The Start of Something Great

Being a foster parent has been a goal since 2011. I’ll go into more details and stories later about how this started for me (Justine), but for now I want to start by talking about how this calling was picked up for me again more recently. How God has spoken to my heart, and later in Jeff’s, and how He has moved us in this direction now. I want to share the journey of becoming a foster parent. I want the stigma and the scary stuff to not be so scary. I want to answer people’s questions and hopefully draw people to the idea of something new. I want to share with you the journey of how to become a foster parent in Saskatchewan; the process from beginning to end.

Jeff and I had agreed we would be foster parents someday. The plan had been to wait until our kids were both in school and then we would look at taking in a child that was maybe in kindergarten or grade 1. We had agreed that our kids would always be the older kids; so they would be the influencers and not the ones being influenced. However, around June of this year things started to change for me and God started sending me a different message. This past summer our church has been going through the book of Revelation. The sermons have all been themed around the topic of God’s return and how we are preparing ourselves and others. Our pastors have been sharing a video series titled “I am N” from Voice of the Martyr Video series. These videos and the sermons that went with them tore at my heart. They talked about how Christians in Muslim countries are being persecuted and some killed for telling people about their faith. Christians are being pushed out of their families because they believe in God. Despite all this, people continue to sacrifice everything to tell people about God. To tell people about the love of our Savior. I sat in the pew thinking about the last time I told someone I was Christian. It’s been awhile. It’s actually been months. It’s been so long now, I know the exact time and place it happened. I am on the mercy and benevolent committee at Trailview and I volunteered to meet a lady at Tim Hortons who had sought out our church looking for help. I sat down with her and she shared her story with me and then she asked me for mine. I told her about my faith and about our church and our beliefs. I offered to help her find a ride to church and I gave her my number and encouraged her to call if she ever needed anything again. I haven’t heard from her yet but I am hopeful that we will see each other again. That’s the last time. It’s occurred to me this encounter happened because I am on the Mercy and Benevolent committee. I didn’t seek her out. I haven’t been looking for ways to tell people about my faith. What am I doing to share God’s love? What am I doing to prepare the world for God’s return? It turns out I am not doing much. Yes, I have good relationships with non-Christians and I think everyone who knows me even a little bit knows I am a Christian. I try to live a life that is pleasing to God so that I emanate his love, with the hope people will ask me; but that is a problem. I am waiting for people to come to me. I’m sitting on the sideline waiting for something to happen. I’ve been doing this for a while. It hasn’t worked yet. No one has come up to me and asked me about my faith and about God’s love. Why am I doing the same thing and hoping for a different result? I think I’ve heard that this is the definition of insanity! God was speaking to me. He was convicting me, I’ve been letting my fear decide my decisions. He was also convicting me of being lazy; lazy in my faith. Being a spectator in my faith is not what God has called me to do, or anyone to do for that matter. One of my prayers is that through fostering, it will give me an opportunity to share the gospel. I hope people will ask me why we are doing this, and if they don’t I plan to volunteer the information! I will say because God called our family to do this. I will say because God has asked us to care for everyone; the weak, and vulnerable. Psalm 82:3 says “Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed” and because ultimately God loves us and he loves YOU. The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing. -Zephaniah 3:17

God also spoke to me about sacrifice. The Voice of the Martyr video series “I am N” spoke about this. (If you are interested in watching the video, see below) People sacrificing everything, for God. Literally everything, people are losing their lives for their faith. When Jeff and I had talked about being foster parents initially before we had kids, sacrificing things for this role hadn’t really been on my radar. Now however, sacrifice in foster parenting was something that was holding me back from doing it. I have a lot of fears in signing up for this. I have a lot of thoughts about things my family may potentially have to give up in order to do this. These fears were making the decision for me. The sacrifice I am worried about is nothing compared to what others in the world are sacrificing for their faith. I am worried about moving my daughter’s bedroom to the basement. Why? She’ll be fine. Right now, I have two kids that sleep all night and I wake up rested. Am I seriously worried about sacrificing sleep? I have two semi-independent kids; they feed themselves, dress themselves, and can wipe their own butts (for the most part!) and I’m worried about having to do those things again for someone else kid? These things are so small, so insignificant to the people who are sacrificing everything for God. I'm done letting fear decide things for me. I am walking in faith that God will uphold our family in this next step as we aim to serve families in our community.