Is Your Family “Good” Enough?

As you can see from Charonne’s article, the need is great for foster parents in the Milwaukee area. At OneHope27, it is our desire to see Christ’s Church meet this need. No one is better equipped to meet this need than the Church. What do these children need? Love, stability, justice, protection, parents, kept promises…all the things we’ve received from Jesus through the Cross. No one is better equipped than the Church to act and meet this need of our neighbors.

My wife, Julie, and I believe the first paragraph to be true. We have always thought we would foster or adopt a child some day. We started talking about this topic while we were dating, which began at age 16. We’re now approaching 40, which means this has been “on our minds” now for over 20 years. God has finally moved in our hearts to move it from “on our minds” to “in our home”. We haven’t been unfaithful; just not ready. Sometimes that is an excuse people use to not do something they should be doing now. In our case, we believe we’ve had real reasons, but if we postponed action any longer, we believe we’d be moving from a real reason to an excuse.

You see, during this time, God has grown us a lot, matured us and prepared us and our family so that we could be a “good” home for a child now…not later. This is a realization that we just came to recently. The desire has been in our hearts, the thoughts in our heads, but no action yet. We realized that we really didn’t have any reasons holding us back any more except that we wanted to make sure we would be a “good” home and family when we did it. Then, we realized that we were only going to be a “good” home and family if we did it. Please note that I’m playing on the word, “good.” J You see, our home and family is not perfect, right kids? J It’s not “good” in that sense, but it is “good” in the sense that the Gospel is at the center. Our home contains everything that is needed to provide foster care…love, stability, justice, protection, parents, kept promises…we’re not perfect at these things, but they are present because Christ is present. We want to share these things with a child who does not experience these things. God has shown us that because of Him, we have a “good” home and family, and we are ready to share it with a neighbor who is in need, a child in need of a loving home.

We share these thoughts with you not because we know or think you should provide foster care, but because maybe you should provide foster care. Maybe this will be the first time God puts it on your heart like He did ours over 20 years ago; maybe it’ll be 20 years down the road for you. Maybe God has put it on your heart in the past, and He will use this to spur you on towards opening your home soon. Or, maybe it’s time for you, like it is for us, and He’ll use this to help you see that you have a “good” home now.

We believe God is calling more of the Milwaukee Church to provide and support foster care than is currently involved. He has to be. There is a need, and the solution too closely matches the Gospel solution, which demonstrates God’s heart. The Church has the heart of God; therefore, the Church is called to be the hope of Christ in this situation. Please consider whether God would have you be part of the solution for the foster care need in Milwaukee. If so, let us know, we’d love to support you as you follow God’s calling.