Make a Wish

Each morning for the last couple of days, I wiped away tears as I watched the morning news.  The news is starting to cover the stories of the CT shooting victims - little children with big hopes and even bigger personalities.  They cover stories stories of kind people who offered support and love for the grieving families...stories of a people, of a nation who find the slaughter of innocent lives unacceptable.  But what is the answer?  How can we protect our nation's children?  I wish that this will never happen again, but we live in a fallen world...and violence will continue until my savior returns.

With the children who lost their lives weighing so heavily on my mind, I can't help but think about the hundreds of thousands of children in foster care...children who are "lost" and waiting for their family.  I mean that literally...there were 400,000 children in foster care in 2011.  What about these children?  Can't we help them? So many of these children are older...they are passed over for families that want  babies.   God has placed the desire to help those children on our hearts.  We want so badly to help....Our home isn't perfect and tends towards the messy, and we eat frozen pizza at least twice a week.   My little dog licks faces, and Gary drools and farts.  The laundry and dishes occasionally pile up... BUT we don't have to be perfect to be foster or adoptive parents.  AdoptUSkids has a great ad campaign about that. So in addition to the families that lost children, I'll also pray for the children that haven't found their families.

Healing and Humanity

"For it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself" - Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol

As Christmas is fast approaching, we remember that God loved the world so much that he sent his only son to die for our sins. Jesus came into the world as a wee baby, innocent and helpless.  And what a world to be born into...a world where sin and corruption and fouled God's creation which he deemed "good."  My heart is broken for the tragedy that occurred on Friday.   BUT I remember God's word...that God loves the little children.  He said to let the children come to him...for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these (Matthew 12:14).  I hope and pray for the families of those 20 little children and 6 adults.  I hope and pray that those 26 people are celebrating Christ's birth at his side in heaven. 

Application to Change Lives

Here's the picture we took to include in our application to Social Services to begin fostering children.  It's a mission that I feel God has called us to, and I couldn't be more excited.  You'll notice in the picture that the dogs are really happy too!  This is just the first step in a long process of home studies, interviews, and classes...and there's no guarantee that we'll even be approved.   Even if we aren't approved this time, we'll still keep trying because we both strongly feel this is a calling.  After the approval process and training is finished, we'd like to start with respite care fostering.   That means we provide a short term break to foster parents (example: watching their foster kids over the weekend).   We want to go through the full process because we want to be ready to take on a long term fostering assignment just in case a good match comes up.