2 Trees and Our First YES
For me I can clearly see the separation of who I was THEN …or before and who I am now…AFTER….
Many have a well thought out beginning to their foster care journey, those who were socially conscious and eager to have impact on the world!
Families who made the decision to dive head first into fostering and/or adoption….and then there was us.
We had never really heard about fostering, we really weren’t paying much attention to it - it was ALWAYS there but for us we didn’t have it in our line of sight.
For us, we were happy to be focusing on our boys. We had just moved into a much larger home after having a pretty small space and we couldn’t contain our excitement….ok I couldn’t contain the excitement of the upcoming holiday season (which wasn’t really upcoming yet because it was July when we moved in!) and the fact that we had a living room and a family room and that meant that I could finally reach the amazing goal of having 2 Christmas trees!!!!!!
I mean I can’t articulate how much I truly love Christmas and decorating for it was a highlight.
I think one of my first thoughts about this new home was the fact that there were these two big windows you could see from the street and I could just picture how both trees would look….the first one maybe with a color theme - very classy and trendy and the other second one full of our traditional ornaments and lights…Christmas fantasy people!
Our boys were 14, 10 and 3 at the time and we all felt so excited to be in our new space.
Fast forward to December.
We received a call that from my mom, who explained that my cousin was in need of some help.
Without sharing someone else’s story in detail without permission - I will say that she was struggling and needed a place for her boys to stay.
We said a quick YES - sure they could stay, we had room and we would love to be helpful.
I remember Dan and I praying about it but we honestly didn’t put a ton of thought into it.
This was a quick and immediate need and we figured it would last a week or two at most.
We had no idea that this one yes would change things for our family…really our while lives in every possible way.
So one evening in December after a band concert for our oldest - 4 boys were dropped off by a family friend.
We had only met them briefly, years prior and we all felt awkward as we figured out where everyone would sleep for the night.
The next day the two older boys asked to speak with us privately. We ended up taking them out to coffee along with my mom and aunt.
The boys then explained the details of what they had been experiencing in their home. There had been neglect and abuse and it was clear that there was more to this situation than any of us had known.
After learning more of the story, a decision was made to call the child abuse hotline and after that call was made, the Oregon Department of Child Welfare got involved.
Two of the boys were legally of age to choose to go out on their own.
They decided that because they had jobs and plans of their own, they wanted to leave, but before they did they had wanted to make sure that a safe plan had been made for their younger brothers who were 15 and 8.
This all happened so incredibly fast, looking back now I don’t remember when or how we decided that we should become emergency certified to be foster parents - we just jumped in.
I wish I could have known more about all of this before starting out because we did so many things wrong…….can you imagine for a second how it must have been for those boys?
For the two older to say goodbye to their siblings whom they had been caring for so long.
For the two younger boys who had left every single thing they knew, their mother, their friends, their school, most of their stuff….all that had been their normal.
They were dropped off to relatives they barely knew…these relatives who had their own normal and their own ideas of what was what.
I always describe…as if I have any sort of right to describe, what the children in the foster care system experience as horrific and terrifying, saturated in unimaginable grief.
I wish I could say that I got that right off the bat - sadly that’s not the case. I was ready to jump in and right the wrongs for these boys and change their lives for the better.
Remember, I had these visions of 2 Christmas trees, no real reference for what this would be like or what this would become.
It’s a good thing Jesus knows…it’s an even greater thing that He moves mountains and can be completely trusted.
He would be what got us through in that next season.
He began stirring the waters in our lives and started what we know now as the Tapestry work…work He continues to do today.