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Many Sides to Mother’s Day

Sometimes we live in an alternate reality. Maybe it is the TV that we watch or possibly just how we wish things could be. In our perfect TV world, Mother’s Day is a day full of joy to celebrate those amazing women in our lives who raised us. It is also a day for the munchkins and husbands to celebrate just how much they love mom.  Perhaps your day is filled with breakfast in bed, homemade cards, and lots of hugs and smiles. Maybe you are the one showing mom appreciation by buying her flowers and taking her out to lunch or doing something special.  It is easy to forget that we live in a broken world and Mother’s Day might not be full of smiles and joy. Sometimes because of circumstances beyond our control, our Mothers are not around. Maybe you would give anything to spend just five minutes with your mother. To hear her voice, see her smile, and feel her hug. Possibly your mom was not a part of your life and there is a special lady that took her place. No one can ever replace your mom but maybe this woman loved you as if you were her child. Could it be an Aunt, a Grandmother, a Foster Mother, an Adoptive Mother, or even your Step Mother?  Maybe your heart aches for a child and someone to call you mommy. There are several stories in the bible of women in this circumstance. My favorite is the story of Hannah. She longed to be a mother so much that she begged God to give her a son. In fact, she made a covenant with him that if he would bring her a son she would willingly give him back to God in order that he may serve him. God did indeed bring her that son. Is your heart overflowing with love for a child that you did not give birth to? It is amazing how God can fill your heart with love for a little being that does not even belong to you. Maybe they are in your care for a few days, a few months, or a lifetime. They may never show their gratitude for the love that you have poured into them. You may not receive a card on Mother’s Day saying how much you are loved and appreciated. Let us share with you just how much you are!  God is a “father to the fatherless” and I like to think a mother to the motherless. He uses you and your overflowing heart to be that mother. Don’t be saddened or discouraged on this day. Know that no matter what situation you find yourself in your heart is capable of big love for a little one that needs it. To all of those moms out there (Biological, adoptive, foster, step, and moms at heart) know that you are loved and appreciated. Thank you for giving up your personal time and your personal space to meet the unrelenting needs of your little or perhaps big one. The packed lunches, special breakfasts, I need a snack, I’m thirtsties, and I don’t like thats. The endless chorus of Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom.  Don’t forget about all of the lost things that only You can find. Or the scraped knees and tears that only a  Mom’s love can fix. The million diapers you have changed, thousands of meals you have prepared, and hundreds of loads of laundry you have done. Life would be missing something without your encouraging words, discipline to keep your little ones from going astray, and your love that overflows your heart. To everyone that is a mom at heart, Happy Mother’s Day! SaveSave

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Designing a Room for Foster Care

Questions to think about… How do you design a room for foster care? The pile of paperwork has finally been approved and you are now ready to start accepting foster children. You might be feeling instantly overwhelmed. What do you need now? How do you set up a room for a child you have never met?  You are willing to open your heart and home to a child in need. How do you create the perfect room? You may have one room for girls and another for boys. Possibly you only have one room available for foster children. There are a few things to consider when you are designing a room. What age children will you be accepting into your home? Are you accepting a specific gender or both? How many rooms do you have available for children? Do you have a room for girls and a room for boys or just one room for anyone coming into your home?  In my case, I had one room available for children that enter my home. If that is the case for you, I would recommend painting the walls a neutral color. This will allow you to make a few simple changes and turn your room into a comfortable place for anyone that comes into your home.  Think simple. Sometimes children will come for a short time and they just need a warm conformable place to stay. Other times it might be a longer stay. If this is the case they will probably want to make the room more of their own.  On with the design… There are a few easy options when it comes to bedding. You can start with something very neutral that can easily be adapted for a boy or a girl. The room in my house has a neutral bedspread that is on the feminine side. I have another one in the closet that I can quickly switch out if a boy will be staying in the room. Another option would be to take your new placement shopping to pick out their own bedding. This may or may not work depending on your placement. When I have a child in my home I want them to feel special and feel like they belong. This is their space in the home and I want them to feel like it is warm and inviting. There are pictures on the wall. I feel like it makes the room less sterile. A cost-effective trick was to use a calendar. I have 4 frames on the wall that I got with coupons from Hobby Lobby or JoAnnes. When I know that I will be having little ones in the house I have some very cute Winnie the Pooh pictures in the frames on the walls. They are easy to switch out with other pictures. Calendars often have beautiful pictures and can be purchased for about ten dollars. It is very simple to make it more personal for the child. Do you need a crib? If you are taking young children I would recommend finding a crib that can convert to a toddler bed. This will maximize your use. You can set your room up with the crib in place if you know the age group you will be taking needs a crib. If you are taking a wider range of children consider having a pack-and-play type of portable crib. You can keep it under the bed or in the closet. It is available for those emergency placements and then will give you time to set up the crib.  A few things to ponder… Ensure that you have some storage for the child’s belongings. Sometimes they will come with nothing more than the clothes they are wearing. Other times they may come to you with a carload of things. If this is the case they can be very protective of their things. It is often the only thing they have control over. Ensure that they have a place to keep these things. An empty dresser for them, some toy bins, or some shelves. This is a great way to help them feel like they belong and are not just strangers passing through. I think it is also helpful to have a photo frame available for the child to put in a photo of their family or a previous foster family. Even though their previous situation may be difficult, that family might be all the child knows and they will still love them.  To summarize, less is more. Start with a warm blank canvas. The child coming into your home has very little control over what is going on in their life. The more control that you can give them the better they will feel. Keep in mind that they have a lot going on. You might put a lot of hard work and effort into designing the perfect room for them. In their minds though, it might not be “their” room and for that simple fact, they may not like it.  Keep it simple and give them the option to create their own room. SaveSave SaveSave SaveSave

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A Little Boy and a Lot of Faith

Growing A Lot of Faith for a Little Boy Has life ever taken a turn that you never expected? How did you handle it? Did you turn to God? Do you have a relationship with God or just an acquaintance? Growing up, I went to church every Sunday with my family and loved going, but did I have a relationship with God? The answer is no. I believed in Him and prayed every once in a while when I remembered but I did not have a relationship with Him. I was like every little girl that I knew. My goals were to go to college, get a job, marry a handsome man, and have children, lots of children! I went to college but did not graduate. Then I found a handsome husband that was wrong for me. I lived a dark and depressing life for 2 years when I found out that he cheated on me. What? We went to church every Sunday and talked about the bible all the time. We should be living a great life, but we didn’t have a relationship with God. Once I found out about the cheating: I prayed, went to church, and spent time with my college friend that had a great relationship with God. I knew that I loved God and wanted Him in my life, but I still had no relationship with God. Fast forward several years after my divorce and I found an amazing man who had the same rough path I had walked. We got married, and wanted to add to his 2 children and live an amazing life; but, we couldn’t have children. We talked and prayed and found out about fostering. Journey to Foster Parenting Our journey had a really rough start, we were turned down in the beginning because my step-children complained to their mother about us fostering. She called DCS and put a stop to our application. Talk about a rough patch, there went all of our dreams of growing our family. This put a wrench into our family and our relationship with each other. I prayed and asked God why this was happening.  I never had a relationship between trust and true belief so I thought I got no answer. This was in December of 2012 and in April of 2013, we received a phone call from DCS asking why we stopped our application process. What!? We explained what had happened and were in disbelief that the process was continuing. For those months we thought our prayers had been heard and that HE didn’t care about us. In reality, He was working behind the scenes the entire time. In July of 2013, we became certified foster parents. Our amazing foster care specialist came to do our home study and spoke to the children. She discovered that they were just scared of the unknown and took it to their mother instead of talking to us. In late August, we got a call for 2 boys. I wanted so badly to say yes but my husband did not want to and so I answered, “no thank you.” I was devastated!!!! He didn’t like the circumstances and I couldn’t see anything but losing a chance to become a mother. I prayed and cried but nothing changed. We had a 2-week vacation planned in September. We returned and the very first day, we got another call. Again, I was so excited; however, my husband did not want to take a child on our first day back. First Placement On October 9th, I was at work when I got the call!! I was so excited and was tempted to just say yes without talking to my husband. Instead, I waited and spoke to him. We agreed we would take this little one. He had just been born and was positive for drug abuse. We got to visit him in the NICU and the second I picked him up, I knew! This was going to be our son; God was talking to me! I couldn’t believe the overwhelming feelings I was having. I felt connected to this little baby that was crying, shaking, and suffering. At that moment I thanked God for letting me become this little boy’s foster mom, but something inside me was telling me that this wasn’t just going to be my foster son. Instead, he would be my son. I just knew it. I couldn’t explain how I knew it, but I did. We went every day to the NICU and held this precious, beautiful little boy. Every day I fell more in love with him. We brought him home when he was 3 weeks old and had 2 solid months with him at home before DCS mentioned visits. We went to the DCS office to meet with the parents and have a CFTM (which we didn’t know what that was at the time). While meeting the parents I felt love for this woman even though while she was pregnant with my boy, she used drugs. I watched her hold him differently than I, burp him differently than I, and talk to him differently than I but loved her. We went home that night and I decided that I wanted her to succeed! I wanted her clean, healthy, and to be a good mom! Our Rollercoaster Ride Unlike most foster parents I know, we gave out our phone numbers to the biological parents and expected them to use them during emergent times like helping them through hard times or just letting them know we care and support them. That is not what they used it for. The biological father called me every day to tell me he didn’t want our beautiful baby boy, that he didn’t love him, and wanted the biological mother to give him up for adoption. He wanted to know if we would adopt. Of course, we would adopt! We loved him and our love for him was still growing! Fast forward

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What you can do for vulnerable children.

You feel the pull in your heart to help vulnerable children in the world. Where do you start? What can you do to help? In 2015 there were over 500,000 children in foster care in the United States. If that number is not shocking to you let me share another. Around the world, it is estimated that there are over 140 million orphans. There are so many things that you can do to make an impact. Open Your Home One of the most common things we think of is fostering. Fostering is an opportunity for you to allow children in your home. These children are placed in your home by the Department of Child Services (or your state’s equivalent) They have been removed from their homes for a multitude of reasons. The goal is often for these children to be reunified with their biological parents. This can be a short process or can take a couple of years. There are also children in foster care that are waiting to be adopted. Possibly they are orphans or their biological parents have had their parental rights terminated. There is an organization called Safe Families. This organization helps families before they enter the DCS system. Becoming a safe family is similar to becoming a foster family. The children have not been removed from the home by the court system. Parents that are going through a hard time and need help with caring for their child can seek out safe families. Adoption is another way to help vulnerable children in the United States and around the world. This is an opportunity to give a child a forever home. There is often a lot of help and grants for people who are adopting out of foster care, adopting older children, and children that have special needs. Adoption from other countries can sometimes be more difficult as you need to work with the United States government and the foreign government to get all of your adoption papers in alignment. Use Your Time Maybe you are thinking that all of that is great but you are currently not in a position to bring a child into your home at this time. Have no fear, there is plenty that you can do to help vulnerable children! Consider volunteering to be a mentor for a child in foster care. Children are often moved from place to place and need someone consistent in their lives. As the old sang goes, it takes a village to raise a child. This is a great opportunity to support them as they grow up and give them someone to lean on. If volunteering is in your heart another way to volunteer is to become a court-appointed advocate. A child’s life can be messy. There are many people involved in a child’s case. There are the foster parents, the biological parents, the DCS worker, and the judge all making decisions for the child. A court-appointed advocate is someone that fights for what is best for the child. Child advocates visit the child and are involved with their case. Help a foster family for a day if you don’t have time to get involved on a consistent basis.  Foster parents are often overworked and exhausted. Bring them dinner one evening, volunteer to do some laundry, or mow the gross. You could also offer to run errands for the parents one day or just come over and give them company. Consider volunteering with an organization. You might be doing things such as paperwork, preparing for a charity event, volunteering at an event, going to another country to build an orphanage, or working in one. There are many organizations that help both here and abroad. Give Your Money Our time is a valuable commodity. There are so many things that we can do if we just put a little of our time into the effort. Another way that you can help is with your pocketbook. The needs are limitless. Do something small such as providing a foster family with an item that they need for the new child that is placed with them. You could bring them a box of diapers or dinner for the family. Looking a little broader you could donate to a foster agency or DCS. These funds could go towards getting children things that they need or even helping to send them to camp in the summer. There are also opportunities to donate to help someone cover the fees of an adoption. Other opportunities might include donating to an organization that builds and runs orphanages in other countries. This is just a small list of ideas to help support vulnerable children. The opportunities are endless to help support children of the world. Whether you open your home to one of these little lives or you support them in other ways you are more than needed. Open your heart to the little ones in this world that are vulnerable and alone.

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