Behind the Curtain: Honest Conversations about Foster Care and Adoption
Each episode will feature a conversation between host Rebecca Harvin and foster/adoptive caregivers or members of the community who support foster care and adoption.
Behind the Curtain: Honest Conversations about Foster Care and Adoption
Building Bridges in Foster Care
Embark on an unexpected journey with Ted Stackpole, a pastor who, alongside his wife Angie, opened their hearts and home to foster care and adoption, transforming their lives and those of the many children they've welcomed. Initially hesitant, their adventure began through a connection with a church family and an exploration of adoption ministry. Their path led to the formation of a supportive community that helped navigate the complex world of fostering and adoption, ultimately expanding their family to 11 children. Ted and Angie now serve as missionary chaplains, dedicating their lives to fostering and adoption communities across the nation.
Our conversation shines a light on the powerful role that church-based ministries play in supporting foster families. With the leadership of experienced foster and adoptive families, these ministries offer a lifeline, providing wraparound care systems that include meal deliveries and house cleaning, preventing burnout among foster parents. We explore the impact of such ministries, where five families fostered 50 children and completed 18 adoptions in three years, and discuss how the church can be a beacon of support for vulnerable populations, even if not everyone feels called to foster or adopt.
We also delve into the spiritual dimensions of fostering and adoption, viewing these acts as services to Jesus while navigating the challenges of family dynamics. From managing the complexities of fostering multiple children to creating nurturing environments for those who have experienced trauma, we discuss the vital support systems that make these journeys possible. Innovative approaches, such as online classes and Project One Home, offer valuable resources for foster families, fostering connections and stability. We conclude by emphasizing the importance of community champions in sustaining these efforts and the need for personal spiritual reflection to maintain balance and growth.
Thank you for joining us today. On Behind the Curtain, I'm your host, rebecca Harvin, and my guest today is Ted Stackpole. Ted and Angie Stackpole are seasoned pastors, having dedicated 25 years to pastoral ministry, including a successful 15-year tenure as lead pastors at First Assembly of God in Palatka, florida. Ted serves on the executive team of Foster Care Network, partnering with volunteer ambassadors to help churches become foster-friendly by raising awareness of the crisis, recruiting foster families and strengthening the families that they recruit Every month. Ted provides national support and training for foster and adoption families across the United States to increase stability and well-being for children who live in over 600 cities and counting. During their first US missions term, ted and Angie were instrumental in launching over 75 foster care ministries through the local church, participated in over 10,000 opportunities to serve children and facilitated over 6,500 hours of training for foster and adoption families, church volunteers and state employees. Ted and Angie have committed their lives to ensuring that every child has access to a safe and secure family who cares for them. They view their work as a calling, fueled by their faith and compassion for children in need of healthy families.
Speaker 1:I hope you enjoy this conversation with Ted. Ted, thank you so much for being here and for coming on Behind the Curtain, honest Conversations about foster care and adoption. I am so excited about what we're going to dive into and the work that you and Angie are doing in this. So first, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, rebecca. Thanks for having me today and just excited about the audience that you have and the work that they're doing. So my wife and I we were not really looking ever. Adoption was not on our radar, just our personal journey that I'm going to talk about for a minute. Adoption was never our radar. Foster care was never on our radar.
Speaker 1:We had five biological children, so we were pretty much- your hands were full and you were told that every time you went in public. I'm sure yeah.
Speaker 2:So people would walk in and they're like, wow, you got a lot of kids.
Speaker 2:You thought we had a lot of kids, then so anyways, we were pastoring a church and we had a family that was, uh, that was doing international adoptions and that was a real big thing. So this was back, uh, in like 2011. And so they came and wanted to start a adoption ministry in the church and they were real nice about it. They handed me some books and asked if we could read the books about it how this is a big deal on churches and my first thought was, oh, we really need to start another ministry, Like we got enough things going on around here.
Speaker 2:But, being the nice pastor I was, I thought a real nice political way of managing this. And so our church was really big on small groups and I thought, hey, and I read the book and I said, hey, how about we develop a small group for one year, beta test it and we'll make it open to serve people that are interested in adoption. And so that year went by, we had a family actually started attending the church. They were in the process of adopting five teens and they stayed at the church because of that group and that group helped them go through the complexity of that complicated adoption that took place and help support them. So it was amazing.
Speaker 1:They adopted five teenagers.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Then in our community, it was the first time that CPC had ever offered classes here and it was great. It wasn't nine weeks, it was like two weekends or something like that. So we had three families that wanted to take the classes. So we thought, well, we'll be good pastors, we'll take the classes with them so we can see what they're getting into. And that was our first mistake. And so this was in 2013.
Speaker 2:So about nine months later, pandora's box opened and all of our phones were blowing up like crazy and we just kept saying, yeah, so we were only licensed for one, because we had one that went to college and at that time you could only have five under 18, but they kept calling. I was like, hey, I thought we were only licensed for one child, and they would say, yeah, but you're doing such a great job, we signed a waiver. So at some point we had 11 children in the house with us, we had to buy a 15 passenger transit, and all of these things always happened while Angie was out of town. She'd be like, hey, I just got a call. We should say yes, so she was working full time, I was passing the church full time and we're trying to manage basically, uh, you know this um group home, that kind of our house, so we'd at one point we had five girls in one bedroom, two bunk beds and a toddler bed in between that, and so I don't advise this.
Speaker 2:In fact, normally I tell people not to go this direction now. But from 2013 to 2015, 2019, we had a couple dozen children come through the home and then six of those children, their parents' rights were either terminated or they were surrendered, so we were able to give them a forever family through adoption. So we have 11 kids now, eight still at home between the age of six and 17 years of age, and now we are full-time missionary chaplains to the foster adoption community. We left the church in 2018. April Fool's Day was the day I chose as my last Sunday in case I wanted to change my mind, and we've been serving the foster adoption community ever since.
Speaker 1:Okay, we got to cycle back here. That is no. I know there's a lot of information. I am trying to wrap my brain around what you just said. You and I have had many conversations. We know each other in the community. I've never heard that you accidentally became a foster parent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it found us. We didn't find it. But one of the interesting things is my James 127 is not our ministry cornerstone verse, but it is a verse that's used a lot about caring for the, for those you know that are vulnerable, and so, um, angie, I always felt a strong calling to that and I always tell people, you know what, I didn't really ever feel a calling to this, but James 1 27 has nothing to do with a calling.
Speaker 2:James 1 27 deals with just doing the right thing, and so I would always say you know what? Sometimes we just do things because it's the right thing to do, not because it's a calling in our life. It's just this is the right thing to do to care for the widows and the orphans. There's not really. It doesn't say if you feel called to this, then no, it just says, do this and so yeah, and so we, you know, I would say that. You know, foster care really found us. We weren't really looking for it and but the Lord has used this to revolutionize our own. You know our walk with Him, our family, everything has changed. I'm a different person because of, you know, fostering and adoption. You know it's changed us in some good ways and in some bad ways, and I know we'll get to that later on.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, that's one like my head is still spinning. You're pastoring a church, which is no easy thing to do, and you have a couple dozen you said children come in and out of your house over the course of five years, from 2013 to 2019.
Speaker 2:Is my math right?
Speaker 1:Six years, yeah, you you foster for six years do you close your license in 2019 yes, and so we were 2019.
Speaker 2:We were, we were and you would not. She would not do it like this, was her passion doing this, and we had figured out every way to work around it. So we had a second home we were using as an office, a couple blocks from us. And so at this point because we didn't have any room in the inn and those of you that are foster adoptive families understand that sometimes you have to have safety plans so we were running on safety plans at this point too. So what we were doing at that point was doing emergency placements for 24, 48 hours, and so I would take a couple of kids and I would go sleep at the office for a couple of days so we could open beds up, because our home that we lived in was still licensed and they wouldn't license our office, even though it was a home, a private residence, and so we did this for as long as we could and would do these short-term overnight placements for kids they didn't have, you know, they couldn't find homes to put them in. We did that for as long as we could, and then, when COVID hit, we had friends that were missionaries in China, and at the time when COVID hit, they actually were on a retreat, I think, and I don't remember where. They were in another country and with their kids and got trapped there for months. They couldn't go back to China All their stuff's there they were just. There was a weekend conference they were going to, so they had to come back to the US. They were homeless, didn't have a place to stay, so we gave them the office to live in and at that point we closed our license down because I wasn't, you know, we didn't have access to that anymore.
Speaker 2:So it forced our hand and it was the timing was right. I mean, the Lord had prepared, but I was the one who made the call. Angie was not making that call. This was detrimental to her that we were shutting that down. And then she also in the process of that, she was the principal of our school and that was full time, I mean up at five, 30 in the morning, finding replacements for teachers that couldn't be there. You know, it was just her life. So she had to make. The other thing she gave up that was a huge sacrifice was her career. So she gave up her career because she needed to be home with the kids full time. So we've made adjustments there too and she left her career and I was probably. For her this has been the hardest a lot of things she's given up in her life for caring for these kids. So I would say, from a sacrificial point, she's probably made some of the greatest sacrifices on a personal level. You know beyond all of us.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. As just a, as a person, like outside of any other identity that you wear or she wears, like that is so much change to happen in one, in one very small like time span, for a reason that's outside of yourself, like yeah, and then to add to that, if I want to add that she had more.
Speaker 2:More loss for her is when we left the church. We've been there 22 years and she's the, she's the, the, you know the pastor's wife, she runs the school, all her friends are connections. So when you leave a church after that time period you don't stay there Because it could create issues down the road for people coming in. So then we left the church and of course COVID hits and you know. So she really she felt homeless from a church, you know, and our kids too, because that's all they ever knew. For probably three years we just kind of kept moving a little bit here and there and I was you know I'm out speaking and traveling, so it didn't really have as great of an impact on me. Plus, our personalities are different. So I, but for her personally, like she was now, she felt kind of homeless, she felt orphaned now from her own church community that was there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's been an amazing journey.
Speaker 1:Completely in all aspects of it's, a complete untethering, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:But seasons change. Some of the dust does settle right. So I mean we're in a church, we're plugged in, the kids are doing well there, it's worked, it's been good for us, and so you know that. And then you know, obviously with our adoptive children there are a lot of issues that we have within our home, but you know we work through them one season at a time and you just keep right Turning with that. So we need haven. We've just never we've got to get there you guys, you two, need to come to.
Speaker 2:Angie just told me. She said hey, can you go to the? You should go to the dad's one's coming up, I know, but I have a conflict that weekend, that so yeah, I can't do it yeah.
Speaker 2:So she, she told me that yesterday she's like you should go to that. I was like I want to, but let me just tell you real quick what helped us in as far as why we would be able to survive, both working full-time when we were pastored. That was because we weren't, so there was. Let me just tell you that in in a span of of uh, three years, we had five families in the church foster 50 children and 18 adoptions take place, and we never had a family quit. The reason was we had.
Speaker 2:We launched a wraparound care in the church. So we had, you know, family advocates assigned to every family that advocated for those families. So you know, we had meals brought to our homes, we had people came and cleaned our homes. They did our laundry for us. They I mean so all the families were. You know, we had a care ministry that we built and we had some of the structure underneath the families.
Speaker 2:We had someone to oversee that. So just about everybody that was in the higher level of leadership were all former or foster families and they couldn't be they couldn't be current foster families. They had to be their former foster families or they had adopted children so they understood they could advocate well because they understood, stood the, the space that was there.
Speaker 2:And so, uh, we had a very strong, thriving, uh, wraparound care ministry and we had a support group that met. It was for the community that met in our church, with child care provided every single week. So every Sunday night at the church there was a support group meeting and people would come home early from vacations just to make sure they were at that. So the foster care ministry just exploded in the church, impacted the community, impacted the um also. Just, you know caseworkers, guardians, you know it was something in a smaller community like like Palatka and Putnam County. It gained, uh, really large visibility, you know, in in lots of different ways. So, but we would not, there's no way we would. We would have been a statistic without that. That was the reality is, if we hadn't launched a wraparound care ministry, we would have been a statistic ourselves. And so what have our other families Cause they all became large really fast. We weren't the only one driving a 15 passenger when it was all over.
Speaker 1:Well, right, well, because it's like in Palatka, specifically where you live. It's such a small community of foster families, but not a small need in that community, like we live, per capita, it's very high. Yeah, yeah, and so of course you're getting all of these phone calls. Of course you're like, hey, I know that you were going to sign another waiver Like we need you have a bed and we need a bed for this child.
Speaker 2:And so, um, oh, they don't care, you don't need beds, they, you know, I would say I don't. I don't have bunk beds and they would be like. We'll buy them for you, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, I'm just thinking that couple that came to your church in 2011 and they were like hey, we want to start a support group and you're like I don't want to say no, I want to say no like nicely, and down the road. What was the book?
Speaker 2:Uh, I don't remember, but it was one of those books that was a testimony of a church who was, you know, completely transformed because of adoption. Their whole focus was adoption and they'd been involved. And so the family that was new to the church was the family that was adopting five kids from the state care. The family that wanted to start the adoption ministry was a family that had been in the church for decades and they had done international adoptions and their whole family was involved in that. So they, you know, I just would have never thought that we would be where we are today. That's not what you know, but when I think of the number of kids and I see photos of kids, you know, and I think the amazing part of church-based foster care ministry is, you know, lots of amazing stories. I had one family that was fostering these two boys, but they and there was a young couple that was newlywed only a year, like 20, they were 21 and 20, or they had been in respite care for this family and when those boys' rights were terminated, that young couple, who had no kids of their own they were, you know, just kids themselves, they adopted those two boys. So those boys got to stay in the church with the relationships they had formed in the private school. At the church there wasn't this huge shift again, and those are just amazing stories.
Speaker 2:I've got another story a church in Mandarin. Same thing happened. Boy was being fostered by a family in church. They didn't feel like they were an adoptive family, they felt like they were called to foster. And now another family in the church has adopted that boy. So he's got to stay involved with his friends, his church, he's a part of junior Bible quiz, and so I think there's something powerful in church-based foster care ministry that you can get lots of people involved and you can help really help create greater stability for these kids that are long-term. You know, not every church can do that, but I'm a firm believer in it because we've seen the results of what takes place when a church gets involved in that that's incredible.
Speaker 1:There's something that you said when we were talking about James 127, and you were like it doesn't matter if you feel called to this or not, it's just the right thing to do. And you know, I look at that verse and I'm like not everybody is called to foster and adopt. I'm like the first one. I joke sometimes that people might not want me actually talking about foster care and adoption because I'm like, no, you're not. It's not everybody is supposed to do it, but everybody can do something. Everybody can do something to support vulnerable populations.
Speaker 1:That's the. It is the heartbeat of a church functioning the way that it is supposed to, right. But when you said it, I was like what does that feel like? Because I know what it looks like when you have a lot of kids at home who have experienced early childhood trauma. And you have a lot of kids at home who have experienced early childhood trauma and I know what dysregulation looks like, what does it trauma, and I know what dysregulation looks like. What does it look like and feel like for you in those moments when we are very human to go, this is the right thing, this is the right thing to do. It's the right thing to do for me to be here right now, like how does that? How does that?
Speaker 2:Well, for our adoptive children it's a different scenario. Like we, I'm their father, like it's not, I'm not doing the right thing, that I am their dad, like that's. So that's a whole different scenario there. When you're fostering, I mean, it is a huge challenge. I think the other side, too, is the spiritual side of this is when I would I had a little boy. He was 18 months old. I remember I was laying him down to sleep. When I was praying over him. I knew his dad was a local drug dealer that probably had a couple dozen kids himself. Mother had mental illness and I was just praying over him. I was like, what does this child's future look like? And so, you know, I'm doing things for kids I never did for my own kids changing diapers, you know and so I'm praying over him.
Speaker 2:And when I walked out that night I'd never really considered. You know, in Matthew it talks about when you've done it unto one of the least of these. You've done it unto me. And I realized that all this time I thought I was doing this for this child. I, all this time I thought I was doing this for this child, I'm really doing this as an act of worship for Jesus Like it's. It's, it's beyond the child. This isn't, this is how I'm. I'm worshiping. When I do this, I'm worshiping Jesus Like this is a whole. This is much deeper than than I even had considered it was. This is about when I do it for this child, when he's sick and I care for him. When he's naked, I'm changing his diapers, whatever. I'm doing this as an act of worship for Jesus.
Speaker 2:And that changes the dynamics of it. So it's even bigger than the value of the child or value. It's about Jesus, and we know that Jesus, for me, is beyond. I have to choose Jesus before I choose my own kids or my spouse or myself.
Speaker 1:And that's.
Speaker 2:That's like the highest calling for a believer is to is to understand that Jesus is number one in all of this.
Speaker 1:I would say in foster, like when people would ask me about foster care before we. We closed our license in 2020, 2023. We closed our license in 2023. We have this front row seat to the kingdom of God inside of our house, like it's the hardest thing I've done and it's the most worthwhile thing I've ever done, because you see the kingdom of God inside of your house and in these profound ways, right Like the number of times, that moment, where you're praying over that, the 18 month old's future, I've prayed over kids' futures that I will never know about that I'm like God.
Speaker 1:I know that I'm in the middle here, I know that I'm here for just a season, but what can I, what can I pray into for for them?
Speaker 1:What, where they're going, and like protect them and guide them and love them and all of those things and those prayers feel, um.
Speaker 1:For me personally, they just feel so um, they feel so special. I get to do this, I get to stand here in this gap and I get to say this far and no more like, like here for this season we have in our house, you know how like they're, like in pride. They're like create, like a ritual, or like know what know like have a goodbye ritual that you're going to do, have a welcoming ritual that you're going to do and like stuff like that. And part of our goodbye ritual is like putting a thumbprint on this like family tree that we have and underneath it it says our mission statement for foster care and it said they would know that they could look back at this time and they'd be like I know that there's a God because I felt him Like I know I felt his love in the Harvins household. No matter what happens in the rest of my life, no matter what comes next, I know that I felt love there and so it's such a change, going from foster care to adoption.
Speaker 2:Like you hit the nail right on the head just briefly when you were like you get the mental shift that has to happen. I'm not sure there's as much love here as there was when we fostered. We're finished with love, baby. I mean, it's honest conversations, right, we did the love thing, it's gone.
Speaker 1:You're like you're in now. You're a stack full for the rest of your life. Like this is. This is where the rubber meets the road. Right, like we're. How long has it been since your last adoption? Like a handful of years, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 2019, I think was our last adoption 2019 was the last one, so you are several years. You're three years down the road from me in adoption. What does that like? Can you put some words around that and like, paint the picture of what five years post adoption feels like and looks like for you?
Speaker 2:Well, you know every child there's different sibling groups and different parents so every child has a different dynamic that they bring into the different parents. So every child has a different dynamic that they bring into the, into the home and that dynamic, like, we have one little girl actually three of them were infants and one of them we said was the best baby we've ever had and then at like 24 months, when she turned two it wasn't the terrible twos like her personality, like it was like someone flipped a light switch. She became a different person and so you know that impacted the dynamics. So I think when you get this far down the road now you're really figuring out. You know how do I? How do I keep trying to tell myself that I don't want to just manage the household, but we want to. You know, we want to be able to make progress, like we want to move forward, because even as foster parents, sometimes you're just trying to manage things.
Speaker 2:You know how can we keep our head above water. But you want to do more than that, like you want to be able to thrive, you want to see victories in that. So I think the part of the mental challenge is you know how do we do more than just try to keep our heads above water here? How do we you know how do we try to thrive through this make progress for the children, for our household, the dynamics that are in there, more than trying to control chaos inside the walls? But how can we try to bring peace into our home again? And healing, yes, and so and then.
Speaker 2:So you have that dynamic, you're dealing with how can we try to bring peace into our home again? And healing, yes. And so you have that dynamic you're dealing with. And then you're also dealing with the dynamic of we call it like before foster. What was our life like before foster and before adoption? And then we see our friends and where they are they're. And you know, my friends are empty nesters. They travel when they want to, they do whatever, and uh, and I'll be 67 when the last one turns 18. That's when I'll be able to get social security. So you know, and already I look like a great I am a grandparent.
Speaker 2:I have two grandkids and a grandson being born in like two weeks, so so there are a lot of dynamics that are taking place and and you're looking at, you know, trying to get people to stable enough in their lives that they can thrive in school, because all of our kids are delayed, do graduate high school, and you know, go to college or find a career, and you know. So there's a lot of things your brain is working through and all of this trying to predict the future, which we can't do that. But at the end of the day, you're just like I got to focus on today and I want today to be a good day with a strong ending. You know that we're not, we're not going to go underwater in this, but we're going to find a way to, to try to keep moving forward and you just keep checking off any victory you have you hold on to. And then we have biota children at home too. So we're all you know. You're, you're trying to really do this huge balancing and that's why a lot of large families don't like me saying this, but I don't have any issue saying it and sometimes I have large families that do agree with me.
Speaker 2:But when my when Angie and I talk about it, we say, if we were to do this over again, we would the same advice we give to other people. We would have to practice Like let's only foster like one or two children at a time. You know, obviously, if you have a large sibling group, but let's not do like multiple sibling groups at one time, because it's not good for our birth children, it's not good for the other sibling groups that are in the house, it's not. You know, every child you add into that home you're taking away. You know, I think it's Boss Baby where he has a little thing and he tells you know, he says there's only so much love to go around. Well, I don't know about the love factor, but I do know time factor.
Speaker 2:There are a lot of other things that you there is only so much of that Like, that is true. I don't, you can't say that it's not true, it's true.
Speaker 1:It's true. It's true. I was just at dinner with my friend last night and part of what we were trying to get down to in our current dynamics in the house like I'm feeling a great bit of anger towards one of my children right now. She's stealing time, she's stealing attention from other, from other children that are in these big stages of life that I want to be giving attention to, and she's she's pulling it. She's like, oh, this kid is, and I'm like I just there's only so much time and attention that you can do.
Speaker 1:I was literally giving that same advice to somebody on Wednesday at a. We had a brunch for Haven and she was asking one of her placements is about to leave and she was like Rebecca, what would you, should I take a break? Like other people are saying, get another child right now and like, bridge this gap. And I was like, um, 100%, if I could go back and do my foster care journey again, I would take a break between kids and we Brad and I never did. We took um, we had a one, we had one week off in three years and then COVID hit.
Speaker 1:The day COVID hit, they put three more kids. We had a sibling set of three and they put three more kids into our home. So we had eight kids through the whole, like lockdown in Florida and both siblings that's reunified and I just was like, if you want us to stay here, if you want us to stay as foster parents, I have to have a break and it was our first one in three years. Like I just wouldn't if we could go back, like you and Angie, I would be like take one sibling set, or one or two at a time. It matters, and I know, I know that people are going to disagree with that.
Speaker 2:Well, I think one of the things we talk about in real world situation is we talk about if you try to do everything, nothing will be good. But if you have a few things in your life that you focus on, you'll be really good at those things, and I think the same. So if we bring all these kids in and they traumatize each other, like you bring, you're adding trauma to those children's lives because you have other children with trauma in your household. So you're not, there's not a healthy environment. You're not actually helping the kids, you're really only providing a bed. And then what if you have children that abuse other children in your household?
Speaker 2:Like all of all of that could be gone if you really focused on you know and this isn't a sprint, this is a marathon we're on, and so I I think there has to you have to approach a different way. So taking a break is okay because you're on a marathon. It doesn't end here. You're going approach it different ways. So taking a break is okay because you're on a marathon, it doesn't end here. You're going to start running, running again here in a few weeks and you're going to have another 24 or 36 months with, with you know, new children in their home that have new issues, that you're dealing with, things like that.
Speaker 1:So run, run well you know, make sure you're yeah and don't burn out. Like you can, like we can, we can avoid burnout here. We can do this job well, very well, and and be and have success at it, like, feel successful and know like I'm doing something that's changing lives and and to the to the point of their adopting from the foster care system now in adoption, which is a a whole marathon, like that's just a whole different ballgame.
Speaker 2:And parenting doesn't end at 18.
Speaker 1:We always say parenting, parenting, our adult children is is sometimes more.
Speaker 2:You know, my son is in the hospital right now. He's 25. You know that Joker was playing around with a coral snake got bit. So if you're in this realm, this is where you don't want to focus. That's why I'm focused on 18. But I have friends who have. Especially when I traveled and was doing a lot of services, I would meet people who had tell me oh, we adopted. And sometimes I hear amazing stories about their adult children who they had adopted. You know what they're doing, but I want to tell you that I've heard more negative stories and positive stories, and so just my own bio kids, knowing what it is to have adult bio kids. You know I'm just praying.
Speaker 2:Oh God help us, and I can't think that way but you know, like, I have friends and they're in their seventies and they're now they're raising their, their children, that they're adopted children. Now it's the cycle, you know, and they're great parents and they did an amazing job raising their adopted children. Their adoptions were in my youth group and so maybe I ruined them, I don't know, but they but they're back, they're adopted children, you know, went right back into the same cycle that their birth parents were in. And you're just and and you see that, and it's not that if they're, it's not that they're, they're adopted parents. They should have done something different. They should have done. They're amazing people.
Speaker 1:They did everything they could, but we can't control at the end of the day, we can't control choices, that's right. And we can't control healing Like you have to have and I'm always looking for, like what's the next stage of healing for my kids, for myself and my marriage, like all of that stuff, like what is the Lord healing right now? Right, like that's. I wish I could take a break from that, but I can't seem to take a break from that. But we can't control a person's willingness to heal. That's entirely self-led, self-driven one. For me, that is the hardest piece is that, like when healing, when there's an opportunity for healing and you can't convince somebody to take it anyhow, um, I learned that as a pastor and my the biggest light bulb that went off was that I'm not bob the builder and I cannot fix anyone.
Speaker 1:I can't even fix myself yeah, I can't.
Speaker 2:You know, jesus is the one that's created the healing in my own life. You know, he's the one that's making me who I am to be. He gets the credit for it for all that. So the minute I lay down and say I can't fix people, you know I can only bring them to Jesus and it's their choice to take Jesus and let Jesus fix them.
Speaker 2:So that was for me like it me. It gave me a relief because I'd bring people in my office and I would tell them exactly and then they would go do the opposite. And I was like I can't fix people, that's God's place to do that. I can water, I can plant seeds. That's only I can control. I can only control those two things. I count that. But God gives increase. I can't control how the increase takes place in someone's life. That's the Lord that does that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good stuff, ted. Hey guys, taking a quick break from our conversation to let you know that Behind the Curtain is sponsored by Haven Retreats. Haven is an organization that exists to create sustainability in foster care and adoption. Did you know that 50% of foster homes will close their license in the first year, but 90% will keep them open if they feel supported? At Haven, we support caregivers by offering therapeutic retreats and wraparound care. Right now, our retreats are held in Northeast Florida for moms, dads, couples and bio kids. If you're a foster or adoptive caregiver or you know somebody who is and would benefit from coming to one of these retreats, you can learn more about them by going to our website, wwwhavenretreatsincorg. That's Haven retreats with an S I N C dot O R G. We hope to hear from you soon. And now back to our conversation. Speaking of that, you and Angie are missionaries to foster and adoptive families.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And come alongside families planting seeds, watering, sustaining and making way for the Lord to move and heal and grow in their world. What does that look like for you guys?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So initially I'll just tell you that the reason we were successful when we pastored was because of wraparound. That's why we could have so many kids in the house. We were not doing this by ourselves. There was lots of people to call. I mean, when I had to have police come to my house late at night because the child's slamming their head on the mantle and like I'm going to call in a report, you know I'd call the youth it by ourselves.
Speaker 2:So when we left the church, our first project was to help churches start wraparound care ministry. Like we knew that was that's the answer to stabilizing families. And so we did that up up into the point of COVID and and God gives a lot of success in that Our next kind of realm that we walked into was using a piece of technology called Care Portal and just trying to connect, get churches involved at some level, connecting churches with local needs that are out there with families, and trying to connect those churches to create meaningful relationships with birth families, foster families, adoptive families. So that was kind of our next stage. But the Lord's really been shifting us in a new direction because of something that came out of COVID and we just saw that we had a lot of open doors in this.
Speaker 2:So when COVID started and our church engagement closed down basically although I did have churches that launched during COVID, which was amazing we started just doing some online stuff locally, and then I thought I don't know why.
Speaker 2:I just want to keep it local. How about we just we'll start doing it, you know, wherever we can, people can come into it. So we started doing online like support groups, classes, this kind of stuff and realized we could start also providing relicensing hours for foster families, and so since 2020, we've probably had easily over 2,500 unique families that have taken our monthly classes, and they're topical. We have a professional in the class with a master's degree with us that I'm doing kind of this kind of thing, and the classes are hybrid, so there's pre-recorded content along with I do like games giveaways in the class. Be the first where you can answer questions. We have open conversation, and so we do that every single month. In fact, the one we've got that's for next month is going to be on supporting children with special needs and developmental challenges, so we just recorded that one there.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. This will release in November, so what's your November class?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the November class see, this is September, october, september, october. I think the November class is one that's been and I actually have a professional on. This class is going to be for families with bio children bringing foster children into your household and how to integrate those foster children in your bio children. So I think that is the November class and that's a little different dated on that, because I'm actually doing that same class for another organization also that's amazing, but we're doing one.
Speaker 1:We're doing a workshop in november about like encouraging sibling relationships in your house, with the speak with daniella coats, who was a she was a replanted, she was at the replanted conference um, she's. That's great that. I love that. That you're doing like how to how to do this with bio kids in the house. It's such an under talked about conversation. That's not a real word. I just said that, but it needs more conversation around it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you get that primarily with people who already have kids in the home, like I would get that question a lot. So, but what's real important to understand is if you adopt children and then you keep fostering, like there's still, you're still dealing with some of the same types of relationships that are there in different ways. So we've been doing this and we started tracking cities last year, and so since January of 23, when we started tracking cities, we now are in almost 600 cities across the US Amazing when we have foster families. And let's see, can I do a screen share? Yeah, let's see if I have. Look you gave me. Oh, nice, so I'll just show you where.
Speaker 2:And we're right now developing an LMS system so people can come on whether it's convenient or whether they're in crisis. But so this kind of shows here. This is kind of a cool graphic. I know this is going to be audio, but when you click on this, it gives you a picture of all the cities across. So this is geomapped and is updated regularly, and these are all the cities across the US where families live.
Speaker 1:We will link this in the show notes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so that's kind of cool. And then, if you go on caregiver support, there is the assessment for people that are interested in fostering adoption. I don't know if you guys do this or not, uh, but this is free. We provide this just from our partners and we'll do a marriage assessment for specific, either if you want to foster or adopt, to see how that goes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then we also have links on here for our next training. So we do it one day, september 24th, we do it 1 pm, 8, 30 and 10 pm eastern, and then they can sign up with the links on that is there a cost? To this no, it's free. It's all underwritten by our partners. We're self-support and people are involved in that, so this is amazing yes, god's really so.
Speaker 2:Project one home is our project for 2025. And the purpose of this is this online what we're doing. But you know we see 35% of children moving two or three times a year, creating these delays emotionally, educationally, personal development. And so project one home is our national initiative to help provide stability to kids in the home, and you know there's a lot of deficits that foster families have, emotional, behavioral needs of the children that are in care, and then you know the complexities of this foster care system.
Speaker 2:And so what we are providing through this is professional training, both live and on demand, and then spiritually and emotional support through our chapter sleep ministry. So next year our goal is to deliver another 2,000 training hours next year and help to opportunities to support 2,500 children through that there and another 300 cities we'd love to impact next year through this national support. So it's really been a niche that we've stepped into, that we realized that this is just growing and growing and it was not our focal point but we really feel like this is our transitional in ministry here. So about 80% of our time is just going to be dedicated towards connecting with families and the testimonies I have are really unreal. Like foster families will say you're the only Christian foster family we know. Just had a family from Texas email me that we started communicating with and like, can I share this with others? There's nothing Christ-centered and I don't use the word faith-based anymore because I can mean a lot of things, but there's nothing Christ-centered for the community we have. I've had marriages where we did one based anymore, because I can mean a lot of things, but there's nothing Christ centered for you know, the community we have. I've had marriages where, you know, we did one on on strengthening your marriage. A lady just told us. She said in the training, she told us at night look, my husband's left me. I have all these foster kids. You know we don't. And that very week, you know, I just I reached out after that, prayed with her. She connected with her husband, told her what she had learned in the class. He was back in the home on Friday and came to our next class the next month. So it's just, I mean, it's really amazing.
Speaker 2:And I would say the number one reason for this is not necessarily the material that we have, because I'm not going to say that it's the most, it's the greatest material in the world but people are looking for a connection and when you pray with people, you connect with people at a much deeper level. And I will just tell you that I can sit with someone all day long and counsel with them. But at the end of the day, if something spiritual can be provided for them and the reason why that is key is because God is much bigger and I can use every technique in the book and I'm sometimes I'm right back there and say that didn't work for us, that didn't work for us, that didn't work for us and, at the end of the day, this is a spiritual battle we were in. The enemy is out for our children. He wants to take them and so I, I invest myself in, in professional techniques and learning all these things that I can parent better to all these things.
Speaker 2:But there is another dimension out there. It's not the twilight zone, but there is another dimension. Maybe it is a twilight zone and we know this is a spiritual dimension that is so deep and this is about a battle for these kids, because the enemy, from day one, has wanted to destroy children. Look at Adam and Eve. He got into their home and then he wants to destroy their children. Cain kills Abel.
Speaker 2:It starts with the very first family Throughout history. Why does the enemy want to destroy the children? Because the children are the image bearers of God. He's created us as image bearers and he knows from the beginning there's always been a deliverer, there's another revival coming forth in the future. If you look at scripture, you know if he could destroy those children, he can potentially maybe thwart, delay what in his mind a revival, a change, a healing for families, for our nations, for all of these things. He wants to destroy children, and so there's a deep battle going on there, and I think that's what we.
Speaker 2:We go through this continuum. We start off, we feel like heroes, we feel frustrated, we're still trying to fix people and at some point down the continuum we find ourselves. We're like wait a minute. We started off for spiritual reasons, but somehow we have shifted from that, we've lost that place. We have to go back into battle again and battle at a deeper dimension, because God is the one, at the end of the day, that's going to stabilize our home, fix our marriages, fix our children.
Speaker 2:Like this is a spiritual work that we can't do. This is a work of God that's going to take place and we can lose that. The enemy wants to stray us so far that we can't even pray ourselves anymore. We can't pray for ourselves. We can't do that. But God wants to remind us that this is a spiritual battle, and that's why you're in this. You think you're in this for another reason. You're in this because this is a spiritual battle. This is the missional calling that you are on, your greatest advocacy for children and families, and the redemption of families is going to happen in a spiritual context, and so it's bringing us back to that.
Speaker 2:It's easy to forget that. I forgot it over and over and over again and the Lord keeps reminding me and I keep reminding everyone else in the family. This is a spiritual battle. My kids will say we don't like it, we don't like what's happening here, and we and we'll say we don't either. We agree on this and finally agree on something. None of us like the way this is working out there. I've preached. I got my preach on.
Speaker 1:You definitely did, and you have no idea how um, I have no idea how that lands with the audience, but I do know how it lands with me and you have no idea how perfectly timed that was for my, my personal world, and like what my, what my prayers have been like recently and what my prayers have been like recently and what the Lord is teaching me as a mom and as a leader and as a wife. I am just trying not to cry on air. I'm just, I'm you. You have no idea how well that was timed.
Speaker 2:Good, well, people speak that into my life all the time too, like we all. This is what's going on here.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we understand that we minister out of our brokenness. So when I walk through stuff, too, I understand that I need that, in a way, because it keeps me in touch with everyone else. Like we all know, if you're a foster parent, you're watching this and you've been through pre-service training. You want to know have you ever done this before, or is this just a concept for you? Like it's? It's a completely different, like we always. And so, like you and I, when people come on, when I ask people, what is it you really like about coming onto our training, usually they'll say oh, what we like, is that what you're? Is you understand us? Yes, yes, like, so so maybe the person that has the master's degree and as the professional, they may not, so usually I can give pushback on them.
Speaker 2:You know, I usually like hey, I might be a little aggressive with you somewhere in the conversation. So if you, if you tell me something and I say, well, we tried that it didn't work, Give me something else. But so don't be thrown back by that. But I think the people that attend our trainings they like that. It's just, we're just, it's real. Like I I'll tell them look, I read this book, I've tried this. It's a great book. I recommend it.
Speaker 1:It didn't work for us, but that you should try it, because we're all just looking for something else and and we have four adopted kids in our home, I have to parent all of them individually. Every single they're in. It's a sibling set, you think you would think. You would think you would think that, because they came, they're biological siblings. Something is going to be the same and I am I mean no, nothing. I am learning how to parent the four of them individually, Like they need a different mom.
Speaker 2:Each one of them needs a different mom where they can do the exact same behaviors, and I have to show up differently for each kid individually, and it's like last night I went to one of the kids' houses one of the kids' houses, because that's how it is one of the kids' rooms and she's dug holes in the drywall so I'm just going to put plywood over that. Last night I went in there and she got a plate from the kitchen and it's got all there's powder in there. I'm like you're scraping the drywall off again. She's like yes, I said why.
Speaker 1:It's because I'm making chalk so I can draw on stuff that's exactly what it looks like on top of walls in the door and I'm like, but I think I don't. I at least only have one child that's doing that like so, yes, I have one child that does that and it's literally you can see where her finger has gone into the wall and you're like what, what?
Speaker 2:when the exterminator came, he loved that room because he just sprayed the stuff into the wall, through the hole. I was like look we, we got it, went ahead and took care of it for you don't have to take the light switches off, you just squirt it right on in there. You gotta laugh. You have to have a sense of humor, you have to laugh otherwise pottery barn. Barn does not exist.
Speaker 1:No, god, no, no, no, I always feel really bad, like when somebody's like hey, I have this thing and I want to give it away. Um, I want to give it to you guys. I always am like I would love to take that, but I need you to understand that it's life expectancy in my house is very, very slim. So, like if this matters to you at all, please give it to somebody else like that can use it for a really long time. And they're like, no, we want you to have it. I'm like, okay, but just so you know, like it's life expectancy just decreased to a matter of months.
Speaker 1:We have had decreased to a matter of months. We have had people have given us like, oh, this beautiful, like antique bedroom set that I got I'm like my kids can do to a bedroom set in in one month, what has lasted other people three sets of kids or five, like whatever and has was made in the 50s or the 20s or whatever. And it's like my kids are like bet, let's see what, let's see what can happen to this in one month. Game on, like you guys, anyhow.
Speaker 2:And we're asking people to do this. That's what Angel and I always say. And we're asking people to do this.
Speaker 1:We're saying you should do it too, and I'm like you shouldn't do it unless you know that you're supposed to do it. But you should be supporting people who are doing it. You should be, and like, when I think about the community that's around Brad and I, it's like what you were saying, like it's entirely impossible to do this alone. It's impossible to do it alone. And that is that section, the section of foster and adoptive families that are doing it alone, or single moms, single dads, people who have a church around them, who don't have a church around them, for whatever the reason that they don't have a community around. Those are the people that I'm like.
Speaker 1:I've got to go find the people who are doing this in isolation, because it's impossible, it's impossible to do this long-term in isolation and to do it well and so, and just draw them into community. How do I, how do we wrap community around? Foster and adoptive homes is one of the questions that keeps me up at night. I say that. I say that jokingly. I actually sleep very well and very little keeps me up at night. I say that. I say that jokingly. I actually sleep very well and very little keeps me up at night, but that is. It's one of my like driving questions is how do we, how do we keep support, how do we keep wrapping around and finding, finding people? My community happened kind of organically but anyhow.
Speaker 2:Well, every organization that does wrap around, whether it's like foster, florida, or what you guys are doing with haven, or even what we're doing now, like, in a weird way, remotely, uh, or churches, there's one thing they all have in common is there is a leader who wants to advocate for families and that so somebody's championing that. So, even though it looks different from every organizational standpoint, if it moves, you know, gets set, or development, the one thing that looks the same, because once the champion leaves, then it's over, like there's got, unless another champion comes up. But it's a matter. You know, there's somebody. So we've worked with Fruit Co Baptist Church for years and we actually helped them develop their wraparound ministry. So their wraparound ministry is based on on a lot of training we've done over there, but at the end of the day, it wasn't really our training, it wasn't our form of ministry, it wasn't any of that. It was, you know, it started off with Kayla and Karen.
Speaker 2:There was two champions that championed this in the beginning, and that's why you know how do you replace people like that? You know you, it's pretty. Only God can do that, but that's the one thing that's so. It's finding people who have a heart that want to advocate and champion for, for families that are on mission and that are struggling, and that's in every area. Whether or not it's widows and orphans or it's, there's always somebody who's going to champion that. So it's really praying and making that a point of prayer. God, bring us people who already have a heart for this and now we can show them how to take their passion or heart and and help support others. It's just making that a prayer point, so I would pray always God, just lead me to churches and pastors that already have a heart for this. I can't convert people into this. You're the one that's depositing this in them. Now you need to connect me with that person. Help me find them.
Speaker 1:Ted, at the end of every podcast we do a lightning round, so it's going to be five questions. Answer as quick as you can.
Speaker 2:What's on your nightstand right now? A picture of my wife and I, A light and a little charging USB charging thing.
Speaker 1:You have one of those annoyingly clean nightstands, don't you?
Speaker 2:it's only this big and oh and I'm I, I'm a, you know, I, my office. Nobody's really allowed in here, it's neat.
Speaker 1:Your space, it's my, it's my space, that's my podcast. Are you loving these days?
Speaker 2:so I'm in a season of no foster adoption podcasts. I said yes. I shouldn't have said yes, but sometimes you have to avoid your life.
Speaker 1:Like sometimes you have to not listen to your life. Oh listen.
Speaker 2:My wife and I have. We have friends that don't foster and adopt, and we made decisions that when we went on double dates with them, we don't talk about children or foster adoption, you know. So, uh, we uh books. So I just finished reading um a W Tozer, the pursuit of God. It's a really older book that was. I actually did podcast that in a way. I guess I listened to it, but I'm not in the. If I'm traveling, that's if. So, the only other podcast I'd listen to is like if I'm in the car, would be BBC news You're not a big podcast guy.
Speaker 1:you're more of a book guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because podcasts I get distracted, I can't stay focused on them.
Speaker 1:What song do you want to be played at your funeral?
Speaker 2:How great the heart.
Speaker 1:What does rest look like for you?
Speaker 2:how great they are. What does rest look like for you? I think rest to me is, uh, right now there's no children in the home, it's quiet, so rest would be. Yeah, I call them sabbath moments because we can't really get sabbath days anymore, and so rest looks like going in and sometimes I read, like historical fiction books, just pleasure reading, maybe having a cup of coffee relaxing.
Speaker 1:And noticing the moment of rest, noticing it and being aware that, like hey, I'm having this Sabbath moment right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can put my phone on airplane mode and then I can get rid of my own distractions I love, do not disturb on my, that's my, my quiet my yeah, so my quiet time is definitely like I put airplane mode on, so I don't.
Speaker 2:You know, I don't even want to see. Accidentally I pick up my phone because I need it for something else, and so I airplane mode, and then, and so my quiet time in the morning, with the lord that would be Accidentally. I pick up my phone because I need it for something else, and so I airplane mode.
Speaker 1:And then, and so my quiet time in the morning with the Lord, that would be, that would be a moment of rest. And then, what is bringing?
Speaker 2:you life these days the same. That quiet time in the morning, it's a retreat. So you know it is because I'm a type A personality. It's a retreat, so you know it is because I'm a type A personality. It is a little liturgical in the way that I have. The same way I'm spending, you know, time with the Lord every day and you know so. That is having a Bible reading, praying about what the Lord's speaking to me through that, praying for one of the families. So I have needs, you know, on my phone those needs are on there from the families that I meet through the month and then emailing them, you know, as I'm praying for them praying for myself.
Speaker 2:And then I do have some spontaneous and prayers that are more liturgy, like the Our Father, things like that, but that same kind of process every day is a way of reset for me. You know, that's a reset moment and when I do that every day, and I do it well, it seems like I'm better off the rest of the day. So that for me is that is the refreshing moment, like I can't wait to get to my office and it's blocked out and I'm going to take a few minutes.
Speaker 1:I talk about that often, like at the retreats and when, when I'm talking to people about how to find rest, I'm like have a routine that says to your body this is this is rest, this is reset. Like I have a specific spot on a couch in my room that I go to. I pick up my daily prayer app that you can get different, like there's readings, there's liturgical prayers on there, and you just go through the same process and then you just kind of sit and it's like okay, even if I only get five minutes here in this space, I've communicated to my body that you are safe, you are loved, you are cared for. Like to my heart, to my soul, I've communicated all of that and that's in that very quick time that it's great to have a routine like that that has the liturgy of the routine itself, whatever you create in that, but like that, you have your own liturgy for.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, you need to have a space. I love that.
Speaker 1:Okay, Ted, will you pray for the foster and adoptive families that are that are listening to this and just bless them in their day as they go?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd love to Father. We just come before you. We are so grateful that we are not alone, we're not orphans in this world. Jesus, you promised us that you would not leave us as orphans, that we would not be left. You promised that you would come back for us and you promised to send us the Holy Spirit so we would not be alone. And the Holy Spirit, you are our counselor. You are our counselor, you are our. You're the one who provides everything that we have need of in this life. And I just pray right now, in the name of Jesus, for every foster and adoptive family that could hear this prayer right now.
Speaker 2:Holy Spirit, would you go to them in this moment and would you just overwhelm them in your presence? Would you remind them that they are not alone? They may feel isolated right now. They may not have any community at all that is there to advocate on their behalf, to fight for them. Lord, you know where they are, what they're walking through in this moment. You can see the brokenness, you can see the sorrow, you can see everything they're struggling with. But, lord, you come to us and we thank you.
Speaker 2:Holy Spirit, would you go right now and would you cover every family in your presence in this moment, as they pause and as they hear this prayer, lord, allow them to even feel, in this moment, your presence, that you are with them, that you are not leaving them alone, lord, in everything they have to face today. Lord, the challenges they're gonna face, god, the phone calls they're gonna get from the school, the text messages from teachers when they get home, the struggles with getting their kids to do their homework and getting dinners ready and maybe even getting them to a bath, and to the challenges that all of those things, lord. I pray in Jesus' name, god, that you would cover them with so much grace right now, god, that you would cover them with Holy Spirit and empower them for every moment they're going to endure today. That, lord, somehow they would walk through this with an enduring peace. God, that they may be in the midst of a storm, they may be in troubled waters even right now, but, jesus, that you will calm their minds, their emotions, you will calm their spirits, lord, that you will calm every part of their being in the name of Jesus. And Lord, that they will actually be able to see that and know, lord, that this is you that is doing the work inside of them and I do speak blessings in their lives.
Speaker 2:I speak breakthrough over their children and their family. I speak breakthrough over their children and their family. I speak peace over their households. And, lord, as they do lay down their heads tonight in their own beds, I pray, god, there would be a peace that would come over their homes and that their children would sleep well tonight and that there would be a refreshing in their own spirits.
Speaker 2:And, god, that any worry that they would have about tomorrow or the future, god, that you'd remove that from their minds, lord, and you would allow them to be fixated, lord, on your presence with them. God, on your peace in their lives. And Lord, that you have things under control, that things are gonna work out, because you are in the midst of everything that's going on, and I thank you, god, for each and every one of them. And I just ask, in the name of Jesus, god, that they would be overwhelmed in this moment. And, lord, that they would once again shift their eyes towards you and believe, god, that you are the one that is in charge of all of our futures, and God, that you are doing a tremendous work in and through them. In Christ's name.
Speaker 2:I pray Amen.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, ted, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much, ted, it's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2:No, it's great to be here. I'm glad for your invitation and I hope that people weren't pushed away today.
Speaker 1:Gosh, wasn't that such a great conversation. I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did and that something that we talked about brought you hope. If you loved this episode, share it with a friend. I want everybody to feel like they're not alone. I also want to remind you that it's okay if you disagree with something that we said today. If there were parts of this conversation that felt just a little too honest for you, that's fine. Our journeys aren't all the same. We're not going to respond to them the same aren't all the same. We're not going to respond to them the same. My hope for you is that today, in some way, whether large or small, that you feel seen and that you know that you're not walking this road alone. I love hearing from you, so leave us a comment and let's keep the conversation going. I'll talk to you soon.