How We Decided
Prior to getting married, we had talked in pre-marital counseling about our openness to adoption and foster care in the future. We held James 1:27 in high regard.
Pure and undefiled religion before God the father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
James 1:27
We had our first biological son a few years later but continued to come back to our thoughts about adopting. We had seen some of our close friends begin as foster parents and end in adoption. Cameron’s father had also been adopted by his stepdad, and we knew how much of an impact that made in his life.
In 2018, we were asked to pray about moving to San Diego to begin a new church. After months of prayer, seeing confirmation in God’s Word, and getting wise counsel, we decided to take the step of faith. After moving to San Diego, we continued having conversations about how else God could use us here. We felt this was a good time to explore becoming foster parents. The process was lengthy but as we all know, things that are worthwhile take time.
Ready to Respond
On March 18th, 2020, the day the world seemed to shut down from the COVID pandemic, our foster care agency called saying our paperwork had cleared and we were able to take in a child! What we didn’t know was that there was a little girl in need of a placement immediately. On the same call, they asked us to consider picking up a little girl within a few hours. We were given 20 minutes to discuss and pray before giving a response. We asked God for wisdom and didn’t see a reason why not to proceed.
We picked up Mia, a new 1 year-old, who resembled Boo from Monster’s Inc. We shared the news with our 2-year-old son and tried to prepare him for the new addition joining us for an unknown time. The first few weeks were so fun to experience together, having a little girl in our home.
Enduring Challenges
The honeymoon phase quickly faded and reality set in. Mia was non-verbal and yelled to communicate, exponentially increasing the volume in our home. This overwhelmed our son, which only added to our growing stress. With more crackdowns from the country and state (California), we were faced with the struggle of not getting out of our apartment often. Mia was overweight, very active, and as a new walker would often get hurt. This led to constant paperwork, photos of the hurts, and trips to the doctor (required as foster parents). If there was a way to get hurt, Mia seemed to find it. At one of our frequent doctor’s visits, we were reminded that the child takes priority over your preferences. It’s inconvenient or uncomfortable to foster, go to visits with bio parents, and connect with their bio families, but the child is worth it. Another lesson we learned was to find the humor in the hard times. Just laughing about how crazy some situations were truly helped. We could have dwelt on the chaos, and often did, but the Holy Spirit would remind us:
A joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones.
Proverbs 17:22
Mia’s father was never involved in her life, but her mother was in the process of reunifying and getting her life on track. Mia had visits with her mom, beginning with video calls, then moved to in-person visits for an hour, to longer hours, to eventually overnights a few times a week. Our family’s motto became “Flexibility, flexibility, flexibility.”
As foster parents, we wanted to know Mia was safe, while also pursuing the goal for her to be reunited with her mom. We have built a relationship with Mia’s bio-mom, actively trying to encourage her, praying for her and sometimes with her. Although the frequency and duration of visits increased (approved by the courts), her mom would still miss every third or fourth visit and ran late to almost all of them, which was concerning.
The Switch: From Reunification to Adoption
By March 2021, it became clear that Mia’s mom had been drawn back into old habits, impacting her ability to safely parent Mia. Once we knew that Mia would no longer be reunifying with her mom, we discovered that Mia had 5 siblings, living out of state with their grandmother. She became the first in line for permanency in Mia’s case. By this point, we had already had our second biological son to throw in the mix of chaos. But our oldest, Oliver, and Mia had become best friends… most of the time.
As social workers reached out to her grandma, she shared her of her willingness to take in Mia. But when learning how long Mia had been in our care and the fact that she had never met her, due to living out of state, Mia’s grandmother pulled her name out of the hat. “I do not want to take her from the only family she has ever known.” Our social worker relayed her response to us and asked if we would be open to becoming Mia’s permanent guardians. With tears in our eyes from the shock and turn of events, we joyfully accepted!
After 1,029 days in foster care, on November 4, 2022, we left our final court hearing holding Mia, our adopted and legal daughter!
The Life-Long Journey
While the finalization of adoption was beautiful, we anticipated the upcoming challenges throughout Mia’s life as a blended family. Already, we have felt the tension on how to move forward with her biological family connections. We have prayerfully felt led to keep an open adoption with Mia’s “tummy mommy,” her grandma, and siblings as long as it is in the best interest for Mia and our family. We continue to pray for her family to know Christ personally and to experience the comfort God brings to the lowly. Many think the challenges end when adoption is complete, but it is a life-long process.
Throughout the two and half years we fostered, we felt supported, but in other times we felt we were drowning and couldn’t find any relief. We serve at and are part of a loving church, but it was incredibly difficult as the world went in lock-down mode, and we could not find babysitters to get away for a few hours. We moved from Colorado to help plant our church, and family and friends were over a thousand miles away. These were some of the hardest years of our lives. Our patience was tested, and we are still growing in our self-control with three kids under five years. It has been a long road, yet it is hard to imagine what life would be like without our sweet Mia. We wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Join In
From our experience and learning from resources like Jason Johnson’s books Everyone Can Do Something and Reframing Foster Care, we see the world a little differently. Not everyone is called to foster or adopt, but everyone can do something to help children and the marginalized. Examples: Bring a meal to a foster family, send a gift card, create a care community around a grandma raising her grandchildren, etc.
There is a great need for foster families, especially after the pandemic when domestic violence and substance abuse increased. The average foster family only lasts one year through the process, because it is taxing. Wrap your arms around a foster family you know; champion them and support them—they need it. Another statistic—if every church in America had only one family who fostered and adopted, there would be no more children in foster care. This is a solvable issue, especially when God guides the church and is the creator of adoption.
Additional Resources:
- Restoration225 partners with churches, volunteers, and agencies to wrap around families involved in the foster care system. Restoration225.com
- Jason Johnson ministries: Equipping Churches and Encouraging Families on Their Foster Care and Adoption Journeys. jasonjohnsonblog.com
- Embrace Texas connects willing hands with opportunities to serve children in foster, adoptive, and kinship care. embracetexas.org
