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
Surrendering to the Journey: Faith and Foster Care with Danae Bunso
How do you find the strength to open your heart and home to children in need? Danae Bunso, the Florida State Director for Isaiah 117 House in Duval County, joins us to share her and her husband Carl's incredible journey of fostering and adopting children. With 30 foster experiences and two adoptions alongside their six biological children, Danae provides an intimate look at the emotional and spiritual path to embracing foster care, touching on the power of surrender, the challenges of adoption, and the importance of being present for children on their hardest days.
Danae opens up about the deep spiritual journey that foster care has led her family on, where the balancing act between fighting for justice and surrendering control becomes a daily practice. We explore transformative encounters that mirror the kingdom of God at work, highlighting moments of heartache, hope, and joy. Through these stories, listeners will gain insight into the often chaotic yet profoundly rewarding experience of fostering, the importance of community support, and the mission behind Isaiah 117 House to reduce trauma for children entering foster care.
Rooted in faith, Danae's reflections on hope and rest offer a sense of community and encouragement to those who listen. She shares personal anecdotes about seeking solace in spiritual practices and engaging activities, revealing how these moments bring nourishment beyond physical stillness. Through heartfelt discussions, we underscore the shared challenges and victories within the fostering circle, inviting everyone to connect, share, and support one another on this journey. Tune in for a message of hope, commitment, and the transformative impact of opening one's home and heart to children in need.
Thank you for joining me today. On Behind the Curtain I'm your host, rebecca Harvin, and my guest on the show today is Danae Bunso. Danae is the Florida State Director for Isaiah 117 House in Duval County. Isaiah 117 House is a home that provides physical and emotional support in a safe and loving home for children awaiting foster care placement. The mission of Isaiah 117 House is to reduce trauma for children on removal day light. The mission of Isaiah 117 House is to reduce trauma for children on removal day lighten the load of the caseworker and ease the transition for the foster family.
Speaker 1:Danae and her husband, carl, have six children and have been foster parents for the past nine years. Caring for 30 foster children and having the blessing of adopting their youngest two, they have seen firsthand the need that exists for our children right here in our community who feel forgotten and who desperately need to be lavishly loved on one of the hardest days of their life. Danae and I have a conversation about surrender that absolutely changed me. I've thought about this conversation several times since the day that we recorded it. I've thought about this conversation several times since the day that we recorded it. I hope that you love this conversation as much as I did.
Speaker 2:Hi Hi so good to be here.
Speaker 1:I'm so glad you're here. So good to sit with you and just talk. Yes.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Thanks for being on. I always like to tell our listeners how I came to know you. So I was living on a campus here in Jacksonville and you are best friends with one of my neighbors and also turns out beloved in the entire community of Jacksonville for a wide variety of things. But I feel like in every social circle that I have somebody said do you know Denae? You should know Denae and I'm like I don't know Denae yet, but we're going to meet. And then Lori and I lived next door and I got to meet you.
Speaker 2:Yes, and do you so? I was thinking about the first time I really had conversation with you. I don't know if you remember that or not.
Speaker 1:Were my kids running a month.
Speaker 2:No, that kind of goes into our a little bit of our foster care story, though, but I was just thinking of that and someone gave me your name, because we had a child who was in our home and it was really a hard time in our family.
Speaker 1:And yes.
Speaker 2:I called you because someone told me to call you and see how we keep going on, and so that was the first real conversation I had had with you Did.
Speaker 1:I help you keep going on. Yes, you did. Okay, great, it was awesome. Sometimes I don't know if I'm too honest. It was perfect, just what we needed. Yeah, that's kind of my niche in foster care. That was my niche or niche. However, people say that was really hard placements. And so I would get phone calls like that a lot. What do I do? What do I do? Okay, so tell me, tell me about. Obviously, by the time we meet in person, Lori is fostering. You have adopted at that point.
Speaker 2:I'm pretty sure yes, we had adopted yes at that point.
Speaker 1:So back up for us and tell me how did you get into foster care? What does your family look like? What's the unique dynamic for your family?
Speaker 2:Okay, Unique, dynamic, short version of those things, since we do have college all the way to kindergarten. So we got into foster care really because we had felt called to adoption early on in marriage, didn't know how God would grow our family. We lived in Guatemala for a time and really thought, well, god will open the door for adoption here. Door was closed, you had to be a resident there to adopt and so when we moved back to the States we had eight weeks open up for us to be able to attend foster parent classes. So we jumped into that and we really felt like then we didn't know if adoption would be in our future, but we really wanted to see reunification for kids in our future and just be a part of the story with those families and come alongside those families. And so that's kind of how we entered foster care and that was our hope and our goal and our first placement we got and it was messy, like every other one tends to be at times, but it started off as not seeming like it was going to be messy and it was moving quickly to adoption, which was kind of unheard of, and it was like, well, this isn't what God's called us to know, it's reunification for families, not adoption. But part of the hesitation in that yes to adoption was because of what we were told about our then foster child that she may never walk or talk, and it was just scary. It was walking into the unknown and, uh, we really wanted to just divert and say, oh, there's another family who, uh, maybe would like to adopt a newborn.
Speaker 2:And I remember being asked the question will you adopt? Will you adopt? And really just saying that we'll pray about it. And it was never an immediate yes, but it was really because of the fears. I didn't know if I could parent a child with special needs ultimately. And so, as time went on, a few weeks later, we kept being asked and so my husband and I just looked at each other one day and just had an honest conversation that was like we're not even praying about this, it's nothing to pray about. The answer is yes, this is what God's called us to for so long and we're running from it and it's going to be really hard. We don't know what the future to be really hard. We don't know what the future holds, um, but we also don't know what god has for this child or any of our children, for their future I feel like you said something that struck uh inside of me when we started our adoption from ethiopia.
Speaker 1:We'd said, like boy or girl, mild to moderate special needs, including HIV. And I felt and in the making of that list, right, because they ask you like you have to get so in-depth of what you will and will not say yes to, which feels horrible first of all, like just as a mom looking and going, okay, I would say no to a child with this symptom, I would say no to a child with this symptom, I would say no to a child with this symptom, I would say yes to a child with this. And I just remember wrestling through that and thinking you don't get a choice with your biological children if they're going to have special needs, but somebody is asking you to make a choice with a different child who needs a home. But then there's also like this element and like God forgive me if you are listening to this as we're all special, like we all have special needs in our home.
Speaker 1:We've all adopted or not adopted, but but like I'm saying this now as a special needs mom, but prior to it going, I don't know if I have what it takes, I don't know if my personality is geared towards doing this, and also like I can't do this long term. I can do this for 18 years, but like, oh my God, what if I get a child that I have to, like, be active caregiver till my dying breath, like, and you just look, you're staring at that future and it feels so overwhelming, and so I think I just want to take a second and say like, yeah, if you're out there and you've thought this, you're normal, first of all, and secondly, it's okay. However, you come to this table and answer that question. There's no judgment, there's no like, and we all have to answer it differently.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, there was a lot of fear, and there was a lot of self-righteousness in it too, and so, as things began to unfold, it just God made it clear that our answer was yes, and that if we weren't walking in, that yes, we really weren't being obedient to him and whatever he had for our future. And I'll tell you, it was not a want to at that time. I mean, if I'm being honest conversations.
Speaker 2:I was really. It was a hard yes, and so we move forward with that yes, and everything changed within her case and there were numerous times where goodbyes were even shared, where it looked like she would be moving out of our home and we needed every part of the hell and back, honestly, just for God to remind us that that is the child that he chose for our forever family.
Speaker 1:He was teaching you how to fight for her.
Speaker 2:And I remember, yes, he was teaching you more than fighting.
Speaker 1:He was teaching you how to surrender the path.
Speaker 2:Yes, and we really thought like, and we fought as hard as we could, we were an advocate, we were just the best parents that we possibly could be to her. What does surrender feel like for you, danae? It felt like for her specifically at the time, putting her in the Moses basket and just surrendering and fully trusting God and letting go to something that I so tightly held onto. And we had the answers we knew, you know we knew what should happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:Uh, so the surrender was.
Speaker 1:Enneagram. Are you Enneagram?
Speaker 2:I am an Enneagram eight.
Speaker 1:So how does surrender?
Speaker 2:feel inside of your body.
Speaker 1:It hurts really bad when it's about justice for somebody that you love.
Speaker 2:It's so I can't even tell you Uh's, yeah, it leaves you on the floor in a puddle of tears and leaves you, just like you want, to punch your hand through a wall too.
Speaker 1:At the same time, there was a moment in when we were in our Ethiopian adoption, my like uh, oh, man, I had no intention of talking about this today. So here we go. My directive from the Lord was to be still, and the picture that I got was floating in this thick water, like water that was thick enough to hold me up, it had substance to it and I was supposed to float, like I was supposed to back float, and that was supposed to be my posture through the entire adoption process. And there was this one day that I mean, shit was exploding like all around us and I knew that my posture had to be back floating.
Speaker 1:And I looked at Brad, my husband, and I said I'm not allowed to fight. One of us needs to fight. Do something. I was like I can remember where I was in the hallway when I'm like yelling at him and he's looking at me like what do you want me to do? And I was like literally anything. The fire that Enneagram 8s feel inside of their body when it comes to justice for people that we love is, it's a powerful force, and so then, to be like oh.
Speaker 1:I have to surrender, man. That's a hard lesson to learn.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is, and then we got to watch god do what he does and bring justice um in ways that we would never imagine or never plan out. We would never choose that path either. Yeah, um and gracious I'm. So now I can say all of that heartache and fight and surrender which looked like just laying back at times. I need those remembrances of those times that God was fighting for us when we were surrendering.
Speaker 1:Because you're still fighting and you're still surrendering with her. Yeah, and it's like, oh, this is actually, this is the path. Yes, to do the thing and then to surrender when you need to, and to watch the Lord take over and then fight on her behalf. Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and even you know, on my very best days I always fall short. Yeah, Sure, yeah. And even you know, on my, my very best days I always fall short. Yeah, sure, Always Um, but God has been good and faithful, um, even in the heartache that we have had um even in loss and um, even when we felt like justice wasn't served in ways through other children that we've had in our home, but he's good and I'm grateful for that.
Speaker 1:Those are costly words. I can see it in your eyes. Those are costly words. They are. They just really like. There are some things that I say that when I offer it to people where I'm like these are the most expensive words that I have. I don't say them lightly, I don't share them lightly. They're the most expensive words that I have is that God is good. Yeah, In the middle of.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:And that he will always speak life Like that. That is my most costly sentence Like there is always life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And to just even remind myself of that in the middle of like the uproar, right, right, like, just it's like if I can quiet myself enough, I can get back to that place where I go. This thing I've learned in this journey. I described to somebody one time, after, like I don't know, one of our insane years, that foster care we were still fostering at the time and I am not to the place where I can say this about it. Well, sometimes I say this about adoption, sometimes I don't say it about adoption yet, but like foster care and adoption are so different that fostering was like it's the closest I've ever seen the kingdom of God at work, like it's in my house I have a front row seat to what it looks like for the kingdom of God to be present and to be advancing. What that looks like I mean, we're about to get super Pentecostal here for a second but like the spiritual attack that happens and choosing to walk into that.
Speaker 2:you know, I mean that's.
Speaker 1:It's insane. We're crazy, we're crazy.
Speaker 2:And then we ask people to come alongside. Yeah, we're like hey, you should come. And I'm ask people to come alongside. Yeah, we're like hey, you should come.
Speaker 1:And I'm like, maybe you should, I'm like you should think long and hard actually, and you should decide, if you. And then I'm like no, it's fun, you should come. Yeah, are you crazy? Great, come on over here Like this. Is this high capacity for chaos head this way?
Speaker 2:Do you really want to learn how to lose control of all things?
Speaker 1:To let go. I quit a job one time years ago. I was living on campus and I was like working remotely. And when I quit I said to my boss I can't fail in every single category of my life, so I just need to take a category off the table. He was like, okay, he's like, I don't think you're failing.
Speaker 2:I'm like, but I view myself as failing here and so yeah, and just being foster care and adoption has brought I mean, it has brought out the worst in me, you know 100%. Like places that I had no idea existed in my being. Yes Came out. Yes, came out. Yes, and I always say Jesus loves the hell out of me, and there was a lot of hell that needed to be loved out of me.
Speaker 1:There's still so much in me and there always, every single day.
Speaker 2:But I just, you know you don't get into it. It's like I didn't sign up. I didn't sign up for this, you know no.
Speaker 1:I signed up because we could. I signed up because I had so much love in my heart that I could share with people and like, surely, like I could, I can be this place. I can be this really safe place. It is uh, it's mind games is what I will say of when you come face to face with the darkest sides of yourself and you're like. Oh I, I am not as good as I thought that I was. Yeah, I. I had a high opinion of myself.
Speaker 2:I mean Zoe was born.
Speaker 1:My, my oldest, was born and she was like one and I was like I should write a parenting book. I should, really I should write a parenting book. I'm so good at this. Like this is. And my first placement. Our first placement was super easy and I was like I should hold classes, like I've got this Lo and behold Anyhow. Okay, so you have, she's your first placement. Yes.
Speaker 2:We did end up adopting her. And then, goodness, we've had 29 kiddos come through our doors, whether for short time in foster care, but we have our youngest, two that we adopted through foster care, and so we ended up, you know, as foster parents it can be lonely. So when we started nine years ago, it felt really lonely. So then we invited others in as part of the crazy, because it's just so much fun doing these things.
Speaker 1:Well, it's nice to have somebody who knows what you're talking about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it feels good to not be alone. And so, lori, I mean even the and this is like just kind of zigzagging all over the place because that's how.
Speaker 2:I feel like foster care is at times, and how God connects people, different places and times, but Lori was going to take a child in that we had, who was our, just really a hard placement for our family.
Speaker 2:And that's when, you know, you entered and stepped in and God, god shifted everything in her case for his glory and his good, unbeknownst to any of us, and that was only like an eight week season for us. That felt like eight, those in the darkest places. If we hadn't walked through those dark places, we we would never know what the hope of Jesus looks like, you know. And so, um, fast forward a couple of years and we got a word that a sibling had come into care for Izzy, who we had already adopted, and so her biological sister came into care, and that's a whole crazy God story in itself. God put the thought of her in our hearts before we ever knew she existed, and so just his confirmation in what's to come. But yet so much we didn't know there was so much surrender to still come with that and walking in that, yes, and so we ended up adopting Eliza, and God has just our family dynamic has just changed so much. We can't imagine life without them.
Speaker 2:They are, I say all the time. They keep us on our knees and on our toes. They're our greatest joys and again, they've just shown us so much about the places that we need Jesus, like every single day we need Jesus, and so our hope is just that we live that out for them and that they know God has ordained every day of their life and protected them and fought he's fought for them. You know, we can only fight so much in our, especially in a system that has so many moving parts and pieces, and many of them, I mean it's born out of brokenness. It's going to remain a broken system, you know. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:I say that so much where I'm like the system itself. It's literally born from broken and it shouldn't exist. Like the fact that there is a system says the brokenness of the world, and so we can't expect the system that it's literal roots are in brokenness to be the solution. That they can do their part in the solution, but like they can't be the only ones out there doing it because it's it will never lead towards healing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and that's where kind of we went in our journey. The more we saw about the system, and heard the frustration of it too, it's like, okay, well, what can we do to be a part of coming alongside? So what was your answer? So the answer was we got involved in a lot of different nonprofits and ministries and organizations and so through that we ended up just knowing that God wanted to grow our family through foster care, and we just knew that more children would be a part of our lives in the future.
Speaker 2:We didn't know what that looked like, though, because at the time, you couldn't adopt more than you can have more than five children in our County, and so we decided to sell our home and build a home had more bedrooms and have more land. And so we decided to sell our home and build a home that had more bedrooms and have more land. And so we decided to do this. And then, let's see, this was in 2020. We actually closed on our property to build our home and the next week, the world shut down. So that was fun.
Speaker 2:So, surrender, surrender. Yeah, eventually through that time we had to live in our camper. So all eight of us and our dog lived in our camper while we finished building our home, but it did finally get done. So through that time we were just kind of seeking ways to get involved on different things. And so we saw, while we were all just home quarantined together, scrolling through Facebook, we saw an episode that Mike Rowe had done. It was called Returning the Favor. It was a Facebook episode and he had done this documentary on the first Isaiah 117 house. I had no idea what Isaiah 117 house was, but we saw this documentary and I was like this is it? This is what God's called us to do. We have our hands in so many different places and we can't get clarity on where to just jump in fully and um, the mission of it is to reduce trauma for children who are?
Speaker 2:entering foster care, to lighten the load of child welfare workers and to ease the transition to placement families. Foster care to lighten the load of child welfare workers and to ease the transition to placement families. And so we reached out to them after we saw this and just said, hey, we want to do this in our community, we want to do this in our state. And they reached back out to us and said well, welcome to the team. And so we do things a little bit differently now, but thank God, back then it was the wild, wild West and so it's just like sure, welcome. Go find some people to pray with you that are crazy and believe in the stream and can bring it to your community.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God.
Speaker 2:Kind of the beginning started so we sent. We had to send. We did have to send a video of our family. Thank God, they have a lot of grace too. The bloopers of the video we need to put together something one day for that because they're comical.
Speaker 1:That would be amazing.
Speaker 2:So they welcomed us. Thank God, our founders, corey and Rhonda Paulson, welcomed us with open arms, and they get the crazy, you know.
Speaker 1:And there were no Isaiah 117 houses in Florida. No.
Speaker 2:There were no Isaiah 117 houses in Florida, no. So at the time we did have to get, we had to meet with our state and with our department and had to get really approval because it was new. We had to know if they would use our home, because children at the time are waiting in offices for placement. And so at the time we did get that approval to move into the state of Florida and just begin really spreading awareness in our community. At the time we did get that approval to move into the state of Florida and just begin, um really spreading awareness in our community. So in March of 2021, we kicked off in Duval County and just began telling the community about the need and really from there, um six months after raising awareness in the community, we start looking for land and raising funds to build a home. And that took a long time in our community and so you know I had, I was telling you that we had we were building a home in 2020 and 2021. And, I think, part of 2022, still it's not done yet.
Speaker 2:It's a great reminder. I always say it's a good reminder that nothing is finished Like God's work has never completed us, and I get to look at just things when I pull into my yard.
Speaker 1:Okay, side note, I'm starting to take and I say starting loosely, I have done this one time, but I feel like I'm, you know the idea of a Sabbath and it keeps coming up like practice is a formation and I'm likeath uh is not practical.
Speaker 1:In my life I have six children. It's not. That's not. There's not going to be a day of like full rest from all things. Maybe there will be one day like whatever, um, and so I've been like talking to the lord about this, like I really feel compelled towards the sabbath idea. Rest is huge, space is huge for me, but I don't know for me, but I don't know how to make this, I don't know how to fit this in and this it keeps it kept like coming back to me like a day from fixing things 24 hours where you don't fix a problem that your child has, a problem in your marriage a problem in your house, a perceived let's say perceived problem in yourself.
Speaker 1:You're not allowed to talk about things that you've been talking in therapy. You're not allowed like and as I mean I sat with this, I'm telling you for two months before I did the first one, because I was like I don't know, I don't know if I can do this, I'm a fixer.
Speaker 1:I'm a fixer by nature and it is this like. It's like this. What I can feel developing is this theology of there's always going to be things like until the day that we get to heaven, we're not going to achieve perfection. And my perfectionist heart needs to take a hot second and like just be okay with imperfection. What a gift that it would be to my family and myself and my marriage If I could be okay with imperfection just one day a week 24 hours, 24 hours.
Speaker 1:I did it the first time and I'm going to tell you, hot off the press, how was it? It was easy, cause I was not in my home. Brad and I had gone away for 24 hours for our anniversary and I felt like I had nothing to offer if I wasn't fixing something.
Speaker 2:I just felt like I don't.
Speaker 1:There's so many things I could be fixing right now. We have no kids around us. There's so many things I could be fixing right now. We have no kids around us. There are so many things I could be fixing right now. We could go to Costco, we could go to Lowe's, we could go to like God forbid, we stay at the beach and just rest. Yeah so yeah, I'm learning that too In this season for sure, so you're driving home, yes, and you get to see all of the things.
Speaker 2:Yes, I get to be reminded of that and I do think I like that idea of the Sabbath, though I'm going to adopt that myself. Yeah, just like yeah. So we had no idea at the time with Isaiah 117. We thought early on in our journey maybe it would be our own house. I don't know if we lived in the house, but it's actually. You have land and you build a home, and so in searching for land, it took goodness.
Speaker 1:I think it was two and a half years in.
Speaker 2:Duval County. We looked all over um, god opened the door for a property very close to where we live.
Speaker 1:Understatement of the year Go ahead.
Speaker 2:And I struggled with that, believe it or not? Of course you did, because you know some people are like, oh, isn't that so great?
Speaker 1:Don't you just love it? Of course you struggled with it. I really struggled with it.
Speaker 2:It was too close to my home and to my heart, you know.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I had a lot of. I think I had some fear and anxiety too, knowing what I know, yeah, and. But through that, I mean, God made clear that that's, that's where it was to be. But again, it was kind of one of those okay, we're gonna, we're gonna walk forward and we're going to say yes. Uh, with a little bit of reluctancy, but God reminded me of the first email I sent Isaiah 117 house and I literally I would run back in this area where we purchased our personal property for a while, just and pray that God would give us land back in there. And I remember standing on that property and sending this email to Isaiah 117 house and and at the time, thinking it might be our personal home. And two and a half years later, you know, like I was okay with it being my personal home, Now I don't even want it near me. It's too much, God. I did not sign up for this.
Speaker 1:Well, but I think also, like you have six kids, you have kids that are in high school, heading off to college. You are starting Isaiah 117 in the state of Florida, which then starts exploding in the state of Florida. You didn't know you were that good at your job, right, I'm definitely not. Turns out that you are actually, and you start seeing, like the amount of work that this takes, the hours that it takes, what your kids, your kids are getting older. I have found this to be true in my house and we're not in, I only have one in high school. Like the older that they're getting, I'm like, oh, you need more of me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, who knew that? Parenting older children Well?
Speaker 1:older parents than us know that, but we don't know that that's true. The parenting older kids takes more effort.
Speaker 1:Like it's like you have this physical effort in the younger years and then you have this emotional effort that comes and an insane amount of driving, and you lose more control and you're also losing more control. We're just going to go ahead and title this episode Surrender, yes, the Surrender, losing more control. We're just going to go ahead and title this episode surrender, the surrender of. But it's like, yeah, I can totally see that you're like, if this happens here, where this land is fine, my fear is that I don't ever have an ounce of time for Denae, for myself, for me and Carl, like that. It will be completely overridden by my, by the children that we've said yes to, the children that we've given birth to, and then this work that we are birthing and creating and bringing into the world that is so time consuming.
Speaker 1:I think it's fear. I think it's also like super logical and practical to be like, ah, I don't know, this is really close Right, because I think that the thing is that we don't think about with foster care and then is like every other form of ministry that I've ever done in my lifetime and I lived a life of ministry prior to foster care was outside of my house, everywhere, so I could go downtown and feed homeless people, that's no problem. I could. Prior to foster care was outside of my house, so I could go downtown and feed homeless people, that's no problem. I could spend an entire Friday night. I could do all of those things. I'm still coming home to my house and it is peaceful my little apartment, my townhome with Brad and Zoe but there's not a battle being raged inside of my home.
Speaker 1:And then we start fostering and it's like, oh I, there's never a break, there's never a moment where I'm off anymore. And to live in that state of like, yeah, of course, I would just say, I would say, of course you. You just say I would say, of course you wrestled with that and gave a shaky yes, but you still gave a yes. Somebody prayed over me one time and they were like Rebecca, I just feel like your God's, like yes, girl Like he knows that you're going to say yes and I later.
Speaker 1:that was years ago and I'm like what if I don't want to say yes?
Speaker 1:He's coming to you what if I just said no one time currently. I don't know why I'm talking about this. Anyhow, I currently have this thing with the Lord where I'm like I want you to ask me to do something and I'm gonna say no. I just want to make sure I don't get struck by lightning like it's like a test. It's like it's like a test. It's like I want to see what happens between us If I say no. That is way too much of my theological baggage on air, but we're going to go with it.
Speaker 1:That's great, yeah, so you built.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So built a home, yeah.
Speaker 2:Two, two homes in Florida, so we have one in Duval County and we have one in Baker County, and I often get emotional and so I'm going to get a little emotional here. Great Again, god is so good and he's faithful and I literally get to see a miracle every day because it is close to my heart and to my physical being and I will say, for us, for our family, it's been a family calling of our biological children as well, to step into foster care, to step into foster care, and I am very grateful that it can be so close and my family can keep serving in that way. You know, I think sometimes we often wonder, like are we just messing our kids up?
Speaker 2:Totally, you know, when they're playing with dolls and it's like, oh, there's somebody over there, they can just come live with us, you know.
Speaker 1:That's not how it's supposed to work, right, right, or is it? One time I had to run back into. I was dropping Zoe off at a youth group event and I had to go back in and I said so I'm clear, and I know that I said this out loud you can't make any jokes about cocaine here.
Speaker 1:And I was like um you don't live in the normal world, rebecca, like it was just one of those moments where it was like our life is so different like our, our humor is so different, like everything about how our family operates is just really sometimes not palatable and I'm like I just need to make sure that my teenage not she was in middle school and I'm like you can't go to middle school stuff and make jokes about cocaine but it's a family it's a family calling and like I say this all the time like our kids don't know Sunday school Jesus, they never got to meet him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they're better for it, but it's hard yeah it's hard. You want the innocence of Sunday school Jesus even if they later have to deconstruct that version yes, Like you want it.
Speaker 2:You want that innocence. I feel that big time often.
Speaker 1:Would you do it again? Absolutely All of it, all of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been worth the cost by far. And just to see what God does I mean just you know Isaiah House alone, just personal, our journey, seeing what he does in people's lives around us, getting to be, just getting to see. One thing I always say is I love sharing stories of God's goodness and his faithfulness and miracles. I mean it's just, it's everyday miracles. Truly, is that how you keep yourself afloat?
Speaker 1:It is Like you just stay anchored into his goodness and his faithfulness and how he shows up all the time.
Speaker 2:It is. Yeah, I've recently just been reading through the Psalms and listening to songs that are Psalms, and just having all of those feelings though, but sitting in the feelings of the lament but the praise at the same time, and how sweet that is, especially when mixed in with faith and hope, and hope in the darkness, because if we don't know the darkness, we don't know hope you know, yes, it's born from that, my favorite poet.
Speaker 1:his name is david gate and he's on instagram and he um, I know him in real life, but he is. He is now, like insta, famous or whatever I don't know if he would say that and if he's listening, sorry, david. Anyhow, he wrote this poem and I I quoted it at the gala years ago and it's like, hope belongs to the night.
Speaker 1:It has no place in the bright daylight where you can get it from other places and I'm horribly botching this poem right now, but I have it printed out in my house. It is birthed in the night. It doesn't need the daylight, the night needs hope. Um, I, uh I, as hope is like one of the things that I pray through all the time. Right now is like God, I want to be rooted in hope. I want to, I want to be like I have it. I see it, I can taste it but I want to live from it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dr Vernon Berger he is a friend of mine that I met at CAFO years ago. I sat in his workshop on lament and he quoted the Psalms and it changed my life. It changed how I viewed myself as a Christian. It changed my relationship with the Lord. It changed my relationship with what was happening in my house. Like I cannot talk enough about what sitting in that workshop did for me and this phenomenal gift of becoming friends with Vernon and his wife Amber over the last year. He's going to do a workshop for Haven in, I'm pretty sure, december on lament, nice, and how it's anchored in hope, like how it's like, yeah, you're gonna have to like it's gonna be virtual.
Speaker 2:You're gonna have to make sure that it's there or I'll record it and send it to you, but it's gonna, you're gonna love it.
Speaker 1:It's so. His work on limitit is like it's so so, so good, it's so good.
Speaker 2:It's been a new thing for me, I guess in the last years, you know, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, because we're taught not to yeah Like all of these feelings inside of us are bad, and he's like they're not bad. Yeah, it's just that God is the person that you can take it to Like they have all of these things. So okay, at the end of every episode we do a lightning round. We talked about one what's giving you life? Which? You can answer this a different way, but I think you're going to say like hope and like, because faithfulness is.
Speaker 1:But what, what like practical thing is giving you life right now. What are you? What are you loving?
Speaker 2:I am loving. I love to run or walk, just move my body outside, and when I go do that, I really just look for God and I literally am like just show up, God. And he does. Just this past weekend I was running down a road and I said, all right, God, just show up. And I literally said it out loud and I kid you not, maybe a quarter mile down the road, sidewalk shock all over. You are kind, Keep going, you can do this. Don't give up. Don't give up.
Speaker 1:I feel like you're taking out billboards.
Speaker 2:Every one, and then there was hopscotch at then, so there's a little fun too. Yeah, that's so fun.
Speaker 1:One time I told God I was like I need you to take out billboards on the side of the road to tell me that I'm doing the right thing. Focus on the family called me that week and they were like we've heard about what you're doing and you're doing a good thing and we just want to tell you to keep going. And I was like, wow, but it's a week that I remember, it's a week that I get back to often and I'm like yeah. I needed you to show up and you did.
Speaker 1:Yeah you should. You did, and you said keep going. And I've done that a couple more times, Like okay, that's one. Um, what's on your nightstand?
Speaker 2:My nightstand right now is actually pretty clear, because I don't love the books that I have running through my head all the time, or that I want to get checked off the list, and so I keep those in another spot in the house.
Speaker 1:You don't want them beside you going to sleep.
Speaker 2:My to-do list grows if I have them right on my nightstand. So, my nightstand is actually clear of those things, okay.
Speaker 1:Last question what podcasts or books are you loving right now? Share with the audience. Or what do you have to read that you don't want to read.
Speaker 2:Well as an organization. We are reading the Ruthless Elimination of Hurry right now.
Speaker 2:John Mark Comer. Yes, so I have that and that's really a second reread for me. There's a book called Reclaiming I think it's called Reclaiming Conversations that I'm reading Podcasts I kind of hop around depending on what's happening in my moment in my season, but Revelation Wellness is my go-to podcast because I like to get out and move my body and that's kind of like Sabbath for me. So rest doesn't really look like being still necessarily physically for me. So that's the podcast I go to.
Speaker 1:Revelation Wellness. Yeah Well, Denae, thank you so much for coming on here and for sharing your heart and your family and Isaiah House.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me and the work that you're doing.
Speaker 1:You're doing good things. It's a joy, keep going, thank you.
Speaker 1:Gosh, wasn't that such a great conversation. I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did, and that's 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. 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.