Understanding Fostering, Adoption, & Orphan Care

Let's talk about adoption and foster care. Some adopt to expand their families. Others personally feel a command to "look after the orphans" (James 1:27). Recently, I sat down with my friend Holly to learn about her journey of foster care and adoption. It was eye-opening and inspiring, to say the least. 

Join us for a conversation that's not just about building a family, but about redefining what it means to love unconditionally.

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Transcript

Holly: 0:00

Let's move forward with this as a way to continue to build our family. Me, this is what I want to do to build my family. Once we knew that this child was going to come to our home and we began to learn his story and read his case notes and see his struggles, I remember the moment that my motivation changed. This isn't about me One in another son, one in another child in my home. This is because a child needs a home.

Heidi Franz: 0:29

Welcome back to Parenting 2 Impressed, your go-to podcast to learn practical ways to love God and love others and impress this on the hearts of your children. I am your host, heidi Franz, a mom who has made a lot of mistakes but has found grace and truth along the way. Today I'm joined by a special friend of mine, holly, and she's going to be talking about fostering and adopting. Holly, when I think about fostering and adoption and doing it well, you immediately come to my mind. You have done this beautifully and I think your story can really help other parents who are thinking about fostering, thinking about adopting or trying to figure out how do I love on somebody else who is fostering or adopting. Holly, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you, that's nothing but humbling to hear.

Heidi Franz: 1:24

Well, it has been a joy walking through this journey with you from afar, because we don't live near each other but being able to watch you love on this little boy so well. Bring him into your home in such a way that I don't think this child ever is concerned about where do I fit in? So, holly, tell me about your story.

Holly: 1:51

It is a long time thing that has been my heart to do. I have a lot of adoption in my family. My husband has adoption in his family. I have friends who are adopted. I've always been around it. It's not something that's been foreign to me.

Heidi Franz: 2:06

Do you think that was a help or a hindrance? I think it was a help.

Holly: 2:10

I think it was something that always in the back of my mind, it was almost a goal, something that I just wanted to do in this life. My husband went to seminary. One of his seminary professors spoke one time about fostering adopting and he said if anybody needs to be fostering adopting, it's Christian families.

Heidi Franz: 2:31

So at that point.

Holly: 2:32

That's really when he started to think about it. You know, when I have family of my own before we even met, is this something that I want to do? And he felt like it did. After those years of wanting to do that, I became a teacher and it didn't take long to see that some kids just simply need to be in a different home to thrive Really. That's just always been there. When we were dating, we talked about all the things you talk about before you get married. How many kids do you want?

Holly: 3:02

what's your vision and both of us we would like to adopt at some point whether we have our kids of our own or not, we would still like adoption to be part of our story.

Heidi Franz: 3:12

I love that. So you chose faster adoption. Tell me how you came to that decision?

Holly: 3:20

Mostly because we became aware of the need. The need is huge. You can go a lot of directions with fostering, adopting. You can do it locally, you can do it internationally. Having taught, I think, I saw the need was so big locally. That's just where my heart went. I was in agreement with that, that fostering and adopting was what we wanted to do. There's also the obvious practical monetary look at that. Fostering to adopt, while it comes with some risk, that does not cost a lot. That's something that you can just do and it's not a financial burden to you. To do the straight adoption process, that's where a lot of people get a misconception of. Well, it costs a lot of money. If you just do that, that is something where you see families raising money to be able to adopt. But to do the process of fostering to adopt, that's not something that would have cost us a lot.

Heidi Franz: 4:22

Tell me, how did you get started in foster? What did you have to do? And I assume this varies by states.

Holly: 4:31

This varies by states. Anything that I say will be based on our story in our state, in our county. Even from county to county in your own state can be different. Really Okay, Things can vary quite a lot and they can vary from year to year. Laws, regulations are always changing. Anything that I say would be what happened in our county, in our state, during the time period that we did it. The way we got started on the journey was we chose an agency that we wanted to do our process through and they randomly throughout the year, have informational meetings. We had been talking about it for a while and finally just thought let's just go to a meeting, let's just go listen, see what they say, see if we feel like it's time. And so we went to an informational meeting and I mean it just spoke to both of our hearts let's just start, let's just start the trainings, let's just go and see where it leads.

Heidi Franz: 5:32

Feel like the trainings that you went through prepared you for what was to come.

Holly: 5:39

You know, the training that we went through was a Christian organization and really I would say of them that they trained us the best that they could. They told us scenarios, they prepared us on. What questions do you ask when you get those placement calls? What information do you ask? Don't just accept the first call. Find out some things. They prepared us the best they could on. You know your child that you bring it to your home could deal with this. How are you going to help them if they're struggling with this area and that area? Do you want to be in contact with bio family? When we came away from it and looking back at it now, I feel like they prepared us the best they could.

Holly: 6:21

You know, never know what's gonna happen.

Heidi Franz: 6:24

That's great. Let's dive a little bit deeper into your story. So you have a biological son. How old was he when you started the, the foster adoption?

Holly: 6:32

We started our training when he was four and the training took in 10 or 11 Monday evenings, I believe is what it was. By the time we actually had our foster child in our home.

Heidi Franz: 6:45

He was five. Yeah, he was pretty young. So tell me, how did you prepare him? What did you do? Because you're not just bringing a child into your life, you're bringing a child into his life.

Holly: 6:59

Right.

Holly: 7:00

Well, he had wanted a sibling for a while and had been talking about it, and once we decided we were gonna start this path, we just explained things to him the best that we could.

Holly: 7:12

You know, every time we go to a meeting, my parents would keep him at home with them and we would tell him you know, this is what we're gonna go do, in language that he could understand. We just kind of always kept an open dialogue about it to where he could ask questions. And then, of course, once we got to the point where we're gonna actually meet the child going to foster, he went with us. He was part of the meeting and played with them and was around him and was around the family that our now son was currently with. Once we got on the path of knowing he was going to come to our home, he helped prepare the room, he helped daddy put the crib back together and just talking to him, answering any questions that came up in his mind. Letting his teacher know at school was a big thing, because sometimes they'll go away from us and they'll think of things that they're maybe even more comfortable asking their teacher about.

Holly: 8:03

Right and so we made her aware and said anything that he asks, answer it. If you don't know how to answer it, let me know. We'll talk about it at home.

Heidi Franz: 8:12

So it sounds to me, Holly, what you did was very similar to what a family would do in a situation where they were bringing home a biological child. I mean, you're having conversations, you are involving the child in the preparation, you're available for questions and you lay that foundation that questions are welcomed and are okay.

Holly: 8:39

Yes, I think you have to because, especially at his age, you never know how they're processing things. You know you don't know what they understand and what they don't, and he had no frame of reference for a sibling, so really just just talking about it, trying to prepare him the best we could.

Heidi Franz: 8:55

Going from a single child home to having two children that's a big change for any child for sure. Tell me, how did you protect him in this and again, this is going to fall in with a biological child as well as with fosterer adoption but how did you protect his space, how did you protect his things so he didn't feel like he was losing all of himself in this?

Holly: 9:26

I think protecting his space was something we learned. You know, when you bring home a newborn baby, they're pretty much just laying there.

Heidi Franz: 9:35

You know they're not in a whole.

Holly: 9:36

Yes, what we brought into our home was a 20-month-old that wanted to play with his toys.

Holly: 9:43

So, he had a lot of things that came with him that he had been playing with in a previous foster home, but then we also had our son's toys. So we just kind of had it all together and, you know, we allowed our older son to play with our foster child's toys and we kind of kept it in the mix. But when we pretty quickly realized that our son really needs some time to be able to just do his thing without the new guy in the middle of all of it, so I think we learned to protect his space.

Heidi Franz: 10:12

Yeah, and I think that's so important, especially for a child is going well. Where do I fit into this situation now? Because I did have mom and dad's full attention and now in certain situations, it can be that this child is going to need a lot of attention and a lot of focus, which I know just in talking to you. That's kind of part of your story.

Holly: 10:37

Yes, definitely learning a balance. I would say we're doing that to this day. It's a little more even now, because they both have their separate needs.

Heidi Franz: 10:46

Well and, knowing you and your husband, I have a feeling that you guys did a great job about dividing and conquer.

Holly: 10:54

We have a rhythm. We've had to had routines of. This is what I do.

Heidi Franz: 11:00

Which I think hits on a very important topic that before you decide To foster, adopter, even to have a biological child, you have to be on the same team and be ready, because it is not a one-sided situation. You have to be 100% in on this.

Holly: 11:20

Yes, definitely. There definitely needs to be agreement between the two of you. You know, especially when you bring a child into your home, that is more than likely going to have needs and going to need some attention in some areas and it's going to have setbacks or trauma or Needs for therapies that you had nothing to do with. You're not the cause of it, you weren't there for it, we should hadn't happened. But now here you are trying to help this child overcome these things. So it definitely needs to be something you're both on board with, because there's gonna be some work.

Heidi Franz: 11:54

Speaking of work, holly, what were you not prepared for? What surprised you? What do you wish you would have known? What would you tell another mom who's sitting there going? Hey, I'm thinking about this.

Holly: 12:07

You can only prepare so far.

Holly: 12:10

For fostering and adoption. You go to the trainings, you listen to everything they say and you take it to heart. You do your best to become, you know, mentally knowledgeable about what you need to do. As far as preparing for the child's arrival, that's very different than bringing a baby home from the hospital, because you have nine months to think and prepare and get the right size of clothes, the right gender of clothes, prepare the room, have the baby showers. As far as preparing for who's gonna come to your home, I mean, most times you really can't someone's just gonna call you one day and say I have a such-and-such age little boy.

Holly: 12:54

He's got these issues. Can we bring him to your home today? And you mean likely don't have those size of clothes or a high chair or you know they need. There's a lot of preparation that you can't do, so you mostly just kind of have to prepare your mind and your heart to be open and Just be ready to move, be ready to take a man and deal with what should they come with and then Gather what else you can ask friends, anybody have that support group.

Heidi Franz: 13:25

Were you ever called and asked to take a child that you did not feel would be a good fit for your family? Yes tell me about that.

Holly: 13:34

The phone calls always went to my husband because that was just the name that was on file. Okay, there were a handful of times that my husband got a call and said, okay, I need to call my wife and I will get back to you, and he would call me. And I mean it was agreement every time, for different situations, for different reasons. Pretty quickly, in talking back and forth, we would agree that's not a fit for us. Of course, you always want to be open to what God has for you. First it's you cannot plan your life and you cannot plan what's going to come into your home. But you do also have to have some common sense on what is practical or your current situation, because they are going to come into your life.

Holly: 14:19

You have to think of things. What's feasible? Do we have a bed for this child? How many beds do we have? What age do we want? What situations are we willing to deal with? What do we want our son to not be exposed? You really have to think it through and, yes, there were a number of phone calls that we said no to. That is not easy, because you know they would come and be safe with you right by saying you know you don't know where they go. So you cry the rest of the day and I remember those phone calls to this day and hope the best. But, and again, we never regretted any of the no's because it just wasn't the fit. Just wasn't the fit for our family.

Heidi Franz: 15:06

So I think maybe one of the things from hearing your heart that you would prepare somebody with is just the freedom to say no, this isn't a good fit, and the understanding that not every child that potentially could come in your home means that's God's will or God's desire for your family, and I so appreciate how you said is this a good fit for our son Holly? I'm sure you know this as well, but I know so many families who have lost relationships with their biological children through the process of adoption and I can't say why that happened. But that is so wise, I think, on your part to take into consideration what is going to be best for my son right now.

Holly: 16:01

Having a biological child and bringing an adopted son into the situation. I can see how you would do that, especially if you feel like you've got a well adjusted, smart, thriving child, a child in that's super needy. Well, of course, do kind of have to mentally remind yourself keep them all in check, right?

Heidi Franz: 16:23

I'm going to ask a tough question, oh boy. Do you feel that everyone is called by God to either faster or adopt?

Holly: 16:36

No, no, I don't. When people think about fostered adoption, especially from the Christian perspective, there's the verse James 127,. Religion that God, our Father, accepts as pure and faultless, is this to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. Now, obviously, god absolutely means what he says and there are a number of times through scripture we see that God sees the orphans and he sees the widows. What I read was the new international version and it says that we are to look after orphans.

Holly: 17:15

I was just curious yesterday and looked that verse up. In different translations it said different things, like we are to visit the orphans, we are to take care of the orphans, we are to reach out to the orphans. I didn't find any evidence that it says that everyone is to take them into your home. I think you need to be open to that, because the numbers of kids that need homes is very high. But that's not to say that if you don't feel God leading you to do that, god doesn't have a plan for you in it. You can give to agencies that support these children, you can support the family that adopted them, you can offer respite, you can be their friend, you can listen. There are lots of ways that you can look after, visit, take care of, reach out to orphans, without going through the whole big process that my family has and I feel like God still sees and honors that?

Heidi Franz: 18:08

Yeah, absolutely. I would say the same thing, looking at the verse go you into all the world. That doesn't mean that all of us moved to Africa. We are to be missionaries wherever we are. We are to love the widows, we are to love the orphans in whatever manner God calls us, but I believe firmly that not everyone is called to bring these kiddos into their homes. On the moral side, I would love to foster. I could give them the love and support that they need, but I know it would not be a good situation for one child in particular in my home. Bringing in foster kids would not provide him what he needs, and so that is something that we have to, I believe, take into consideration. What would you add to that?

Holly: 19:05

Oh, that's absolutely true. I wouldn't let lack of a background keep you from fostering or adopting, because through fostering and adopting we have built a village. Exactly, you build a circle. Our son he was 20 months old when he came to our home. He still was not walking, he still was not talking and, just naturally, those things were not going to happen. He needed speech therapy, he needed physical therapy. I did not know how to do that. Now his previous foster home already had some things in place for him that we continued, and it was a situation where those therapists came to our home and they taught us how to help him.

Holly: 19:48

Yes, that's very important that you find out what your resources are around you, decide what you're willing to take on their worst scenarios my husband and I were not comfortable with. But a child who needed speech therapy and physical therapy, I can do that. Learn how to talk, I can help. He came to us with leg braces. If he needs them his whole life, I'm okay with that. I can help him with that. You just have to decide what you're feel capable of or what you're feel capable of learning.

Heidi Franz: 20:18

I love that you have to be willing to become a student. You do of that child and that child's needs, and I would say that as a parent as well. But I love what you said, that you don't have to have the background, but you have to be willing to pull the people around you, like the therapist who can help you in that. Yes, yes definitely, Holly. I think you have given some Fantastic suggestions. What else would you suggest to those who are thinking about adoption or foster?

Holly: 20:52

Well, I know, for me personally, my motivation was to add another child to her family, and Fostering, adopting, was the way that we wanted to do it. It was just the route that we had always wanted to go, something we always wanted to do and without timing was right. Let's move forward with this as a way. Continue to build our family. Me, this is what I want to do to build my family. Well, once we actually had the child in view and we knew that this child was going to come to our home and we began to learn his story and read his case notes and see his struggles, I remember the moment that my motivation changed. This isn't about me. It's not about me. This is not about me one in another son or one in another child in my home. This is because a child needs a home. Wow, you really want to go at fostering, especially adopting, from the perspective of I Want to give a child a home that needs a home. Bring the child to me that needs my home.

Heidi Franz: 22:05

Yes.

Holly: 22:06

I think God puts it in your heart to do it or you wouldn't do it Right. But the motivation really needs to be from the perspective of the child.

Heidi Franz: 22:15

Kids need homes, lots and lots of kids need homes and someone may need your home, and isn't that just the Christian life as a whole? Our focus is on what does God desire for us to do, not what we want. Yes, and how is this going to fit into our plan and our desires? It's god. What do you want from me In this vapor of a life? To quote Ecclesiastes Exactly? One of the things that I want to also talk about is the relationship between your biological son and your adopted son. Then, all the conversations I have had with you, holly, I have never felt this divide In your voice. They are your Boys. You don't call him one your biological and one you're adopted. I think if the situation wasn't right.

Holly: 23:13

I think it could feel that way. I think you could feel the separation. But when you get a child that really is a fit for your home, they fit. I think there was a period of time where we still Kind of explained it that way to people, but it was more because we were just. We just really thought it was cool what had happened to our family. You know, we just adopted him, we were happy about it and we shared it that way like you would present to. You know, we had a baby and you want to show the world. But then we just kind of dropped that, kind of decided we don't need to say that anymore. And then you get to the point where you don't even think it anymore. He's not our adopted son, he's our son. You don't even feel the separation of it anymore.

Heidi Franz: 23:58

That's a great explanation. It's the same way that I don't call my 13 year old the baby anymore. If that would happen, in my mind he would still stay my baby. We have to, with our words, exemplify what we want our heart to believe and what we want our heart to feel, and I know you feel that way. Listen to you, talk about it. He is your child that God gave you, just like your biological is the child that God gave you, and you guys have done an amazing job at just showing what faster and adoption can be, should be. Every time you text, you won't believe what he just did and how far he's come, and it just thrills my soul. This is what. This is what faster and adoption is all about.

Holly: 24:53

I have never seen favor like I have on this child. God really does see the orphan. I cannot believe the way he is loved everywhere he goes, whether people know the story or not. I see favor on him, it follows him and our family has been blessed as a result of him being here, things that we would not have received if he weren't here.

Heidi Franz: 25:23

I know, holly, this wasn't part of your story, but let's say, adoption was something that God. You felt God laid on your heart, but your husband was not on board at all. What would you tell that wife?

Holly: 25:38

Your husband needs to be on board. It really does need to be a team.

Heidi Franz: 25:44

Yeah, yeah, I agree 100%. When we walk forward in any big decision, I think that there's a reason why one spouse or the other doesn't agree, and we need to be patient with our spouse. We also need to accept that that is maybe not something God has called us, as a married couple, to.

Holly: 26:11

I don't think God would call one of you and not the other. If it were truly something that he wanted you to do, he wouldn't call you to it and not your husband. Either something that you needed to pray through that God would work on him and change his heart, or maybe it's not the right time. Yeah, maybe it will come later or change your heart. If it's not something that God wants you to do or the way he wants you to do it, he may be showing you the orphans because he wants you to do this sort of thing. Instead of bringing them into your home Now, that's something that you could do on your own. Good volunteer to take care of, reach out, visit, look after orphans on your own.

Heidi Franz: 26:55

When the child came into your home, you didn't have clothes because you didn't know what age, and so I think one of the ways that we can love on fostering families is sharing the extra clothes that we have or extra toys we're not using or different things like that that are so practical, don't cost money.

Holly: 27:18

If you're looking for a place to give those clothes that have been outgrown, shoes that have been outgrown, toys that are still in good shape but aren't used anymore, there are foster adopt agencies that would take them and give them out, probably within the week.

Heidi Franz: 27:33

I love that. Holly, this has been a wonderful conversation. I'm just blessed to be able to talk with you about something that you're passionate about, and for very understandable reasons. I'd like to just end in prayer, holly, would you just pray for our listeners, pray for these kiddos who need homes that we would know as Christian families. Do we step up and open our doors, or do we come alongside, close us in prayer, please?

Holly: 28:06

Jesus, your word is true and we believe that you see the orphan.

Holly: 28:11

We believe that kids need homes and I just pray that anything that I've said today will fall on ears that need to hear it. We'll clear up any confusion or hindrance or hang up that someone might have that has kept them from going forward. I pray for all those who are listening. If it is your desire for them to take a child into their home, to foster, or to go as far as adopt, I pray that you would give them wisdom and peace and direction. Families would just fall into place as they did for us. I know the road can be hard and the journey can be tough and hearts can get broken along the way, but I thank you for the journey that my family has had and I thank you for the blessing that you have placed in our home and I just pray that even now you will lay on someone's heart to provide a home for a child or a sibling group that needs it and that they could just be blessed by experiencing a little of your heart. In Jesus' name amen Amen.

Heidi Franz: 29:16

Thank you, Holly.

Holly: 29:18

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