Joe Snyder Discusses The Kingdom Work of Foster Care

Have you ever felt the call to foster children? Well, In this episode you will hear how foster care has impacted the life of our guest, Joe Snyder, and learn about all the different ways you can get involved in the ministry of foster care. 

Here is a list of the resources we talked about in today's episode: 

100 Families 100 Families

Project Zero Home | Project Zero

Here is how you can directly get in contact with Joe Snyder if you are looking for more information on getting started as a foster parent: 

snyder@abcfm.org 

Transcript

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Gather around God's and move them all over town. Good news, gossip, spreading hope and life. Good news, gossip, making, dark day. Every testimony, every story. True God's do. Welcome back a news gossipers. Before we dive deeper into today's conversation with our guest who has spent nearly 10 years in foster care services, I wanted to take a moment to actually reflect on what the Bible says about foster care. Now, the term foster care it doesn't specifically appear in scripture, but the heart behind it, caring for the fatherless, the vulnerable, the lonely is all over the Bible. Let's start with one of the clearest passages in James 1 27 Religion that God our father accepts as pure and faultless is this to look after orphans and widows in their distress and keep oneself from being polluted by the world. This verse lays it out plain. If we say we follow God, we are called to care for those who are vulnerable, especially children without stable families. And here's another powerful reminder of God's character, Psalm 68, 5 and six, A father of a fatherless and a judge of the widows. Is God in his holy habitation? God settle with the solitary and families. That part right there. God. Settle with the solitary and families. It speaks directly to what foster care is about, creating a home for those who feel alone, giving them a place to belong. And listen to this call to justice. Isaiah one 17. Learn to do well. Seek judgment, relieve the oppressed. Judge. The fatherless plead for the widow, foster care workers, families, and advocates. What you're doing is pleading for the fatherless. You're showing up in their defense just like God commands, And for those who open their hearts and their homes. Romans 12, 13. Share with the Lord's people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Hospitality in the biblical sense isn't just hosting dinner parties. It's about welcoming the stranger, creating space for someone who's in need, even if it's uncomfortable or inconvenient. Let's not forget, we too are adopted. Romans eight 15. The spirit you receive does not make you slaves so that you live in fear again. Rather the spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship and by him we cry, Abba Father. God himself adopted us into his family. When foster parents or families bring a child into their home, they are mirroring that divine adoption story. so if you're listening today. And you ever wondered if foster care is a calling that aligns with Christians? I believe the Bible gives a sound. Yes. It's not just social work, it's kingdom work. And with that, let's bring in our guests who has almost had 10 years experience and foster care services. We got Joe Snyder. He, is who me and my husband's reached out to do foster care. He's a great guy. And so once we talked to him, and then we started the podcast, I was like, you know what? More people need to be able to talk to him, get the information that we've gotten, and, just hear what Joe Snider has to say. He's, has foster care care children that he's adopted as well, and he's, in a, i, I don't remember the organization. That's okay. So he'll let you know more about that, but we're so glad that he's in here today. Hey, thanks for letting me be here, guys. You're welcome. Yeah, it was kind of funny because we were just, we text ideas back and forth, we're both kind of a DHD and she was like, I just really feel like we need to have someone on about foster care. I literally just talked to, my son's, father's mother, we in casa. Okay. Or Yeah, yeah. Is that it? But I asked her about being on and she was like, I don't work there anymore. So yeah, it worked out. It was a God thing. Like That's awesome. Just we needed to talk about foster care. That's awesome. Well, and you know, foster care, so much of it is just hidden because we can't share names of the children. We can't share their images or their specific stories, and that's how it should be. But then it just, it goes like a hidden world that people, they interface with all the time. They don't know that they are, and then they don't realize like how normal this is, how common it is. And how big the need is because you literally can't share those stories, freely. So thank you guys for using your platform to do that. Of course. It's also something close to home for me. I watched my mom go through being a social worker. And it took a toll. Yeah. So I can only imagine not just for like the kids, obviously that's the most important thing, but like the adults surrounding the situation, it's, you guys are doing such good work. It's very heavy. And you saw this with your mom. Mm-hmm. Where every single client you serve, every single person you meet, their story is already broken. Right. And we saw Christ do this all throughout the gospels. And we see God through this, do this throughout the entire book, you go into the brokenness and there's no way to fix it. Right. I was talking with a foster parent last night who, has a little boy and was, he was struggling with some of his emotions and different things and just asking for some tips. And one of the things I think she needed to hear is there's not a way to fix the situation. We want to provide comfort, we want to help him process, but like we, there's no magic thing to say to take away that pain and every single person your mom worked with, that was the story. Mm-hmm. Now, praise God, it doesn't stop there. Right. You know, like Jesus is, is about redemption in every situation and that is possible. But it can be incredibly heavy and it can be a lot, you know, there's no way, to do this and not let it affect you. Like I see some social workers, like government workers specifically, that are able to compartmentalize. Or at least they seem like they can, I have no idea how they do it. Right. Like when God has called you to this, it is your whole self. Mm-hmm. And it, it can really take a toll, but it's, it's so beautiful. Yeah, it is. It's to me, it's definitely just shows exactly what Christ did for us and how, you know, we're adopted children of his and so there's so much help just from the Bible for families in foster care. And we're thankful that, you are a believer and that you're helping so many kids and other people like, use lean on Jesus, through each other, their situations. Absolutely. And you know, we, we have a lot of families in, in Arkansas that this isn't just something they want to do. It's not just a humanitarian effort. It is also what we've been commanded to do by the gospel. Amen. So you approach it totally differently. Where, you know, when things get hard, you don't want to escape that this is the mission. Right. And we have a lot of families that this is kind of their first, step into a sacrificial service mission like that. And, you know, you find out real quick like, oh, this is a sacrifice. Mm-hmm. This is really hard, but this is what God has called me to. And when you, you know, the Bible tells us, just count it all joy when you experience sufferings of many kinds. And when you have those times, this is really hard. It's easy to say this now in this podcast in a very comfortable chair, but you know, at three in the morning when the kid still hasn't gone to sleep and you know, things are very difficult. If in that moment we can be reminded like I am in this difficult situation because I obeyed God and he's allowed me to serve as part of his redemption story in this child's life. And right now is a terrible, difficult time, and I'm gonna be so glad when I'm over it. But I'm here because I was obedient. So the goal for foster care is reunification. And that's not just the goal we all adopt, but that's the legal goal of every single case. When they come in and they have a couple court dates to say like, where are we in removing the children and then they establish a case plan, what needs to happen? And in the case of a sexual abuser, they're not going to reunite that child with that person, but they want to reunite them with their family. And about 70% of time in the state of Arkansas, children are able to go back home. It's not always the case. Yeah. But that is our goal and that's one of the hardest things for us to celebrate publicly. Let me say it that way. We celebrate, like when you talk to our caseworkers and our staff, like those are the times. It's like, okay, God is working here. This is awesome. But the how to capture that and make that available for a larger audience where they can understand this beautiful thing of reunification, when what's right for the family, what helps them have dignity is for them to just move on. Like, we don't wanna spotlight them in a way, like, let's let them this be behind them, you know, and move forward to hundred percent greener pasture. So it's a very difficult thing. Where, adoption is also an incredibly beautiful thing. My wife and I have adopted four daughters, and that's easy to celebrate because I now have legal permission to share their face and their name and their story. And while there is brokenness, that brokenness isn't with this family now. So it's a little easier to share while maintaining dignity. We're really good at that. There's some friends with Project Zero out of Little Rock, and they do an incredible job highlighting adoptions, the need for adoptions, and then celebrating those. And reunification, it's, that's the question that's been on my mind this week is how do we celebrate it in a way where people understand that this is a beautiful thing. Yeah. I want to hear like your questions, since you're kind of totally new to a lot of this. Like I've had a lot of conversations with Rail and with charity, but, I want to know like what questions you have because in my job this would be very helpful, but one of the things we hear a lot is when people say, oh, I couldn't do that. I would get too attached. Right. Which, that's so, yeah. Yeah. And for you, if that's what you were gonna say, or if anybody's listening to this, then that's, that is totally okay. I understand that. Yeah. Um, and what I try to tell people is like that, that's exactly how you should be. Mm-hmm. If you are devastated when this child goes home, what that means is you serve them with your entire heart. And you held nothing back. And you, you are a parent for a season, right? So when, when you have children born to you, you are, you're able to make every decision outside of my wife. No one else really has to give me permission to do what, what I think is best for my kids. Well, when you're a foster parent, there's a team and you are not allowed to make, like the decision for the child to go back home doesn't always fall to you. And even if you disagree, that decision's still being made. So if you are brokenhearted, what that means is you love this child tremendously. You have loved them really well. You had said like earlier, like, no matter how long they're with you. We have children that'll be in a home for 24 hours. We have children that'll be in homes for multiple years. Yeah. And that is that sacrificial. Like, I can't avoid this if I'm going to be obedient. And it's, it's a beautiful, it is very hard, but it is also a beautiful thing. So when you say like, I would get too attached, I'm trying to get people to understand like, oh, that's a good thing. That's how it should be. Right? Well, so I personally, I probably would get really attached and as you said, that's a good thing. But I've also, I've done several different, jobs in my life and daycare worker seeing foster kids a lot. I've, I've kind of experienced that love and that attachment already. Yeah. My husband's the one who is like, I don't think you can do it. I was like, I don't know. Maybe. But yeah, I don't know. I do, I have felt that calling. Before we, we struggled to have our, second child or my second child and I was like, you know, maybe we just foster and that's just something that I would still consider and still would love to do. Yeah. But, we both have to be on the same page. No, I understand. One, one of the things I love about the organization I work for now, is connected families. We're part of Arkansas Baptist Children and Family Ministries. I know I just said a lot of words. We recorded it. So that's what I want you to remember is connected families. Okay. Now, one thing that I love about that is we want people to first and foremost obey God in whatever he's calling you to do. So praise God. I do not have to be a salesman. I'm not good at it. I tried to sell servers for Hewlett Packard for a while. I'm terrible at it. But. It. So I'm not gonna try to convince you to do anything, but if God is calling you to do something, we want to help empower you to do it. And you know, there's a lot of inquiry meetings. We have the inquiry meetings when someone is wanting to know more before signing up. So we sit down and we talk as long as they need to talk. And there's a lot of times we'll have that conversation and we'll defer them to another organization because we truly think that's better for them. One thing I love about connected is we start with what is God calling you to do? They are families. God is calling specifically to adoption. And if that's the case, there's no need to apologize for that. There are also families that are called to foster care. Okay? Let's help you do that if you don't know. Okay, let's do both. Like, that's fine. Mm-hmm. You know, we have families that come in and that part of the process is you have like a preferences checklist. It's a really long list of. All the different things you, you could provide for and things you could not. So it's you know, children's age, their demographics, everything from gender to some of the behaviors we've seen, if they have special needs, anything like that. And we have families that come in and they just draw a line through Yes. On every single thing. And part of me is like some hesitancy, like, Hey, I want you to pray about that a little bit. And then we have other families that know exactly like this is what God is calling us to and praise God for them. You know, we have foster families that specialize in, children who've been exposed to substances. We have foster families that specialize in medically fragile children. So just starting with that, what is God calling you to do? Because this is a huge need and we must all do something to help. So we're currently sitting, I call this Searcy I know it's kin, it's Yeah, but it's cce, right? Like it's Searcy Yeah, it all counts. I truly think that this area can be, the, the case study for doing this, right? Um, every organization in Arkansas is represented here in Searcy Um, it seems that way. That might not be true. Please don't Google it. Um, because who knows? But what I can tell you is there's a lot, there are a lot of people here working together to do this, right? Like one of the things we're doing today is we, there's a pickleball tournament that Chick-fil-A has put on for a lot of these organizations. And let me just tell you, I didn't realize how serious people take pickleball. Oh yeah. Until last year was their first year to do it. I did not understand. We always play it for fun and like people are showing up 20 minutes early to stretch and they're stretching the entire time. And I'm like wanting to talk to people about foster care, whatever. And you know, the, the tournament is supporting all of these organizations. So I'll walk up and they're like, no. Like I'm in the zone. Nope. Like, it's a level of seriousness I've never seen. Sorry. That has nothing to with where is it at? What I'm talking about today. They actually moved it to here in Kensett. But here in Searcy lot of these organizations are represented and, I think we can actually take care of the needs. So what I mean by that is we've never had enough families to service the children. And I think if it's going to happen anywhere, it could here in Circe. Yeah. I believe that. Mm-hmm. And we can pray for that jointly. Absolutely. All our listeners, our churches for sure. And I think that this will encourage, a lot of families to, look at it. A lot of people like look at it like y'all said, like, oh, I think I'll get to attach. Well, ultimately, like, are we doing, like, yes, some people are called to it, but there's things that you can do to help foster care families, even if you're not gonna foster. And what are some of those things that people can do? Yeah. So like you said, not everyone is called to open their home to foster care. I would like everyone to ask God if they are though. Amen. You know?'cause there's, there's times like, oh, that sounds really hard. Don't wanna do that. Right. Um, I want you to treat it like, am I a missionary to Hawaii instead of, am I a missionary to Siberia? Right. And what I mean by that is people hear it and they're like, ah, no, I'm not called to Siberia. I would probably default to that too. But if there's a spot open and they're like, Hey, do you wanna help us plan a church in Hawaii? I'm gonna genuinely consider that. And if we can have that same approach to foster care, let's start there. Am I called to open my home? If not, if God tells you no. Okay, that's fine. If we can get our churches to see this as a ministry of the church and not a ministry of the individual, that's when we see things change. Amen. Right. When you guys open your home, if the culture is that y'all are an open home and you guys are in this ministry of foster care, that's kind of the status quo, what we've seen so far. Instead, if the church can rally behind you to support you, and there's a few really key ways that we try to encourage people to do this. One of the most impactful is there's a member of the team. You know, we talked about the team earlier. You have caseworkers and lawyers and the foster parent and therapists, but also there's a member of the team called the Foster Family Support System. Each foster family gets three of these. This is great for your best friend, your mom, your neighbor, the people you would call if you could not go pick up your kids from school, who would you call to get them? That's who this is geared for. They do a background check. I think they check their driving record, but it's pretty low effort to be approved. These people are allowed to transport those children and keep them up to, I think it's 24 hours. It might have been extended. But because these children are awards of the state, not just anyone can, you know, right. Like provide for them in that way. You can still have a babysitter and stuff. But these are people that can truly help, you know, take a child somewhere if they need to. If there's an emergency they can, spend the night at their house. They can even get like allowances from the state to keep them a little longer from than that. And that's an incredible way to do it. We even have people now that we've been sharing this, who come to us and say, we want to be that, which family needs it. Wow, that's awesome. And that's been a really cool thing to see. We started getting involved in foster care in 2016 and in the last year is the first time I've heard people ask that question in that way. And now don't, I don't wanna scare people off if that's what you wanna do, but those people are now opening their home because they realize like, oh, we can do this. Yeah. That's such a good way to start. To like, Hey, get your feet wet, but let me at least, help some. Let me at least do something and pray about it another way. I would encourage people to support, is if you have a foster family in your church or you have a friend or someone you know, take them a meal once a month, a hot meal, take it to them or invite them into your home. People don't like to invite large families into their home. I understand my wife and I have hosted five times more than we have been hosted because we have a bunch of children. But take them a meal once a month and before you leave, pray over that family. Don't just tell them you're gonna pray for them. Like right now on the porch. How can I pray for you and pray over them? If you do that, you will begin a relationship where they can share with you needs, and they're gonna tell you, but also they're gonna call you when they need encouragement. They're gonna call you when. They, they need three hours, you know, with their husband on a date night and they're struggling, you know, those kind of things. Right. So those are the two big things we're trying to encourage people with. That is amazing. I'm so glad we can share that on this podcast because I've personally wanted to be involved in some way. Yeah. And cooking is something, I think I've done that before. I went to a church where they gave you like Tupperware. And you just take it home and you just fill it with the food and you bring it, and then like it goes to a foster family. Yeah. I love that. We, we love to have churches who will provide freezer meals. We want all of our families to have one meal in the freezer at all times. The reason for that is you might have a placement that night or that you might have a child who, you know, as we heal our mind. Brings forth new things we need to start dealing with. So those are called triggers. You might have a child that comes home from school and to love them. Well, I will not be able to cook dinner or just simply, I need to focus on this child. So let's take that, throw in the oven, focus on this child for a while. So we want them to always have one, but then also just to have the, getting a free meal isn't always that helpful. It can at times, you know, as a parent, like it can almost be more work. It's the connection and it's being served. Mm-hmm. That's the big deal. This is all really good information.'cause I do feel like the majority of people, of course, are willing to help, but maybe not willing to necessarily take on the responsibility of a child. A life. You're really, but yeah, you're responsible for that human life. Yeah. So, and that's a, that's a big responsibility. I understand that. One thing we try to let people know, you know, we have these meetings early in to tell people, like, if God is calling you this, here's how you can, one thing that's surprising to people is the amount of support that is available to foster families. Yes. My mom, when she was a social worker, she would talk about all these things that she would be able to go and do for these children. She would take them to doctor's appointments and there was all these different resources and therapy available for these kids. And it's, it is like a huge undertaking. But with all these resources and all these different ways that people are helping, you're creating a community. Absolutely. I don't think Hillary Clinton was the first one to say it takes a village. I think that's just an old proverb. But it always gets subscribed to her. But it's absolutely true and praise God that there is a village that exists. So when we step into this, it's not alone. Not only do you have the state helping with things from, you know, like every child comes into care is automatically approved with insurance, so you don't have to worry about that. You are provided a subsidy for them. It's not much, but it definitely does help the children that are young enough, and I don't remember these specific age, are automatically approved for wic. Children that are preschool age are given daycare and preschool vouchers. Our agency helps support in tons of ways and we have a lot of local agencies that do the same thing. So one thing we're always trying to do is connect people to those supports. A couple of those I would encourage people to find out more about. Is 100 families. There's a couple representatives here in Searcy One is at Sparrow's Promise, one is at, fellowship Bible. And what they do is literally their job is connecting to all the resources. And that's not just for, families involved in foster care, it's also biological families that we're trying to keep out of foster care. So our foster families are given all of these things. All of our services are free. There's no expense. You know, even the children we've adopted, the only charge I know of, was a birth certificate when they took our last name. Now, obviously raising a child is expensive, so there's some out of pocket of just meals and things, but they try to help with that through that monthly board payment. So it's way more possible than people realize. Mm-hmm. 100%. I agree with that. I mentioned Project Zero to you earlier. They are the organization, the state uses, to help match waiting families with kids that are available for adoption. And you can go to project zero.org and see every child in the state who's available for adoption. Yep. Yeah, definitely get on there and try not to cry, you know? Absolutely. Well, and what you'll see is you'll see a lot of older children, you'll see a lot of sibling groups, and you'll see children with special needs. And you know, where what we need in both foster care in adoption is we need people who are willing to take older children and sibling groups. Those are our biggest needs. And when you see those children listed, if we can just remember, they represent a much larger group of children that we cannot share their photos, share their face. One of the reasons why I've talked about this organization, project Zero multiple times now is they do such a great job of helping connect the heart of Christ to this need. And one of the things we're asking right now is, how can we do that and do a better job of connecting that heart to reunification, connecting that heart to serving these biological families? Because it's not wrong with adoption, but it's much easier to do that there. So we need those families who can, you know, care for those, those older, more difficult to place children. And I was gonna say to you, I didn't want to interrupt you. Yeah. But now you're crying, so I feel like I can keep talking. God calls us to different things, and if your heart is leaning more towards adoption, we don't have to apologize for that. There are also many foster families that when they think about committing to a child for their rest of their lives, like, I don't know, that seems like a lot, Yeah. so We don't have to apologize when God's calling us to something. Obedience is absolutely never failure. Well, as your friend charity, I know that your heart and your home is ready. I can. I see. Well, the house, you know, it is getting, but I know what you mean. Yeah, for sure. Well, and you told us y'all were remodeling a house, but then I've seen like some of y'all's videos that you put on social. I'm like, y'all aren't just remodeling a house. You undersold this. Y'all are gutting a house and rebuilding it from the floor up. My wife and I have done that a couple times. It is so much work and it takes so long, but it's so much cheaper and houses are so expensive. So, and, and it's really exciting just to be like, you know what, like already, like, there's gonna be so many kids. Yeah. That's what I mean is so you can just like be like, you know, some days you can just be like so ungrateful, like, oh, like we're having to redo a house. Like I'm so privileged to be able to have a house like that. And look forward to all the kids that, are gonna be able to live there. That's beautiful. Literally just count on me to cry for talking literally every help. Well, and it's true. You are providing a physical place. And when we talk about the home, it's not just the physical place. It's the entire thing. And you guys are creating that, now and you're seeing that it is not fast. This takes a long time. And there'll be children you serve that come into your home and stay in those bedrooms that y'all are building now that it's, you're gonna want it to be faster. They're healing and their progress. And it is very slow. What you're saying is, the Lord's just preparing me for more patience Absolutely. I 100% agree with that. I know that the Lord, it's gonna be in perfect timing. When everything works out, the children that are perfect for us, we'll raise them. And I truly believe that my wife and I, before we were married, we were talking about foster care and adoption. We both, separately just kind of knew this was part of our future, something we wanted to do. And there's a lot of people who think about foster care or adoption if they cannot have children of their own. And I understand that if you have a, like we had a foster family here in the area that had like nine children, biologically, and they still have a heart to serve more children. that's very rare. God, thank you for those people. but it doesn't have to be a replacement. Right? Like we knew this was going to be part of our story and we were praying, we, were married in 2008. We didn't have our first biological child until 2011, but we were praying for the children. God would one day bring into our home. And there was a time where we realized like, oh, they might be alive now. We started the process in 2015, opened in spring of 2016. And you know those children who, you know, we eventually adopted a few of them. they were born before we were married. They were alive then. And we were praying for God to prepare us and he was preparing us for those children. We would one day meet. And that's, it is just those times when you're reminded that. God sees things we don't. He's ordaining these things. So that when this brokenness happened and these children needed a family, we were available. And prepared. Amen. What a good story. What a beautiful story. I love that. So how many kids do you have total? That's a hard question to answer. We had someone over for dinner last night and anytime we try to tell who our children are, how many, it's what order do I go in? Do I go in the order of their age or when they came into our home or, you know, it, that's just confusing. So I'm just gonna to keep it simple. we have seven children. from 26 down to five. Our oldest daughter lives in Savannah. We have a 4-year-old granddaughter named Sophia. we love them so very much I can't even say the process'cause there's so many different ones. We have three children born to us. We've adopted four children. Our oldest daughter we never legally adopted. And if she desired that, we wouldn't have a problem with that. But it didn't, she came into our home when she was 19. And in all of the stories, it's so difficult to explain because it's non-normative. but what we like to say is that God has completely redefined the word family. For us, it, the definition is way more cloudy, but we understand it so much better. And because I think we've all now seen the people who are truly family to us, that we are not related to at all. And really the only difference in some senses is that that happened with children, that needed a place to go and they couldn't have made that happen on their own. So we've adopted three from foster care. Here in Arkansas and, we have three biological children. One of the things I hear a lot is people worry about their biological children if they open into care, which is understandable. There's part of our training is like how to keep yourself safe from different things. Right. Just to be smart, because every one of these children have experienced some kind of abuse or neglect. That doesn't mean they will, but, we wanna be smart. what I've seen with my biological children is they've lived this normal and, you know, last night as we're telling this story, my oldest son is 13. He's a very mature 13. And seeing the way he would love on, little brother who's come to us through foster care. Is absolutely beautiful. And seeing the way my children understand family mm-hmm. Is so different. We fostered a little boy for about a year and he ended up going back home and it was that time when it's like, I'm devastated. I did not agree at the time that he should have gone back home, but the biological family has that right. Like they deserve to this. so he goes back home, but the first Christmas he was with us Milo, or 13-year-old, he got like a punching bag for Christmas and it's the kind that like inflates and there's a heavy weight on the bottom and it like, looks like a boxer and my logos, you know, unwraps it and starts punching it. And this little boy has a complete panic attack. Yeah. And I don't know, but I would assume he's seen things like this. And my son, who at the time was like five or six. It's just like, okay, that's fine. Let's put that back in the box. Mom and dad. Y'all gimme something else. Right? Like, I'm gonna double check that. Yeah. But he had no problem. Like, I will let go of my Christmas gift because this is hurting you. Wow. And that's something, you know, a brother does. So what I take away from that is if you're a parent already and you have biological children and you wanna bring foster kids in your home not to worry as much about that. Absolutely. Because it can open your kids up to loving people more. I mean, it's the same thing if you serve in your church or you serve at a soup kitchen. You serve on mission, you go on mission trips, any example like that, and your children go with you, they get to see this. They get to be, they get to take part in this. They are believers in Christ and they are ministers of the gospel. Amen. I want to raise them to do this. Now again, that doesn't mean there's never anything to worry about, but it's not something that should hold you back. Like it's the same thing with birth order. People are always so worried about disrupting birth order and I'm like, guys, it's not worse. Like if you, like my son, my youngest son, he's six, he's been the baby his entire life. If we had another baby that would be very difficult for him disrupting birth order in that way. But no one ever worries about that. we've done it all where the oldest was no longer the oldest. That's happened a couple times. And then there were children placed in the middle and then a baby boy, there's a lot. But if God is calling you to do this, what he's promised us in James is that any suffering we experience will produce endurance and produce hope. so, I'm going to be okay with some of that. Mm-hmm. Like that's a very good reason. To have suffering. Yeah. 100%. 100%. I agree. And he'll also bring you through and he won't give you more than you can handle. And you're gonna see the fulfilling of his promise. Yeah. Well, and I think the way, if I can get a little theological for a second, I think the way people have been taught that phrase of God's not gonna give you more than you can handle, they understand it in a theologically incorrect way. Mm-hmm. And they think of it like, okay, he's not gonna put me through something that will destroy me. Yeah. He will. Right. he wants to put you in things where it will destroy you unless you are walking closely with him. Amen. He's called me to be foster care or no. So it's like he'll never put me through something. He and I can't handle, or really he can't handle, and I'm just kind of along for the ride. You know, like you're pray and we see families who step into this and they get to that moment and it's kind of the first time they've ever been in that place where your prayer shifts from, God help me do this to God. I cannot do this. Please just take care of it. If you don't do this, we will be destroyed. And that is, you know, when our relationship with the father is purist, but also like, if I'm not getting to that point, what am I not doing for the gospel? What opportunities have I left because I was afraid or I wanted to be comfortable, or whatever it may be. That I don't think the phrase is bad. I just think a lot of people, how people perceive it and how they understand it, and like their definition of it today is not the actual definition. Yeah. I mean, when you get crushed by something and you're thinking, well, I thought you weren't supposed to gimme more than I could handle. Well yeah. But we're gonna do this together. Absolutely. You know, God wants us to get to that point where we must depend on him. And hopefully that's short of our destruction. It's not always. The Bible promises us that it says when you encounter persecution many times, not if. And if we are following him in a pure, honest way, we will experience, persecution and there's times it's almost like I'm validated, you know? It's like, okay, I'm really doing this because I'm being persecuted. So it's like, should I be happy about this? But got all his joy, right? Absolutely. I'm doing my best God. But this is hard, you know, and I'm gonna praise you in the middle of it. So I wanna shift gears just a little bit. Okay. I'm so, so glad. I'm sure we'll pick back up on foster care at some point, but, the point of this podcast is really to get down to like the, the worst of the worst moments you probably ever had in your life, and how God led you out of that, what your testimony is. You're like, what you're comfortable sharing, obviously, but Yeah, just what, how God saved you basically. the running theme it seems is I keep getting in these moments where you have to say, am I. Truly going, do I truly believe this? Am I truly going to follow God or not? And unfortunately that's been in times where people I was very close with chose not. And I had to choose, am I truly gonna stay on this path when it will cost me things that are dear friendships, relationships with family. And that's kind of been the through line. Praise God, my wife entered the picture and we've been able to do that together, many times. And she's never made me ask that question. And I pray I never make her ask that question. I came to understand salvation at an early age. I love trivia. Like I love nothing more than a good quiz bowl tournament. it is truly my favorite thing. I've won the Harry Potter trivia on both cruises I've been on, and, my wife makes fun of me for it all the time, even though I know she's very proud. She also makes fun of me, because there's like groups of eight people and it's just me and her and she's not helping. Right. So I love trivia and as a kid we would study scripture and they would do like bible quiz bowl at my church and I dominated. I love that. I mean, people say they peaked in high school. I peaked during quiz Olympics when I was in third grade. Great. I came to know Christ at an early age. I'd heard that prayer. You might've heard it. Like, now I lay down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. And then you get to that super scary thing for no reason if I should die before I wake. Yeah. And I would, the way we were taught is we would pray that, and then we would continue praying. And I legitimately thought people just died all the time in their sleep. And especially as a kid, you hear about people who passed unless they, well, they died peacefully in their sleep. And so it was just like a roll of the dos to me as this kid. And it really made me realize like, oh, I, this is reality. So one night, you know, I've been scared about this enough, and I finally just, I knew what to do. God, you have forgiven me. I am a sinner. I cannot do this on my own. And, you know, I, I begin my belief then, and it frustrated my parents because I didn't tell them, you know, it was like a couple days later and in my mind it's like, what? Why did I need to come get you? You know? And as a parent, now I understand. I want to hear my children's prayers. So that I can remind them in times when they are doubting, like, no, I heard your heart. I knew what you were saying. Yeah. But I was like, I knew what to do and I did it. You know, like I didn't know. So that's where it began. But you know that I didn't begin following Jesus then. Yeah. You know, when you're young, that's just hard. So I was about 14 when I truly decided to follow him with my life. Yeah. And in that time, you know, you're in a small town in Arkansas. I grew up in Cave City just north of Batesville Like I tell people I'm from Batesville.'cause you are from both. Yeah. Right. So I grew up there, small town, small church, and in senior high I was 15 when news broke that, you know, really made, everyone in my family asked that question, are we truly going to be. Are we truly gonna follow Christ? Are we truly going to embrace the suffering? some of my family chose no. And my sister and I, very much said yes, and there were definitely some other spots on the spectrum on that. it isolated us in a lot of ways from family and in our church and it was so incredibly difficult. Um, but he used that to refine us. Um, I had met Lindsey, my wife, at a church camp, when we were kids. I was 17, she was 16 or something like that. She's our family memory, so she will absolutely tell me I'm wrong. we had dated for a few years and, our families had kind of dissolved and broken in different ways and we knew we were gonna be getting married. So we got married very young. I was. 20. She was 18 when we were married. There's nothing easy about getting married young. it was, okay, let's galvanize ourselves together and follow Jesus together. It was very difficult. I graduated in 2006, the fall of 2006 was one of the worst times of my life. I was trying to go to seminary and I had a lot of people and some family that did not think that was a good idea. UCA was planning on giving me a lot of money to go to school, so I was like, okay, I'll do both. I'll get a degree and something just to appease people and I'll also go to seminary. I tried to do both and it just was not possible. It's just too much. In the fall of 2006, my uncle passes, my grandfather passes. All of my teachers think I'm making this up. You know?'cause it's like the first month of school. There just kept being more things. it was this time in my life when I am back on. I'm not on the straight and narrow. I'm back on the boulevard and I am destroying the things I want to do. so I had a freak out moment, but just this moment of like, if I don't change things, then all that I'm desiring and the path God has and what I've signed up for, I'm saying no to all of that. So I did a bunch of dumb stuff and I tried to take a break from Lindsay at the time. It's unclear to me if I dumped her or if we were taking a break. I don't know. I've never watched friends, but she's quoted that meme all the time. And it was seriously just like this moment of like, I am ruining my life and hers. Yeah. And if I'm not willing to commit to her forever, then what am I doing? It was beautiful how God pursued me in that time. You know, when you feel the weight of your sin, it forces you to simultaneously see yourself as a rich and also praise God for his goodness. Every time in scripture, when someone gets to see the heavenly realm or gets to see God face to face or hear his voice, they fall to their needs. And shame and praise God that we get to do that same thing. So I dropped out of UCA, I was in the u c's honors program for one semester. And when you have to talk to so many people to drop out of school when you have certain scholarships and stuff, I have talked to like five different people to drop out and they all think I'm crazy and just telling me this is the most irresponsible thing ever. And as I'm walking off of campus, they had the new signs, they had these like lot posts, and these little signs that say different things. And it was advertising the honors program and it was like a 99.7% graduation rate as I just dropped out. it was kind of just comical. It was like, okay, I'm not a statistic. Yeah. Praise God. I started in youth ministry in 2008 in Benton, and then God had moved us down south of Pond Bluff for a while. then we went to help a church in Conway in, 2014. Young Church was just planted and we served there for a very, very long time. church planting's not easy and, there's so many beautiful things. what we've tried to do is pursue God in a pure, honest way. Invite other people to do that. You read in Acts chapter two, they were gathering in the temple together. They were meeting in homes. They were devoting themselves to the apostles teaching and to prayers. All of this they're doing with people. And, you know, as we were trying to refine that down, what does this mean? What does that mean? Keep refining it down. We got to the three words, enjoying Jesus together, and that's. What my wife and I want to do, let's invite other people to enjoy Jesus with us. Amen. I think it was John Piper that took the old phrase, the phrase was, the chief end of man is to worship God and enjoy him together. And John Piper tweaks that. He says, the chief end of man is to worship God by enjoying him together. So early in my life where it was a knowledge that I needed salvation, like what led me to repentance was my fear of hell. But my, where I am now is I want to be close to Jesus. And you know, my fear of hell is less about like, we've made such a big deal out of burning and torment. My fear of hell is that I'm gonna be cut off from God. And you know, the good news, the gospel. Well, the name of y'all's podcast is the Gossip Gospel. Good news. Gossip. Okay. It's literally on the wall. If I could read the writing off the wall. Um, sorry. The good news gossip. The good news that Jesus proclaimed, um, if you read his words, is that the kingdom of God is at hand. So if there's gonna be a day when I can be in full fellowship with God, full knowledge of God, that kingdom is here now, and I can do that now. Mm-hmm. And I just want to live a life where I can experience God now. Amen. And when you do, like, when you get to do that, it is a beautiful thing. And I really just languish the fact that so many believers have never truly experienced God in that way. Right. Know they haven't. Yeah. I've seen it. Do we have time for me to share a story with y'all? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I don't know how long y'all's podcast we're 55 minutes right now. But you got all time. I'll try, I'll try to be quick. when you try to get people to understand the ministry of foster care It is a ministry of the gospel. Many of these children, it can be the first time they see genuine followers of Christ. in talking with you now, I think we can say in an honest way, there are people who are believers who have never followed Jesus. And to me there's a difference. There was a Kyle Ottoman book back in the day called, not a Fan that I love. There is a difference between believers and followers and my family. We are followers of Jesus. You don't have to be a follower of Jesus to be loved by us, to be in our family, but that's who we are. So back in the eighties, there's a girl in Little Rock named Tammy. Tammy comes from a very abusive family. A family that many of them had professed knowledge of Christ. And, you know, from the outside looking in, that's what they would profess. But clearly that's not how they're living. And there's a lot of abuse because of this. She comes into foster care and when you're a teenage girl in foster care, you can really get run through the mill. You can bounce from house to house really easy. Tammy definitely, had some behavior things she, had, you know, there, there's times when there's reasons why kids have bounced, but also, praise God for the families that will stick with'em. So Tammy finds herself, in the home of Jim and Mary La Moya. Jim and Mary are followers of Jesus and Tammy's only in this home for about six months, and it's the first time she's ever seen Christians who truly like what it looks like in the house when the doors are closed. That's what it looks like out there too. It was the first time she saw a husband. Love his wife the way God has commanded. You know, in Ephesians that we quote all the time, love your wife the way I've loved the church. It's the first time she's ever seen that. So Tammy, shortly after finds herself pregnant, and I could get some specifics wrong. I don't know if it's because the baby was coming in, but she was only able to stay with the La Moya family for about six months. In that six months she saw the gospel on display. She moves forward with the rest of her life. she has a couple more children. She marries a man that's pretty abusive. But she knows about the gospel. She's, she knows about the Bible. She's heard it taught, and she remembers the testimony of Jim and Mary, not just what they said, but what she got to see the witness. It's that example that leads her to repentance and leads her to following Jesus. she has some time when her kids are, young to young teenagers where following Jesus is pretty messy and there's repentance and, regression and all that normal life kind of stuff. And, moves forward and is trying to follow God. Her first marriage fails. She marries another man, that is a man of God and they are pursuing Jesus together. And because of the testimony that she saw with Jim and Mary, the abuse that happened in her home with her first husband was not okay. And we're gonna eliminate that. Tammy is leading our children. To understand God. And to serve him with their lives and to be a loving mother. Even though, Tammy's far from perfect, I can tell you she's an incredible loving mother. So you talk about the long-term impact and the breaking of the cycle. The reason I'm telling you this story is because Tammy is Lindsay's mom. And not only was Lindsay not in foster care, but my children who have experienced that, that kind of abuse and neglect, who, have seen foster care, you know, from the sibling side and from, you know, I am in foster care myself. Like both of those views, they only know a grandmother that loves them incredibly well. Who loves Jesus and can almost get on your nerves with how much she's talking about the gospel. Like, you know, Paul says, I chose to know nothing else but Jesus. And him crucified. Tammy's one of those people, she's constantly talking about what God says about these things, and that is the testimony of her life. What will be remembered about her is not her time in care, not the abuse that happened to her. And, you know, give glory to God that the cycle is broken. Mm-hmm. And not only was her daughter able to love children in the same way that Jim and Mary did, but her grandchildren will never know anything different. And that's, wow. What a beautiful story. That's not just what foster care does, that's what Jesus can do. Mm-hmm. Through followers who choose this as their ministry. What a like one little seed, little, I mean, six months, a seed planted that just, you know, we, it's there. So we're hoping that, this podcast planted a whole lot of seeds. There is so much, biblical things talked about, and our hearts just, opened up and we hope that our listeners just open up their hearts and can pray about this and maybe we can, reach that goal of having enough foster care families for the amount of kids that are in foster care. Can I give a quick, avenue for people? Yeah. I was gonna ask you do, if people are interested. One thing I love to do, I told you and Elle this when we met that day. I don't remember where we ate lunch, but it house was so good. Greek house, sorry, that's not the lead line here. Um, it just reminded me. Okay. Um, one thing I love to do, my favorite part of my job is sitting down with people who are considering this and just, hey, any question you have, let's talk through it. if someone who's listening to this wants to learn more and you're in anywhere in Arkansas, reach out to me. You can find me. S-N-Y-D-E r@abcm.org. You can find me on Facebook and other things, but send me a message there. I would love to get connected with them. And, you know, again, that's our goal is if God is calling this to you, calling you to this. I service kind of northeast Arkansas. I'm in CCE all the time, so it's never a problem to drive in. I'm driving in once or twice a week. there's some other people like me in the state that if you're in Southeast Arkansas or somewhere else, I can point you to somebody closer or we can jump on a Zoom call or I'll drive down. That's totally fine. We'll figure it out. But don't, I don't want people to just assume like the whole, like, I'm not a missionary to Siberia. Truly consider this and pray through it. Amen. I love it. And I'll put, all these different organizations and things that you talked about in the show notes. Oh, that's great. So everybody can just click and go. But yeah, I appreciate your time. This episode has been such a blessing. I'm so blessed by what God's doing. Thank you guys for invite me and this is really cool. Awesome. Thank you. Gather around God's and move them all over town. Good news, gossip, spreading hope and life. Good news, gossip, making, dark day. Every testimony, every story. True God's do.