when your night is going to be interrupted.
Safety is more than separation from danger. It is finding a place where you are loved, accepted, and cherished. Where body, soul and spirit can thrive. THAT is the kind of safety we must seek to provide. After all, isn’t it what WE desire? We shouldn’t settle for anything less for these kids.
My mom was visiting for Easter, and she pointed out that there were some details I left out of my recent discussion of the number of children in foster care. In particular, the fact that there are 8,400 kids in the Oklahoma foster system, but that nationally there are between 450,000 and 500,000 foster kids. In Los Angeles county alone there are 25,000 children in custody.
25,000
I grew up in a town that had an alleged population of 1300, although I always suspected that whoever counted was including everyone’s dog. To a small town girl like me, 8400 is a lot. 25,000 is difficult to imagine. And a half million completely blows my mind. Thinking about it can paralyze me, if I let it.
There is this old saying I have heard – “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” I hate that saying. Bite size pieces may be appropriate for eating an elephant steak, but they are unacceptable for changing the lives of thousands of foster children. Instead, we need to figure out how to eat the whole darn thing in a bite or two.
“The Tipping Point” is a great book on social change written by Malcolm Gladwell. Malcolm describes in great detail why change is more often like an epidemic than the steady, slow process we sometimes imagine. He argues that with the right people, the right environment, and the right message we can change the world.
Quickly.
I’m up for that. Stay tuned – more to come…
Numbers are an important part of our everyday lives. We use them to help us connect to others on our cell phones, to tell us which seat to sit in on a plane, and to help us find the correct highway. In the world of foster kids, one important number is the number of kids in custody. Thankfully, that number has been declining, from 12,000 a couple of years ago to just over 8,400 today. There are lots of ideas about why the number is declining, and certainly lots of excitement. And there should be.
That said, do not think for one moment that the work with these kids and their families is done, that DHS no longer needs the community to step up. I would argue the exact opposite.
There aren’t any fewer families who struggle.
Life is difficult. Parenting is hard if there are two of you and you aren’t worried about putting gas in the car or your next meal on the table. What if you are a single parent? What if it costs you more for a week of daycare than you earn in a week of work? What if a good day is one where the electricity and the water are both on at your house?
Look around you. On your block. At your kids’ school. Or the grocery store, or at church. There are hurting people everywhere. People who need to eat, need a ride, need a babysitter.
Or perhaps they need the most important thing of all – a friend.
Want to end child abuse? That’s how. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist. Just a servant.
Have you ever seen something that you know has been there all along, but you never noticed it before? That happened to me this weekend. If my house is ever going to resemble clean, it does it on Saturday. I used to make fun of my mom’s scheduled Saturday purging of the household clutter, but as a working mom myself, I now understand that not only is Saturday the only day available to do it, but also that without it, the mess would overtake us all…but that is another story. So during my weekly attempt to resemble June Cleaver, when I was putting away my vacuum cleaner, I leaned over to wrap up the electrical cord, and that is when I saw it. This little tool, attached to the side of the vacuum, that is for reaching into corners and tight spaces. I have needed that tool for years. And I am sure it came with the vacuum cleaner. But I have never seen it. Not once. Even though it was right in front of my nose.
She was not a very noticeable person – a little short, with shoulder length brown hair, brown eyes, and a quiet, not very memorable manner. I guess I had seen her before in the clinic, bringing in the kids she fostered for checkups or illness. At least that is what my clinic notes said. Honestly, when I went in the room this time, she didn’t seem familiar at all. We talked about the child she had with her today – general health, school, behavior, vaccines – the routine stuff. But for some reason, the conversation turned a little. I was curious why she became a foster parent. Her face changed a little bit and she paused, as if weighing her next words.
“I was never in foster care, but I probably should have been.”
She went on to briefly describe years of emotional and sexual abuse that left her broken as a teenager, looking for ways to end her life. But right in the middle of that chaos came a series of relationships that showed her she was valuable. That her brokenness was normal, it was to be expected, and it wasn’t her fault. That she was lovable, and in fact, was loved very much. It changed her, and now she has learned to love. The object of her affection? Broken kids.
It was an amazing story – one that inspired me, but also convicted me of my own inattention to what is sometimes right in front of my nose. Be sure and look around you today – there might be someone amazing in front of YOUR nose.
In-flu-ence* – [IN-floo-uhns] – verb – To quietly affect the nature, development, or condition of a person or course of events in a way that operates without any direct or apparent effort, to MODIFY.
To have world-changing influence, we must be intentional.
She was not quite 2 when they took her in from the foster agency. Her mom had a lot of struggles and could barely take care of herself, much less a toddler. Her new foster family fell in love with her immediately, enjoying her laughter and the silly tricks that she would do, but especially the brief moments at bedtime when she would sit on one of their laps and snuggle. Over time, both she and her biologic mom achieved milestones – hers included memorizing the alphabet and writing her name and learning her phone number; her mom’s had more to do with parenting classes and a steady job. And after some time it became apparent that they would reunite.
They moved a lot - never could quite achieve the stability that most people crave. She lived with her mom some, as well as a variety of extended relatives. She called her old foster family every once in a while – she had never forgotten the phone number – and every single time they inquired about her new address and made a trip to the post office, sending off a box filled with goodies.
Art supplies. Candy. Books. But most of all, love.
They were intentional in their influence. They didn’t just answer the phone and have a conversation – they acted. Even though it was painful. Even though they worried about the fact that every call was from a new phone number in a new state. Even though it took thought to adjust the contents of each box to match her age and interests. Even though there was a physical and an emotional cost associated.
To have world-changing influence, we must be intentional. We must be fully aware of the potential of our decisions, even when they seem insignificant, and we must choose to be intentional rather than careless.
So how did it turn out? One day the phone rang at the old foster family’s home. “Mom, can I come home?” It was her 18th birthday. You can guess what the answer was.
Will you choose to be intentional with the decisions you make?
From kids in foster care…
No one could really understand what my life is like. No one pays attention to what I do, or cares about how I feel. No one looks me in the eye and say “I love you and care about you,” and even if they did, I wouldn’t believe them. No one that I love has stayed around for very long. I don’t feel safe because there are too many dangerous things in the world. I hurt in ways that no one else understands. When I needed you most, you left me and now I am broken in a million pieces. Please help me put the pieces together, because I don’t know what to do.
Enough said. What will you do to help?
“Pure, unstained religion…is to take care of orphans and widows when they suffer…” James 1:27 (GWT)
When I was a kid, one of our family Christmas break traditions was working on a jigsaw puzzle. We would always get a new one with some beautiful landscape or cool collage, and we would start putting it together on the kitchen table. Anyone who wanted could take a turn at finding just the right location for each piece, until the puzzle was completed.
That all sounds like a nice family project, but the truth is that I stink at jigsaw puzzles. I can get the border together, and maybe figure out some small patches with bright colors or unique objects, but by and large, the middle of the puzzle escapes me. I get frustrated. And I start jamming together pieces that don’t always fit. Thank goodness for my mom, her geometry skills, and her patience. She could see the shapes better that I did, and could figure out how to connect them. And when she was done we all got to share in the glory of a finished piece, one that we had done together.
A dozen years ago I saw a picture in my mind of what a world without child abuse would look like. Since that time, I have been working my tail off to put the puzzle together and see that again. I found gaps in the system – needs that weren’t being met, and I met them in the best way I knew how. Health care. School supplies. Training. Hope. But the truth is, the border is barely together, and there is no way anyone can tell what the puzzle looks like yet.
And yet the pieces are coming together. Many people who hear my stories about foster kids want to know where to plug in, how to help. I have some basic answers, but the truth is that I am not very good at the details of connecting people. It is the middle of the puzzle for me. I have desperately needed to find those with different eyes, with different skills, who could complement my story-telling and connect people to needs.
The Spero Project may just be one of those. Spero’s prime objective is to connect – to bring together groups and individuals with a heart to change the world in some specific way, and to put them together so that the puzzle is complete. One of those projects is Spero:Legacy - connecting those who are interested foster kids as well as adoption. Tuesday evening Spero is hosting a meeting to discuss foster/adoption and to help individuals and groups who can see the struggle of foster kids, but don’t know what to do about it. Spero can help – you will leave the meeting with specific “next steps” for how YOU can impact the world of foster kids and change lives. You are a piece of the puzzle – it can’t be completed without you.
Avenue Class for Foster Care/Adoption – Tuesday, February 23, at 7:00. Location – 4646 N. Santa Fe, OKC, at the Spero:Resource center.
If you can’t attend, check out the website and contact them: www.thesperoproject.com
I hate moving. When I was a kid, my family moved every year or two, and it always made me sick. Hugging the toilet sick. The whole time the U-Haul was being loaded.
I didn’t really get any pleasure out of seeing my new bedroom or exploring a new neighborhood. Mostly I spent the first few days worrying. Wondering if anyone knew where I was. Would I be able to get on the right bus at school? And off at the right stop? I didn’t even know my address – how would the bus driver? Would my grandparents be able to find us for my birthday party? And how would Santa know where we were?
Those nerves could be largely settled by one simple thing – getting mail. Not mail for my parents, mail for ME. Mail meant that someone knew where I was. Mail meant I wasn’t lost. Mail meant I was thought of. And, if I was lucky and the mail was from my grandparents, it usually included stuff – stickers, toys, activity books, crayons – you get the picture.
Foster kids move a lot too – an average of 4 times in 20 months, and of kids who age out of foster care, 1/3 of them moved more than 8 times while they were in custody. Each move means a new house, new neighborhood, new school. Each move means you lose stuff that matters to you – stuff like pictures and drawings and stories you have written and favorite CD’s. Each move means new rules – new bedtimes, new chores, new ways to fold towels and make your bed.
And, they wonder if anyone knows where they are.
I wonder how much difference a piece of mail would make to a foster kid. A birthday card, a random note, a care package. How much does it matter to you to not feel “lost”, but rather “found”?
Beginning next week, my office will be sending birthday cards to the foster kids who see me for health care. What can you do? Look for opportunity. Teachers, coaches, kids pastors/church workers - take special notice of the foster kids who cross your path and send them a word of encouragement for no particular reason. Foster parents – teach foster kids your address and phone number.
