Foster Care Status

Many of you know, some of you may not, that we are working on becoming foster parents. We have always wanted to adopt, even before we had children of our own. We'd always talked about having 2 of our own and then adopting. After everything with Laden that happened last year, and knowing that for our own emotional sakes as well as my physical being we needed to wait awhile before trying to have another baby so we decided to change our order of adopting.

We researched many options and after much prayer and searching we decided to go thru the state and become foster parents and to eventually, hopefully, adopt one of the children that we are able to foster. We talked about adopting an infant and going thru a private agency, but we both know that there are people out there that aren't able to have children of their own for whatever the reason and decided that since we have already had the newborn experience that we wouldn't take that away from anyone. We also know that there are a ton of children out there that need loving homes and we're hoping to be able to provide that for someone.

Right now, I believe there are over 1000 kids in foster care in our area which consist of 4 counties here in Arkansas. So as you can see, the need is great.

This has not been a fun process, to say the least. It started in January when we went for the initial inquiry meeting, then we got the huge stack of paperwork. We lollygagged around for a few months with the paperwork still making sure that this is what we really wanted to do. Finally we got the paperwork completed and turned it in around the end of March. We got the letter that we were offered the opportunity to take the PRIDE classes which you have to have in order to become a foster parent. We thought at first that we were already parents, we didn't need "parenting" classes. Little did we know that this would be more than classes on how to be parents. This is 27 hours of training on different situations, conditions, issues that these children are going to come into our house with. They were good classes although I can say that our lives were very hectic while these were going on. They were on Monday nights for 6 weeks from 6-9, in Fayetteville. If you know us, we live in Centerton, which on a good day is 30 minutes from Fayetteville, however, getting to Fayetteville by 6, during the week is a challenge. So luckily, both of our works were very understanding and let us leave a little early on those days. This also included us leaning on our friends and asking them to watch Jaxon for us from about 5 until 10. Which is a long time to leave your baby with someone.

It was hard asking people to help us out, but we have such great friends, many of which were on vacation with us this past week, that they volunteered and were always offering to help us out. Thanks guys, you don't know how appreciated you are and how much that means to us.

One thing about being a foster parent is you can't just leave your kids with anyone. Anyone you leave your kids with have to have a background check and be approved by DHS to watch your kids. These same friends from above have also all generously filled out the big pile of paperwork to become babysitting resources for us. It means so much to us.

Ok, onto the status. We have our final class this Saturday in Fort Smith from 9-4. (We missed 2 sessions which were on the same day that Derek's brother got married so we didn't have much of a choice. We only got 2 weeks notice about the class and the wedding was obviously already scheduled by then.) Our home study will be on July 17th in which they will interview both of us together, separate, go thru our house and make sure we meet their standards. Then we're guessing about mid August or so we could be accepting children. We're very excited. We are willing to accept children under 2 1/2 so that Jaxon will still be the oldest. He is getting excited about having a bubba or sissy as well. We'll see if that excitement remains once they're actually here and living with us. I think he'll make a good big brother though.

So, I write all of this to ask for prayers from everyone that the Lord will bless us with a special child and that we will be able to love this child and provide a loving home for this child even though they may not have come from one before. We also ask that you pray for us and God's grace when we do run into problems with children, etc. These children come from all walks of life and we know that it takes a lot to deal with their issues but that they are still children and need love. Pray for patience.

We love you all and thank you for your prayers!!!!