Working and being around vulnerable kids for many years helped me see the difference that it makes for kids to have unconditional love, and I always felt that God had given me so much love to share. God had placed foster care and adoption on my heart. My heart has always been broken for the orphans, so giving a loving home and parents to a child in need was not a question of if, but a question of when. Andrew took a little more convincing on the fostering part of things, but he has a little sister who was adopted from China so it’s been on his heart for about 10 years too.
We decided to go through The CALL because of the faith-based aspect to all of the trainings. It was very important to us to surround ourselves with praying people as we began the journey of fostering because we knew that we would be leaning into God more throughout, so starting out with Him as the firm foundation was important to us.
The CALL helped us immensely by walking us through all of the paperwork and helping us get opened in a short amount of time. It’s been great as an open home to have the support of The CALL from knowing people to call for help to the ability to “shop” donations at The CALL Mall when we get new placements. The CALL also helped us tremendously when we got a placement who was on a formula not covered by WIC; they rallied our church family behind us and together we ended up with over six months of formula purchased and delivered to us, it was such a relief!
Shortly after we opened as a foster home, we started to try to have a biological child, but God had other plans. Through the pain of infertility, we closed our home to fostering for a time. In 2015, God put it back on our hearts that even though we had been unable to conceive a child ourselves there were children around us who needed us, so we reopened our home. Not long after that we got a call for a placement for an 8 month old.
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Caroline Bethards on her Adoption Day![/caption]
Two weeks later we got a call for a two week old who was going through withdrawals. With both my husband and I working full time we didn't think we could take a placement that young. I called my mom, who is retired but lives out of state, to see how quickly she could come and help. She was able to drop everything and come so we could accept our baby girl in to our home. It was amazing and definitely God’s grace and provision that allowed it all to happen so seamlessly! That little baby eventually became our adopted daughter, Caroline. In about a month we went from a broken, hurting place to a joyful and full home.
This experience can only be described as a roller coaster. There is only a certain amount of normal that can be achieved when kids are in and out of your home. It’s emotional. Most of the time it takes a good amount of effort. But it’s SO worth it. All of it. It has brought us closer to each other as a couple and closer to God.
By Sarah Bethards.
