Yes, I'm longwinded...

Have I mentioned we are pursuing becoming foster parents? I guess things like that aren't official unless announced on a blog or facebook. :) We are done with 2/3 of our STARS classes through Children's Division! The nine week classes are one step in becoming certified as foster parents. We are excited and apprehensive about this, but have seen the Lord lead us here, so we're taking baby steps of obediance to see what happens! Did you know there are around 9,000 children in foster care in Missouri and 2,700ish of those are waiting to be adopted? Check out the statistics here on Focus on the Family's webpage. They compare the number of waiting children (kids in foster care eligible to be adopted) to the number of churches in the state. Pretty humbling numbers!

Now I have to admit that I'm a little nervous to talk too much about foster care. What if it is too hard? What if I can't "love and let go"? What if we try to adopt and it doesn't work out? What kind of "issues" will the children that come to our home have? Jimmy and I are not claiming to be certain that we can "handle" this. We are not saying that we won't pursue another private or international adoption or a biological child. We're just saying- when we pray and discuss growing our family and we see the great need around us, we feel led to give it a try.

Overall, people around us have been supportive when we talk about foster parenting or adopting through the foster system, but we do get some funny looks sometimes. There is the two-eye brows up "What the heck are you thinking?" look that is masked with a comment like "Foster care, eh? That's great for you." Or the "Oh I could never love and let them go." or "The system is so messed up and so are the kids." After some responses, I have this mini-sermon that I play in my head, never quite sure if I should risk offending someone by saying it aloud. It goes like this: "Yes, I can't imagine how heart wrenching it will be to love a child and have to let them go. And yes, the system is not great and the kids can have crazy issues. HOWEVER, in most cases, it is NOT the fault of the children and those kids deserve love and family, too. Someone has to care for these kids- we can't all just say "it's hard and scary". As a couple who says that God is our strength and that obeying Him and his lead is our goal, how can we not give this a shot?"

I'm not saying everyone should be foster parents or adopt. Don't misread this. I'm just saying that I think as Americans, we can get really comfortable to the point that we shy away from challenges or hard decisions. So I want to say 'Let's all put our big girl/boy pants on and really ask the Lord what He is calling us to do.' There are lots of needs out there- lots of places to take steps of faith and to be hugely blessed by obediance. It is such a satisfying place to be. We've had tastes of that and there is nothing better! We've also passed it by several times and I'm sure missed out on some incredible blessing/lessons.

So here we go...

End of tirade. :)