Foster Care.

Something that always caught my attention.

Something I never thought myself capable of doing.

Something that God kept bringing up till we finally got to the point where we said, ok Lord if you think we can do this we’ll give it a shot.

We started our training in July, and it’s the kind of thing where it kind of takes however long you want it to take to get approved, it was up to us how quickly we got all our info handed in. We set a goal of having everything finished by Oct. 1, but life happens and we got sidetracked and were about 2 weeks from Oct 1 with still about 3 or 4 weeks worth of things to accomplish. There was no rush so we figured it was just going to take a little longer then we had planned.

However…

On September 20, our social worker contacted us. I answered the phone expecting her to tell me she needs more info on some things.

She didn’t.

“I have something I want to run by you.” She said.

Ok…

There’s two kiddos ages 3 and 5 that need to be moved out of their current foster home, they have a baby brother who lives very close to you guys so the agency they are under is very interested in possibly having them move in with you.

WHAT?!

We weren’t even approved yet!

I didn’t say that to her because she was already telling me, that because we aren’t approved yet they wanted to fast track our approval and have us completely approved by Oct 1, and how does all that sound to you?

How does that sound to me? Um good. Yea. Yea, that sounds good.

We ran into a few dilemmas. We still needed to get our physicals and FBI clearances. The FBI clearances can take up to 4-6 weeks to get back and getting appointments at our family DR. can often take at least two wks.

It worked out tho. We got our physicals at a Quick Care and got our finger prints done that night yet. It only took about 6 stops and 4 hours before we found the right places and got everything done.

Here’s the amazing part.

Five days later we got our FBI clearances back. Which in case you’re wondering means that we officially never committed federal crimes. (At least not that they know of anyway.) 🙂 Just kidding! We didn’t. Oh and these are the forms that they had told us can take from 4-6 weeks get.

Checkers and I both had the same thought, if God is working out the details this perfectly and quickly, these kids must be coming for sure.

Our social worker called again. “They want the 3 siblings to be together so it looks like baby brother would be moving in with you guys in couple months too, does that change anything for you?”

This was a huge eyes/heart pounding moment for me. THREE KIDS? I was already freaking out about 2 coming at once!

The baby wouldn’t be coming for awhile after the two older kids so it would all work out.

After a lot of last minute details, paperwork and what not they told us the kids will probably be placed in our home but they would like for us to meet the kids then we’ll go from there. (These kids were coming from another foster home, so they do it a little differently then if they are coming straight from their home.)

We met the kids. Their social worker was telling me all about the kids, then proceeded to tell me the plan…

“We would like to have them spend two or three weekends here then hopefully have them moved in by Thanksgiving, at that time we’d like to start weekend visits with their baby brother and have him moved in as well sometime in December.”

WHAT?!

So basically he was coming right away, not a couple months later.

Ok, yea we agreed to that.

About a week later our social worker called again.

“Well, it looks like the kids won’t be coming after all. The baby’s foster parents have been asking to have the two siblings placed with them as well rather then give up the baby but since they are older the agency didn’t want to place two more young children there. However the foster parents brought it up in court and they agreed to place all the kids there.”

Ok.

We were disappointed. We didn’t realize till we got that call just how much we had already prepared ourselves metally to have these kids move in, but at the same time…

We were a bit relieved because we weren’t 100% confident that we would know how to handle 5 kids! 🙂

About two weeks later, we got another call. three kids, just coming into the foster system ages 9,7 and 5.

I called Checkers and told him: “Things have escalated. They still think we should take 3 kids but now they are much older!”

We agreed to each pray about it, we had 2 hours to decide and the kids would probably be coming that evening.

We were leaning towards saying no, these were older kids and honestly we don’t even know how to handle a 3 year old most days, how would we be able to deal with a 9 yr old?!

To our relief the social worker called back and said they had been placed in someone else’s home. (They usually contact more then one family, then go with the one that seems to be the best fit.)

Checkers and I were discussing this that evening and I asked him: “What do you think God is up to that he keeps sending all these ‘big’ cases our way?”

“I don’t know but it terrifies me.” He answered.

That was the perfect answer to what we were feeling. We started on this journey thinking we would get one child under the age of 5 and then maybe awhile later get another one. We agreed to take sibling groups of 3 or less, but we didn’t actually think that would happen, but here they are asking us to take sibling groups of 3. Twice.

The very next day ( just this last Thursday) we got another call. 3 kids ages 4, 3 and 2 months, and they wanted to place them here the very next day.

I called Checkers and informed him: “We are getting 3 kids at once, theres just no way out of it!)

He agreed. 🙂 And we agreed to take the kids. (Again, they contacted more then one family and would choose the one that they thought to be the best match.)

So we didn’t know if they were coming or not.

Friday morning I got up and started cleaning, I did the main areas first because I was expecting this call at anytime and I had no idea what they were going to say, they might call and say they’re bring the kids in 30 minutes so I was going to be prepared.

Well they never called till 11:00 and that was only to let us know that the other agency requested our profile which means they were leaning towards choosing our home but still anything can happen.

We waited all day to hear more, finally just before the agency closed, our social worker called and to let us know they still hadn’t heard anything from the other agency.

Ok that pretty much meant we wouldn’t know more till Monday.

Today around 10:30 they called us to tell us the kids are being placed here, but they still didn’t have many details. Maybe they’ll be placed tonight, maybe not.

WOW can we just figure it once?!

Finally around 2:3o, our social worker called again.

“Well, now you know how crazy foster care can be,” she said, “The kids will be placed in your home, but not till Friday, since their current foster family wants some time to pack up their things.”

So right now that’s the plan. We are meeting the kids and their current foster family on Wednesday night, then they will move in on Friday.

But that is just the plan.

I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they call again and say: “Never mind, we found another home for the kids!” 🙂

I don’t actually think thats going to happen, but untill these kids walk in the door with their bags and everyone leaves, except us and the kids, I don’t think I’m going to fully believe that it’s happening for real! 🙂