Hi there and happy Wednesday! First of all, happy 10th (!!!) birthday to my beautiful, vibrant, happy, full-of-life second born Allison. She teaches me about living life to the fullest, about loving with my whole heart, and about putting others first. You are my sunshine Allie girl! PS if you get an extra minute today, say a little prayer for her. Her little kitten (pictured below) that she syringe-fed from birth is missing.
(Photo credit Lesley’s Lens)
Several of you have been so kind to check in and see how our foster parenting adventure has been so far. (If you missed the news that we were beginning to foster, you can read more by clicking here)
We have learned so much in our short stint so far and God is doing a work on us each day. Sadly I can’t share any pictures of our little one’s face, but trust me, he’s cute!
The one thing we knew going into it but have been reminded of over and over: foster parenting is H.A.R.D.
Hard because you get a call and thirty minutes later you have a new person in your home. Zero time to prepare. Virtually zero information about the child. We got our first call on a Tuesday night around 6 p.m. By 6:45 p.m., the paperwork was done and we suddenly had a cute toddler in our home. (Oh, my, I had already forgotten how active toddlers are!) Also, he didn’t sleep. As in cried for HOURS on end at night. H.A.R.D.
Also hard, because as quickly as they came, they may be gone in the same manner. Barely 24 hours after our first little one arrived, we received a text- “do you want another kid?” Well, it was precisely what we’d spent the previous months preparing for, so the answer was yes! The little girl that came that night won us over immediately. She nestled right into our family and became instant friends with our girls. Twelve days later, we received a phone call at 7:30 p.m. that CPS was on their way to pick her up and we had 17 minutes to tell her she was leaving, break the news to our kids, pack up everything she owned (admittedly, not much) and tell her goodbye. H.A.R.D.
But as I wrote in my previous post, ministry to people isn’t supposed to be easy.
And little kids are people. With real needs and real love and in these cases, real hurts sustained in their tiny lifetimes. And I’m so glad we get to a part of their story- whether for 12 days or 6 months or a lifetime. Good things are many times also hard things.
So there you have a teeny tiny summary of one of the biggest things we’ve ever done. It’s really difficult to put it all into words. Please, please keep us in your prayers! It is the only thing that’s gotten us to this point!
grace and peace, Kelli
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About Kelli Hays
