A Force To Be Reckoned With
A Force To Be Reckoned With
210. This is Only The Beginning (and we need your help): Our Foster Care Journey Part 3
Did you know that the goal of foster care is reunification?
Join us as we share our deeply personal journey through the foster care system. We'll capture the pivotal moments of hope when the kids' mother entered rehab, sparking hope of reunification. We'll recount the unexpected bonds formed and many impactful moments in between.
If you've ever wondered about the true impact of community involvement in foster care, our experiences will shed light on the pivotal role it plays. When our family grew from four members to eight nearly overnight, we set our minds to the fact that we were going to maintain our active involvement in the community. In this episode, we reflect on the support we received from friends, sports teams, and school communities, which proved crucial in creating a nurturing environment for the children. We also delve into the complexities we faced during this transition and emphasize the importance of expanding your support network to raise awareness and inspire others.
Whether you're considering fostering or looking for ways to support those who do, this episode offers heartwarming stories and invaluable insights that you won't want to miss.
Episode Highlights:
- A new chance of hope.
- Your obedience impacts others.
- Doing what’s right despite what others might think.
- The support of community.
- A full-circle God moment.
Links Mentioned in Episode/Find More on A Force to Be Reckoned With:
- Jointheforce.us
- Follow us on Instagram @bethanyadkins
- Find us on Youtube!
This show has been produced by Adkins Media Co.
We are at war and it's not against our neighbors, spouses, children, politicians or whatever else we feel like we're battling against.
Speaker 2:So the questions are who's the fight against, and are we winning or losing? We're the Adkins, and we are a force to be reckoned with.
Speaker 1:Are you ready to?
Speaker 2:join the force. All right, guys, we're back. Thank you for listening this far. This is our third and final episode of us sharing our foster care journey. Yeah, we're just walking through, going through the motions and making sure the two kiddos that we have in our home are safe. Also, we have the other placement. That's from a separate case, and so at that point we had, we had four, and then the baby came, and then we had five, and then a week later he came and or so it was two weeks later.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we had six kiddos. And so we're like, okay, this is getting to be, this is getting to be a lot, but like we're so thankful for this victory. You know, and also you know we're two weeks into mom in recovery, and so there was like hope for us for her. At this point it seemed pretty hopeless that that she was going to get the other kids back um, because they were with kin Um, but there was hope for the two babies that she could get them.
Speaker 1:Right yeah and just the yeah. So just the little bit of the craziness and all of this babies, that she could get them. Right yeah and just the yeah. So just the little bit of the craziness and all of this is that she it was like, okay, she had the new baby girl, baby J, and was like, okay, that's it, I'm getting it back together. So she went to to rehab and we were all hopeful and encouraging her, but we were also just kind of like at this point we had seen what she'd said before and see everything's okay, if you're gonna do it, then let's see it. You know, and you know there was a lot of people that honestly had written her off at that point too, like it's not gonna happen and um, so anyways some people were like telling us just prepare to adopt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, these kids, yeah, and she and so she's in rehab, and, ironically enough, the other little boy that we had was in rehab too, and they were in rehab together, and so they found out.
Speaker 2:We didn't tell them we're like oh, we're gonna see how this goes.
Speaker 1:Sharing their stories in these group settings. They, they were like wait a minute, do we have the same?
Speaker 2:you have a foster mom named bethany and also she's married to cory, and they were like, wait a minute, our kids are in the same house. So that was really cool and we, we, we built relationship with his mom and it was just, it was really cool, um, but okay.
Speaker 1:And at this point too we had to increase our licensure, so we were only licensed for two.
Speaker 2:Yes, yep, but okay. So October 7th mom knew that baby girl was with us and so she was in rehab, and so she asked us to. She wanted her big kids to meet the baby.
Speaker 2:She didn't know that we had baby Jay, that we had gotten from New Jersey because there was a lot to navigate. I didn't want to put that on her. I figured the time would come, the caseworkers would share it, but I didn't want to be crossing any lines and sharing that news. And so she was in rehab. She asked us to pick the kids up. She had reached out to the grandparents. The grandparents gave us permission to come get the kids. So we were like really excited, because June, july, august, september it had been five months since we had seen them. And she said can you go to Cleveland, pick them up, bring them to your house, take them to me to visit with me at rehab for a couple hours and then take them back home yeah, and it at um at this point we had had, maybe we talked to them maybe twice yeah right since they, since they had brief conversations very brief conversations and monitored yeah, and the um, their case for the older kids was going to be closed the following week.
Speaker 1:Like they were, like that was it?
Speaker 2:Mom's not going to have them, they're going to stay with grandparents, yep, and so mom was OK with that because she kind of knew, like it is what it is. There's really not much I can do at this point. It's basically just signage of paperwork and they're going to be getting legal custody of my kids.
Speaker 1:Right, so, and so then that day I took, carter and Liberty were both with me, right, yeah, carter and Liberty were with me and, um, I drove up, uh, and picked up the older boy first and he was so excited and we're so happy to see him and everything. It was just, it was such a cool and fun moment to just pick him up and get to spend time with them. And then we drove over to get the other two and as soon as I got to the door, uh, gives me goosebumps and it's just like she saw me through this, through their screen door, and just lit up with joy and was like Daddy and just like for her to still call me that I mean because it had been longer.
Speaker 2:It had been five months.
Speaker 1:With her. Yeah, and she was just so excited and he was excited to see us. It was just so that he was excited to see us.
Speaker 2:I call him Salty.
Speaker 1:That's our nickname. Salty was excited to see us and it was just, it was joyful.
Speaker 2:It was a joyful day because we hadn't seen any of them in five months. We were getting to be the ones to introduce them to their baby sister who had been born.
Speaker 1:They hadn't seen their little brother and they thought that he was in new jersey because, we had told them before they left that that's where he was going to go live, so it was like so many beautiful moments and we were getting to take them all to go see their mom and we were just, we get to be this like facilitator of all this.
Speaker 2:It was such a like privilege to do all of that.
Speaker 2:And so of course we were like, absolutely, we will do this. And that day we had her five plus our three plus our other little guy, and so we had nine kids that day. And when we have pictures that maybe we we probably can't share, well, we'll figure it out. But the other part of that is like all week we had been going back and forth Like, should we let them stay the night, should we not? Should we let them stay the night, should we not?
Speaker 2:And for me, I was so overwhelmed because we had taken the four year old, then we had got the baby, and then two weeks later we got baby J from Jersey, and so we had added three kids in a matter of of a few weeks and I was like feeling overwhelmed and I was like I don't know of a few weeks and I was like feeling overwhelmed and I was like I don't know, nine kids overnights, a lot. But something in my gut was like, no, we need to just plan for them to spend the night, because it's good for them and it's okay. And so last minute we decided to let them stay, and that in itself was a God thing for sure, because during their visit, during their visit they disclosed some information that we legally had to report, and because of that the two middles were unable to go home, and so what turned into a day visit then turned into an overnight and then turned into two of the three not going back to cleveland was this another, just whole like emergency thing again, and it was not.
Speaker 1:We had no idea this was going to happen, obviously, and yeah, so, like so, and in that, in the midst of us finding this out, we got to go take them to go see their mom and so we got to have that special moment of their day there. We met the other little boy's mom while we were there too, and it was like it was a cool day, a cool moment and everything to, and then it just it hit this emergency moment where we had to report things overnight. The whole next week was just like shattered, like any plans or anything, like we had to drop everything we were doing chaos interviews, interviews, yeah with detectives and then like and then, once they determined that at that point it turned.
Speaker 1:It went from an overnight stay to another overnight stay, to a few days.
Speaker 2:To an extended visit. To an extended visit.
Speaker 1:To. You're getting placement of these kids. And we were enrolling them into it and we enrolled them into our school district, and I did that just all so quickly. And then we realized what?
Speaker 2:that we did not have enough room I mean we went from four to eight kids in a matter of three weeks right and we had. We didn't have enough room, like I didn't, I couldn't even transport all of the kids by myself. So, like and cory works a full-time job, I'm running a business and it. It was like if I want to go anywhere or if there's an emergency, I can't even put everybody in my car to go. So we ended up having to buy a new car. We had to switch bedrooms around.
Speaker 2:It was like pure survival and it was so hard and it was so heavy increase our licensure again it was navigating so much trauma and so many emotions and so many relationships, and but also there was so much peace in that like knowing, like they were safe. They were safe. Four of the five siblings were together and their mom was staying clean still.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And we were like what is happening?
Speaker 1:What is happening? What is happening, yeah, and at this point, the case workers are just kind of like uh, okay, like this is not normal. This isn't normal. I guess we'll just like the case was going to be closed next week. We're gonna. I guess we're mom's getting another chance with. You know, the baby girl was in a whole separate case, yeah, with baby, baby girl jay. And well, now baby jay's here, so I guess we'll give her a shot with him again because, because it only makes sense, it's only fair.
Speaker 1:And now these other two, it's like all right, then we're gonna give her a shot with them. And then it's like the oldest boy was was at the time, was fine, where there was no issues. You know where he was at, and so they're like well, it's not really fair that we close his case too.
Speaker 1:So now, she gets another shot with him, so now she gets a new shot at all five, when everything was going to be closed the next week we were a week from the finish line of this case being a completely different scenario, and I'm not giving us credit in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 2:But because we chose to facilitate these relationships. God opened doors that allowed these kids to all be in the same home again and giving them hope to be with their mom again. Like it's so cool.
Speaker 1:And here's the thing, guys, is just again. This is not anything of us, this isn't. We're not special, none of that. It goes back to one we fought to be obedient in every step. We fought with ourselves, we fought with God, we fought with other people, but at the end of the day day we made the choice to be obedient and we did the right thing, even when it was hard. We did the right thing, even though we may look crazy we didn't always act right.
Speaker 1:Well, I didn't, at least I got not all no, and that we weren't perfect in any of this.
Speaker 2:But even through all of it, like we, we kept choosing to do the right thing, despite what our reputation would be with the county, despite what family thought, despite what anybody thought it was like we're going to do what's right by these kids, no matter what, like if that comes at the cost of us being blacklisted or losing our license or our families our family anybody thinking that we're absolutely lunatics. It doesn't matter, because if you go back to the beginning of, like, our why wasn't, wasn't, we didn't have a clear why. We just said this is where God is calling us, where God is calling us, and so for us, fast forwarding. That made a lot of sense in this moment where it was like, well, perhaps we were in foster care simply for this very case, for this very moment and for these very kids. And if it all crumbles after that, we're okay with that, because we will fight for these kids to the end, and so that was our stance.
Speaker 1:And I remember, in the midst of all of this, too, there's a couple of things I want to say about this is one I remember somebody saying, like okay, this just happened with salty and big J. Like what are you, what are you guys going to do? It's like, and I just remember like looking and thinking like what do you mean? Like we're taking them, they're coming with us, like they're going to be with their siblings and we're family to them now. And the person that said it didn't mean anything, they were just legitimately just asking, like, what are you going to do?
Speaker 2:Because it's a lot. We had eight kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because our family, our friends, everybody saw it. They were along for this the entire time. They saw everything we were going through, they saw how hard it was, they saw the struggles we were fighting, like how it was affecting us, like they saw all of this with us and they're just like, like what are you gonna do? You know, this is hard, this is rough, this is weird, this is crazy. Like, what are you guys gonna do?
Speaker 2:and in our minds it's like no and there it was like this changes everything. And it was like this changes everything, and we're like exactly, Right. Like this changes everything.
Speaker 1:Right and what I want to say in this, throughout this entire piece, when we were deciding to get licensed and we were having conversations together, whether their motivations were pure or not at the time, I remember us having a conversation saying I don't want to be weirdos in this, I don't want to be a weird foster family, I want to be as normal as we can be.
Speaker 2:I don't want this to change some things that we're doing, the fact that we're a social family that does a lot in the community Right, I still want to make sure we're part of the community.
Speaker 1:Like I'm not going to stop coaching, we're not going to stop, like, putting our kids in sports.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Any of these things. We're not going to not go to events just because we have extra kids that aren't biologically ours now Like we're going to continue to do all the things we would normally do. And so with that it brought our community that we had already had, so separate from our friends that were our foster community friends. We had friends from sports, from our school district, from our kids', friends from work, from our families.
Speaker 2:And everyone showed up.
Speaker 1:And everybody showed up, everybody rallied. Everybody. They didn't, you know. I'm sure they had different, like these guys are crazy or these guys are weird or whatever, but they saw us through it.
Speaker 2:And they stepped in.
Speaker 1:And their hearts were just open to this and they were being exposed to something that they hadn't seen. And so I do just want to say to any foster families out there that are listening we know there's a crisis and when, if you think like what can I do to help bring more people into the fold, what can I do to help raise awareness?
Speaker 2:This is one thing live life.
Speaker 1:live outside, because a lot of times, as foster families, we can live inside of our foster community bubble because they get it, they understand what you're going through, they're supportive and that is needed that's needed and you should have that community.
Speaker 2:You need that community but what else is needed?
Speaker 2:is not staying just in that bubble is for foster families to live life with other people too. And had the robertsons not done that? Like had they been like? Oh well, we're not going to be friends with Adkins because they're not foster family we never would have been licensed but because they chose to live life normally and be around people who weren't exposed to foster care and who probably misunderstood them in the beginning and probably said ignorant things and probably asked dumb questions. We were impacted through their obedience and because of their obedience we got licensed. And so now we have to do the same, and we. It might just mean that we are raising awareness enough for people to donate, for people to give things, for people to pray, and that might be it. But there also might be somebody out there who hears our story or sees us at basketball and they think, yeah, I you know what I can tote a baby around?
Speaker 1:yeah, and that was the cool thing is because even from the get-go that first you know september, when those first two kiddos walked into our home, we like that day we had football practice, so we went to football practice. We just walk in with new kids and people like saw that, and then people wanted to hold the babies and ask us questions and hang out, and so we're bringing babies and then then they're playing with their kids, and so just all these people got exposed to foster care and they helped wrap around us, even if they didn't understand it, even if they had never seen it before. And and then, once the big kids came, the whole basketball community was exposed even more, because salty played basketball too. And then I was taking salty and liberty with me to carter's practices and I was taking salty and carter with me to liberties and we were all going to his practices and so they were always with us. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:So we, we had those kids. I do want to add just a quick little side note, and this is a whole other thing. I don't want to be long on this because we have a lot more to do and we're running out of time, but in the midst of all of this, it was very chaotic. It wasn't easy. We did go from four to eight kids and in the midst of that our little guy, who was four that didn't have to do with this immediate case began to struggle and he, he struggled to have that many kids around. He had his own set of, like major trauma that required a lot of individual, like attention and positive reinforcement.
Speaker 2:Reinforcement and just because of sheer capacity and not lack of love or compassion for him, but just capacity of having eight kids in our home and still working jobs and all of this. He wasn't getting everything that he needed in our home and we struggled with that for probably a month of feeling guilty, like we, it wasn't working for him and it wasn't working for us, and it was really hard. And then we had all of these other kids that came in with even more trauma than when the case started. I mean, it didn't feel that any longer that he was thriving in our home and actually it felt like we were doing a huge disservice to him. He was having behaviors at school, he was getting bad reports and they were increasing.
Speaker 1:He was struggling at home and it just it was um yeah it was hard because everything was very chaotic and he was an only child and was just not used to this many kids and all of the chaos and had his behavior issues and we couldn't give him the attention that we needed. And this was a gut check for us because he going into this. There were times where I looked at when other people disrupted as like, like, how could you like, how could you do that?
Speaker 2:and how dare you?
Speaker 1:right and like why? Just because it was tough? But in this, in this case, it made me realize it wasn't because it was tough because we were doing tough. We were tough. It went back to why were we doing this in the first place? We were doing this to do what was best for these kids and to fight and advocate for these kids, and we realized that we were not in the best interest for him. He needed a family that had a slower pace, that had less kids could be more attentive more attentive to him and he, so we sought to we prayed
Speaker 2:we prayed, we were honest about it, even though we were really scared that it would look really bad. Um, and God provided the perfect family for him. Um, we went over, we had dinner with them. We, you know, we spent time at their house with him. We let him get comfortable with them and he went and stayed with him and he did so well.
Speaker 1:He was like a different kid it was exactly what he needed, yeah so that's like a whole other thing.
Speaker 2:There's so much more there, but I just wanted to say like, because the numbers fluctuated and that was one of the things that he ended up going and it was so good for him and he was thriving there, um, and we still stay connected with them. So the kids are here, you know, they get back, they get in our car, we traded in our car, we did not get a yoder toter?
Speaker 1:okay, we didn't, we refused to, sorry mel, but we we got. We ended up getting a suburban that could see eight yeah, so we enroll salty in basketball.
Speaker 2:They're playing sports basketball season for christmas. The nf decided to extend this tour, and I really wanted to take liberty this time, and so I had already bought liberty and cory tickets, and then, when salty came, he also liked harder well, I'm saying oh, we were adding gotcha um, then, when salty came, we were like, all right, he needs to come, and he could be with us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's probably gonna be with us and so we got him a ticket. Um, and we were at this point told, basically like it would be a miracle if mom recovered and got all the kids back, and so, like we were planning for the future, this concert was not until may of the following year, but god, and she did recover fully February 22nd. There's so much there, but like February, I'm just telling you that, over higher level stuff, february 22nd of this year the two middles had we gave them a going away party and that night a friend and I went and helped mom get her apartment ready and prepared for the kids. That's another thing that, just because of capacity and laws and the county has to focus on like what's most urgent, they really struggle to set these parents up for true success.
Speaker 1:And so that was something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like she didn't have anything in her home and they were like all right, like the case is getting close to closing, we need to get these kids back to you, and that just wasn't sufficient.
Speaker 1:And she was just starting a job. Yeah, like she didn't have income.
Speaker 2:Only had been clean for four months at this point, and so that in itself is a full time job. And then she's getting a job, and then her apartment has no furniture in it and they're willing to send these kids back because basically you just need, you know, a roof. So, anyway, this is where it's like community involvement steps in, because the county can only do so much and really it's not their job. And our community rallied a friend and I, we went down, we spent a night there. Really, we were there so late and we just set up the apartment and she, she, we call her the fairy God mother because she just goes above and beyond, and she went above and beyond for this mom. But so did other people and other families. They, oh, fairy God mother, just text me right now asking if I want something for the baby. Literally, I saw that. But there were women and Bible studies that made curtains and donated bedding and gave clothes, and we just it was so incredible.
Speaker 1:And then we got a group of guys too and we went and towed a trailer and picked up some furniture that was donated.
Speaker 2:Right, and it would. It could have been one of those things where, like, had the kids gone home, in that case scenario, the County would have allowed it. But how long could that? Could the mom have?
Speaker 2:kept it together together and how fair would that have been for the kids to not have toys and not have all this stuff. Like we, we don't just want to do the bare minimum for these families. And so the kids got to go home to, they started weekend visits and and the bigs ended up staying and then the littles would come back because they did a gradual transition, so she didn't get them all at once but like um, they, the kids, got to go to their apartment that they were living at when they were removed and it wasn't like greatly set up and they got to go home and reunify with their mom and it was like fully furnished and had decorations and had pictures on the walls and and had toys and games and it was just like so fun and it was so cool and I'm I'm looking forward to hearing this from mom's perspective too, because it was just.
Speaker 1:we felt like this was so cool, that she got to experience community that she hasn't had, of people that just loved her kids and loved her family and just wanted to wrap their arms around her, and even in people too, from that were friends with her kids at school or that played basketball with them, like donated things to to take to the to the apartment to get it all set up and get it all ready, and it was just so cool to see our foster care community, our friend community, our family community and our like school basketball community all come together and wrap around this family, to do everything we could to set her up for success.
Speaker 2:Yeah and yeah. So they started with weekend visits and the kids transitioned home. The littles would go like visit on the weekends and then come stay with us during the week to just do a gradual thing for her. And then on March 14th, and then the big one, big one, big guy, he was going to be the last to transition he's going to wait till after school was out.
Speaker 2:Yes, but on march 14th we got a call from him late at night, which was unusual. It didn't happen and, um, he needed me to come pick him up and there was something that had happened. He, he, his grandma's wonderful too. She's so sweet. He was in a great scenario but just a freak thing that happened where the police were involved and he was scared, and so he asked me to come pick him up and so I did, and, um, because he was so close to reunification, he actually ended up we took placement of him and for a couple of days, and then he ended up just never going back there and reunified with mom. So it was like the middles. And then the littles no, the middles.
Speaker 2:That was supposed to be the littles next, but because of this, situation, we took placement of him and he yeah. So all that to say they all reunified on March 24th and it was spring break for us. There's just, I mean, there's just so much there.
Speaker 1:But I just I want to go back real quick to the family team meeting, the last family team meeting that we had had to. Ok, because they were talking about the transition plan and everybody was in agreement and everything. And like mom, she was very self-aware at the time and she completely agreed with like, even though she, like the the part of her like just wanted to have all of her kids back. She knew it was going to be smart to just do the transition to and we had talked with her about you know, hey, we're here to support you, our community's here to support you. You know we're family now and in that I remember in that family team meeting she was talking about how, you know, we had come up with a plan that we were still going to get the kids on Sundays just to help her because she didn't have childcare on Sundays.
Speaker 1:And they were kind of like, well, you can't just depend on the Adkins, you know, cause they're not used to foster families, continuing to be involved with the families after afterwards and, um, they were like, don't you have, you know, friends or family from? You know that you've had in the past that that could help you and I did let them go on, but in my head I'm just sitting there like, no, no, that's a terrible idea. We're talking about people that were not supportive, people that she knew and were friends with, that were not positive impacts, and you want her to go back and rely on them, and now you're making her feel like she can't rely on us and all this to say, in the defense of those workers, that they have to have a level of like protection up yeah, that's what I was saying.
Speaker 1:Like they're not used to foster families doing that and they do they. They in a sense, they were trying to protect us too, like because we hadn't had a conversation with them about it.
Speaker 2:These kinds of things catches the county off guard, and so, as believers who are foster families, we are called to be the hands and feet of Christ, and we need to do that unapologetically, but we also need to expect that in the midst of that, we are going to get pushback and be misunderstood, our motives are going to be misunderstood, it's going to be perceived as manipulation, and so we just have to continue and take one step at a time and press forward and choose to be people of integrity and choose to stay, stay true to our word, and it could take years and in this case it did, and so yeah, and so when it came for my turn to say something, I just told her.
Speaker 1:I said, just just so know, like we're family now, as long as you allow us to be a part of your life, like you're stuck with us, like we're family, we're here to support. And so, even when all of this is over and the county is not involved anymore, we're here, we will be your family and you can rely on us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because she hadn't had that.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, you can rely on us?
Speaker 2:Yeah, cause she hadn't had that. Yes, yeah, so the kids were unified. It was a beautiful moment. We watched them on Sunday while she worked. She picked them up and then they went and they stayed home and we hopped in our car and we headed to Destin, florida, with the five of us and it was just like so needed, and so good for us to be able to go away and then come home and recalibrate as our friends forced us to do that they did.
Speaker 2:We almost didn't go. Um, we still so. Mom is doing great. We can't wait to have her on the show. We still get the kids every sunday because she works on sundays. Um, this is really hard for everybody at first. There were so many emotions, but it's so, so beautiful. Now we're just like one big happy family, and so my encouragement in that is never lose hope.
Speaker 2:I just did not expect this to be three episodes, and there's so much more that I could say about it um one more thing is like the whole thing where the nf concert came into play is that we got tickets for salty and the concert was in may, and so at that point they had reunified. So I texted her and said, hey, we bought him a ticket. Like, are you okay if we still take him? It's in pittsburgh? And she was like, yeah, absolutely of course, but can can, like the oldest, come too?
Speaker 2:And we I wasn't able to find tickets near us so she actually ended up with her own money buying tickets for herself and for him, and we all went together on May 15th and it was just, it was a full circle God moment, because just a year prior we went to that concert and I was so broken and so devastated and so just sad over the circumstances of what we were about to walk through and I just questioned so much of what God was doing. And then, just a year later, for us to be at this concert and singing together and driving together and celebrating together, it was such an incredible, just a gift that we got to be a part of.
Speaker 1:So then that was a little funny moment I got to. I got to tell. The little funny story is we were getting pictures together and we asked somebody from the venue to take a picture of all of us. And so I'm sitting standing there and I've got, you know, mom on one side and Bethany on the other side of my arms, around both of them. And I said to him I said I bet you I'm the only guy here with both of his baby mamas with him and they're not fighting. And she just started losing it. And so since then we've had this ongoing joke where she calls me baby daddy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's. It really is just such a special relationship and we do feel so blessed because, we know, not every case ends up like this and many biological parents aren't open to this and so we do. It's such a privilege for us to have this relationship.
Speaker 2:Um, so that was a special moment, and then, on july 11th of this year, we got to take her. She chose to be part of hope bridge's single mom's program. We got to meet her there and walk her through her new home that she was moving into, which is like such a huge thing for her to move out of the environment that they were in and into this new neighborhood. That was on July 11th.
Speaker 1:With their own yard and everything.
Speaker 2:Yes, On July 19th they moved into their new home and so through Hope Bridge, I mean, they did a really cool reel on it that I'll share when this episode comes out. And then on August 2nd it was a two-year-long case, it was, I want to say it was 679 days. I think that this case was that we walked through and on August 2nd so yesterday we got to stand in court with her and celebrate as the gavel dropped that her case was closed and all of her kids were home with her and she no longer had to have CPS involvement and didn't have to do her drug screens anymore or anything. That because she completed everything.
Speaker 1:She worked so hard.
Speaker 2:She worked so hard and this is only the beginning and the crazy thing is like it didn't end how we thought. It didn't end how anyone thought. We didn't even know what to think, but it ended better than we ever could have imagined. And, as foster parents, we just we need to fight for these kids, but we also need to fight for the parents too, and we can't give up on them. And we didn't do everything right, we didn't do everything perfectly.
Speaker 1:And you can't make somebody do something they don't want to do either.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But having hope for them and giving them the opportunity and just giving them that support and then letting them make choices, and but to just watch them make the right choices, yeah, oh and like we, like nobody did anything perfectly in this case, we or right right, but through, just through the small steps.
Speaker 2:God is still sovereign but god he, like he, is the writer of the best stories, and so that's kind of where we're gonna leave it today. We're gonna have her on um next week and we just can't wait to share that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's just another privilege that we have is that, in the midst of the gut-wrenching things that took place and the biggest things a year ago, and questioning God and being angry with him and having to learn to release it to him because there's nothing you can do and not knowing, like dude, what are you doing here? Like I don't get it. Like, okay, I trust you, but like, dude, I don't get it to see this. Like we have the privilege Cause you don't always get to see what's happening, you don't always get to see how the story is written and for us to get to see this.
Speaker 2:It's pretty awesome yeah, it is, it is. It's really awesome. So that has been our foster care journey so far. Um, we did take placement of another little guy like in early July, and we were not planning to, but we just felt more quickly rested and rejuvenated than we had planned and we had received many, many calls and it just felt right.
Speaker 1:And so I was like get off the couch and get in the game. Dude, get off the bench.
Speaker 2:So here we are, so we just want to say thank you guys for listening, thank you guys for being invested in this story, thank you guys for those of you have donated and prayed and just been a part of our journey in any way it has not been taken lightly, it has not gone on note unnoticed and we are just so appreciative and if you guys have questions about fostering or getting licensed or anything like that, whether you live in Ohio or not, just reach out to us.
Speaker 1:And one of the things I just want to close on is that if somebody that is a foster parent or somebody that's considering to be a foster parent, every situation is different and I didn't want to do this. If you go back, I did not want to do this. I knew it was going to be hard. It was going to be hard. It was going to lots of reasons. Everybody has their reasons as to why they don't want to do this or don't want to do something. That's hard, but and there were many times in the midst where I was like, how can I, in good faith, share this story and ask somebody else to step into this mess? How can I recruit somebody else, even though they're in chaos, like everything's so broken? This is a disaster. I can't ask somebody to do this. They don't know what they're getting into. And my perspective shifted and it's like that is exactly why you need to ask somebody to step in. This is exactly why we need people to step in. We need people of faith. We need Christians, believers, to step into this because it is broken, it is messy, and these kids and these moms and these families in the county they need you to stand into the gap and step in. Your perspective has to shift.
Speaker 1:This is mission work and we are called. We are called to take care of the orphans and the widows. We are called to step into the heart. And Jesus says in this world you will have troubles, but take heart. I have overcome the world. God will sustain you.
Speaker 1:And it is hard but, like anything else in life, the things worth doing are hard. They're often hard and it's through that hard that God sanctifies you and uses you and makes you better and shows His glory and points things back to His love. And who Jesus is is through the hard things. So yes, guys, if you're hesitant to do it, it's going to be hard, but if God is calling you to do it, you need to step in. If God is calling you to help and support, you need to step in. The church has gotten. We've just gotten way off track than how we used to be. We go to church and check a box and do this casual Christianity thing, and that's not who Jesus was. We need to stop just going to church on Sunday and checking a box and we need to be the hands and feet of Jesus. Get your hands dirty, get off the bench and get in the stinking game you.