Stories
On Fostering
Up until seven years ago, the words ‘foster parent’ had little meaning
to me. The majority of the time when I heard these words spoken, I
associated them with negativity. We have all read the ugly stories about abusive foster parents. Rarely do we read about the successes of
fostering children. Since I became a foster parent, I have had 126
children come through my home. And I can give you many success stories
from my experiences. The children come for many different reasons. Some
are abandoned, abused, or neglected, some have lost their parents to
drug addiction, some have been voluntarily given up for adoption, and
others, their parents just do not have the resources to care for them.
Although the reasons they come here differ with each child, their needs
are all the same. They need love, stability and security. Children have
stayed in my home as little as one night to as long as two years. I have
loved each one as if they were my own and most importantly, I have the
opportunity to pray over each one of them. The biggest fear people have
when they think about foster parenting is, “I would become too attached.
And I could never let them go.” My answer is, yes, if you are a good
foster parent, of course you become attached! And yes, you will shed
many tears as you let them go. But I promise you; the blessings always
outweigh the obstacles!
God has called me to be a foster parent, and I would not change it for
anything in the world. These children are part of the future of our
nation. God gives each of us the opportunity to make a difference.
Loving families are desperately needed to make a difference in the lives
of the 5,000 children in foster care in our community. Do you have a bed
where one or two may lay their head? Invest in the life of a child. They
will never be the same, and neither will you!
~~Joy S.
On Adopting
In August of 1990, we chaperoned a Mission Trip for the teens of our church to Mexico. While in Mexico we fell in love with a 7 year old girl. We felt God leading us to adopt her. Long story short, after two trips to Mexico and 3 months of paper work & lawyers we discovered she was unadoptable in the US due to a technicality in her birth certificate. We were heart broken.
Christmas night of that same year my best friend called and announced that she was going to Romania to adopt her children (she was unable to have her own naturally). She had seen a news report on the news about people going to Romania so she contacted them and got all the info needed to pursue it. Then she asked if Ross and I wanted to go with her & her husband, of course we didn't feel the calling at that moment and were still heart broken over the loss of "Brenda" (Mexican girl) so we declined.
After a completely restless night's sleep both my husband and I woke up the next morning and looked each other square in the eye and said, "We're supposed to go, aren't we?" You see we were 2/3rd's the way through our International adoption home study, we had our passports and all most of what we needed already. And we only had 5 weeks before the other couple had to go to Romania or they would not be able to go. Immigrations told us it would take no less than 3 months to get INS to approve our Visa's and background checks etc. God saw fit to make it happen in 5 weeks, because we were on the plane headed to Romania by Feb. 9th.
Livia was born on February 12, 1991 to a lovely young lady in a small village in Alexandria, Romania. We decided to keep her given first name because it was so beautiful and a small piece of her heritage. She was born the day after we arrived in Romania and we were able to pick her up 7 days later (one week old). She never had to experience an orphanage - and we were so blessed. After 3 weeks in Romania our Husbands flew back home to return to work while my friend and I finished up the post adoption Visa's & Birth certificates. My friend and I stayed in Romania for 5 weeks total.
At the time we arrived in Romania - it had only been 15 months since their revolution and although they claimed to be a democracy - they were still very socialistic. It was also before the 1st Gulf War began and while we were there the war took place and ended before we came home. With no TV news to watch - we missed a piece of history in the making. But God kept us safe while we were there.
After we got home, we were featured in newspaper articles and interviews for several months. Without the Mexican experience, I do not feel our hearts would have been prepared for the reality of adoption in Romania. God allowed the heartache of our loss in Mexico to open the doors for the true blessing he had in store for us in Romania. Livia has been a true blessing that has changed our hearts and lives for eternity. We went to rescue her, but in reality she rescued us.
Interesting fact:
After we arrived home a few months later we were informed we had to RE-ADOPT her in the US because if a new leader took over Romania and decided he didn't like the way the adoptions were handled during that chaotic time he could void them and INS would have been knocking on our doors to return Livia to Romania without us. We were so financially broke from the Mexican and Romanian ordeal that we didn't have the funds to do another adoption through an attorney. So my friend and I did the research and presented our case to the courts for adoption and only cost us $150.00 for each child. The judge was impressed and we were relieved.
There is so much more to this story such as a blizzard that almost claimed our husbands, food lines, no legal money exchange, the orphanages, the state of the country, their way of handling business, etc. But the important part was we completed our family by adding Livia and the rest is our own History in the making.
~~Cynthia O.