God commands us to love our neighbors, and that means meeting all kinds of needs in our communities. Children and teenagers in foster care are our neighbors, and God calls us to love and support them in a variety of ways.
Youth in foster care have often experienced trauma and gone from home to home with little sense of stability and guidance in their lives. In response, Abundant Life has established a foster and adoption ministry with the goal of being living proof of a loving God to foster kids and families.
God calls the church to love and provide for orphans, and we as a church have the opportunity to show foster kids and families Jesus’ love
The Vision of Foster/Adoption Ministry
“Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.” — James 1:27
The statistics can be overwhelming. At any given time, there are often between 1,000 and 1,500 youth in foster care in Jackson County. Yet, if the entire body of Christ comes together, the need to support these youth with loving families can be met.
Caring for vulnerable kids and supporting foster families shows the world the heart of Jesus. God calls us to care for orphans on countless occasions throughout Scripture, and the Bible also reminds us that God adopts into His family all who trust in Him (Romans 8:14-16).
In John 14:16-18, Jesus told His disciples He would not leave them as orphans but would give them the presence of the Holy Spirit. Similarly, loving on foster kids shows them that God loves them and is always with them.
With that in mind, Abundant Life has a social worker on staff who is heading up ministry efforts to assist foster families.
5 Ways You Can Bless Foster and Adoptive Families
“Learn to do good; Seek justice, Rebuke the oppressor; Defend the fatherless,
Plead for the widow.” — Isaiah 1:17
There are many ways to get involved in foster/adoption ministry, including:
- Becoming a foster parent.
While the church is not a licensing agency, it does hold regular classes to explain what is involved in becoming a foster parent and the steps required to become licensed. Additionally, the classes cover basic expectations of foster care.
The foster care system has a big need for families able to take in older kids and teenagers, especially those in sibling groups. Keep in mind also that the goal is often reunification with biological parents and not adoption, although there are many situations when the goal is adoption.
- Offering respite care.
Not everyone can become a foster parent, but everyone can do something. For some, getting involved might mean providing respite care for foster families.
Becoming a respite care provider is an opportunity to bless foster parents with a break while also receiving the blessing of getting to know and making a difference in the lives of kids and teenagers. It’s also a good way to determine if becoming a foster parent is something God’s calling you to do.
- Joining a care community.
A large focus of Abundant Life’s foster and adoption ministry is on forming care communities. Each of these communities consists of several couples or singles who come together to provide “wrap-around” care for a specific foster or adoptive family. That care involves meeting a wide range of needs, but frequently it means bringing meals, offering prayer, providing respite care, completing yard work, and meeting transportation needs.
- Meeting a need on CarePortal.
CarePortal is a platform that allows social workers and others in the community to post specific needs from families. These needs might range from a bed to a car seat, clothes, or assistance paying a bill.
There are teams of people at the various Abundant Life campuses working to fulfill some of these needs, whether it be providing the money for an item or simply delivering an already funded item to a family.
These CarePortal teams want to grow their impact and are seeking others to join in the work. Delivering physical needs to families provides an opportunity to pray for the family and invite them to church.
- Pray for and build relationships with foster families.
Covering foster youth and families in prayer is an incredible way to bless them and make a difference in their lives. Abundant Life’s foster and adoption ministry is looking to grow its prayer impact going forward. Additionally, simply getting connected and becoming friends with foster families can open your eyes to unique needs these families might have. You might discover a teenager needs driving lessons or a younger child could benefit from tutoring, and these are practical things you can do to support foster families.
The foster and adoption ministry also provides various respite events as well as foster family appreciation evenings. Additionally, the church will be providing some life skills classes for older teenagers who are about to age out of the system and need guidance navigating through life independently.
Wisdom from Foster Parents
“A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy habitation. God sets the solitary in families.” — Psalm 68:5-6
Sarah Pepperman and Jessica Anderson have both opened their homes to kids and teenagers in need, and they’ve worked to provide those kids with a foundation they can take with them into adulthood.
Sarah’s Perspective
“How do you march into adulthood if you have nothing that stays still because everything is moving and there is no stability,” Sarah said. “Those kids need stability, they need rules, they need foundation. You can’t launch successfully into adulthood if you don’t have any kind of stable foundation.”
Sarah said being a foster mom has taught her to hold onto things in life loosely and to be flexible with her expectations. In the process, she said she’s learned to allow God to work even when the situation doesn’t look like what she originally envisioned. After all, foster care rarely takes a predictable path. Through it all, she said God has provided the right people at the right times to meet needs and offer support when her family needed it the most.
“(Foster care) will grow you, and it will change you in ways you would never anticipate,” Sarah said. “God will use that in your life to change everything. It will make you reliant on Him.”
Sarah emphasized that not everyone is called to become a foster parent, but there are many creative things everyone can do to bless foster kids and families.
Jessica’s Insight
Jessica reflected on God’s faithfulness to her family through their foster care journey.
“He is definitely trustworthy, and He can guide us through a lot of difficult situations in helping the girls process their difficult situations,” Jessica said.
She said becoming a part of Abundant Life’s foster and adoption ministry was important because she wanted a way to support other foster families even when she couldn’t bring additional children into her own home.
“Even if fostering isn’t for you, being a part of a care community doesn’t require a lot of time, and it would really lighten the load of someone opening their home to a kid who needs a home,” Jessica said.
Helping bear the burdens foster families carry is also critical to helping them continue to serve kids in need.
“It’s hard for the kids and the families navigating all the different things involved with court, trauma, and cases, and I feel Abundant Life having an awareness and ministry to support that is huge,” Jessica said.
Join God’s Invitation to Serve Kids and Families
God’s heart for kids in need of family stability is evident throughout the Bible, and He wants the church to show youth in foster care the love of Christ. As the church continues to faithfully serve foster families, lives can be changed, and entire cycles of generational trauma can be broken.
Galatians 6:2 says we are to “bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ,” and the burdens facing foster families are often too heavy to bear alone. The church has the privilege of lightening that load in a variety of ways, ranging from providing respite care to forming care communities. In the process, some will even be called to become foster parents.
This ministry is so important it’s part of Abundant Life’s A-Life vision. You may or may not be able to become a foster parent, but you can support foster families in practical ways through Abundant Life’s foster and adoption ministry