Motivation for Being a Foster Parent

It's 1:00 a.m.  I am sitting on the couch holding a screaming, crying, yelling 19 month old foster child.  He is totally inconsolable, but there is nothing wrong with him.  I carry him to the kitchen for some milk.  Maybe that will quiet him down.  He wants a fruit bar.  "Fine.  Just be quiet."  I give him a fruit bar and milk and sit him at the table.  He is quiet.  We sit for an hour.  I want to sleep.  He is not interested.  I am frustrated.  He does not care.  After an hour, I try to get him to sleep.  He lays down quietly.  I hope we can sleep.  A few minutes later, he is up screaming again.  He will not be quiet.  I pick him up. Silence.  I put him down.  Screaming.  Repeat.  Frustration.  I want to sleep.  Crying.  Anger.  I am worried that he is going to wake everyone up.  I take him out to the van.  We drive around in the middle of the night until he falls asleep.  We spend the night sleeping in the van.  Throughout this long night, I wonder why I do this.

            I think back a week.  Our nine year old foster child came down from his room and asked to be saved.  We talked at length about how he was a sinner and the punishment for his sin would be spending eternity in hell.  But, Jesus, who is the Son of God, lived a perfect life and died on the cross to take his punishment.  He prayed, expressing his belief that Jesus is God and took away his sin.  He accepted Christ as his Savior.

            That is why we do it.  The salvation the these souls motivates me to give up my comfort, to give up my sleep, and spend tremendous energy for these children.  Sure, I want to give them a better life on earth.  More importantly, I want these children to live in heaven for eternity.  I could have an easier life here on earth, but what is that compared to the eternity of their souls?

            There are times, like Monday night, that I want to give up and quit.  God answered our prayers by having the nine year old accept Christ as his Savior.  Now, when I want to give up, I can see that our actions are really working.  I see fruit.  One of these children accepted Christ.  That is encouragement to keep going. 

            These children are difficult.  So, nearly every day, I have to remind myself why we foster and that we have seen fruit from this ministry.

            P.S.  This was written prior to a Sunday afternoon.  On that Sunday afternoon, I wanted to watch the Daytona 500 (for NASCAR fans, it is like the Super Bowl and opening day put together) and Sandy needed to get work done on lesson plans.  On this afternoon, of course, the little foster children were terrible, making it impossible to enjoy the race.  Again, I had to constantly remind myself why we do this and remember the recent fruit that we have seen.  Later today, I will probably be reminding myself again.

Writing Project (first 10 days)

Two of my children started a writing project.  The task is to write 100 words for 100 consecutive days on one project/story.  For various reasons, I decided to participate with them.  Today is day 10.  I am posting the first 10 days of my story.  Here it is:

            

            Drip . . . Drip . . . Drip . . .

            "DDDDDDDDDooooooooo . . . yyyyooooouuuu think it is safe to go out?" Willie asked his friends, Jack and Calvin.  Hiding in darkness, Willie was lying on his stomach on a cold, damp, rock floor.

            "Ssssssshhhhhhh," whispered Calvin, stuck between his rotund friend and a rock wall.  "It still might be out there."

            "But, I haven't seen it in a while, and I am hungry."

            "Why are you thinking about food at a time like this?" Jack questioned, as he elbowed Willie.  "You just had a snack when we were at the lake."

            "Well, how long do we have to wait here?" Willie asked impatiently.

            Tired of being squished by Willie, Calvin suggests, "Maybe one of us should take a peek to see if it is still out there?"

            "I'll take a look," Jack whispered as he crawled forward on his stomach.  Slowly, he inched forward.  Finally, his red Phillies cap, with brown hair poking out underneath, emerged from the cave like a turtle's head poking out of his shell.  Intently, he looked left.  Seeing nothing unusual, he rotated his head to the right.  Still nothing unusual in the woods.  Or is there?  What is moving over there?  His head freezes.  Jack holds his breath.  He looks closely.  A bush rustles.  A squirrel emerges and climbs a nearby tree.  He sighed in relief.  He continued looking to the right.  Nothing.  His eyes scan back to the left.  Still nothing.

            Cautiously, he climbed out of the cave.  Kneeling, he looks from his left to his right.  Still nothing.  With his right hand, he waives for his companions to come out of hiding.  "I think the coast is clear.  I don't see anything."

            Calvin and Willie breathlessly watched Jack emerged from the cave and waive for them to join him.  Willie exhaled.  Calvin moves forward first and climbs out, followed by Willie.  They stand together.  It feels good to stretch after being cramped in darkness, for what felt like hours. 

            As they stood, Jack looked at his friends, Calvin in a muddy Star Wars t-shift and Willie in a mud covered Pepsi t-shirt, "You guys look terrible."

            "You don't look so good either."  Looking at his shirt, Calvin continued, "My mom is going to kill me."

            Willie chimed in, "My mom expects me to be dirty."

            Jack pulls at his muddy red Phillies shirt, "My grandmother will just think that I am in trouble again.  Now that it looks safe, what should we do now?"

            Jack and Willie looked at Calvin for the answer.  "Let's go back to the lake and get our bikes."

            "Follow me," Jack said as walked on a narrow path down a hill.  Calvin followed as Willie trailed behind.  Trees and brush surrounded them as they walked.  Jack and Calvin kept looking around to be sure it was safe.  After a few minutes, Willie started to sing.  Calvin elbowed him, "Sssssshhhhhhhh."  Jack turned and glared at him. 

            They walked in silence.

            Suddenly, Jack threw out his right arm, stopped sharply, and whispered, "Stop."  Calvin collided into Jack, dislodging his hat.  Willie dove to his right and crawled under some brush.

            Jack knelt down on his left knee, his right arm outstretched and pointing down with his forefinger.  Calvin bent over, looking over Jack's shoulder, asking, "Why'd you stop?"

            "Look.  There's his paw print."

            The boys, in awe, stared at an eight inch tiger paw print etched into the soft ground. 

            "You didn't see the tiger?" came a voice from the brush.  Willie stood, wiping away dirt and leaves.

            "So, we weren't imagining things.  We really did see a tiger."  Calvin remarked under his breath as he stood up, looking around for the tiger.

            "What is a tiger doing out here?" asked Jack.  "Tigers don't live in the Poconos."

            "I don't know, but let's get our bikes before we see it again."  Calvin replied as he rose.

            Jack stood in front of Calvin and resumed leading the boys down the path.  Willie scrambled out of the brush, slowed down to see the tiger's paw print, then hurried to catch Calvin.

            Nearing the lake, the boys game to the edge of the woods.  They could see their mountain bikes lying on the ground by the water.  A meadow of long, green grass separated them from their bikes.  Jack stopped.

            "What is it?" asked Willie.

            "I hope nothing.  I just wanted to look around before we get out in the open."

            All three looked around.

            "All clear."  Jack walked towards their mountain bikes, as the others followed.

            The boys slipped their backpacks over their shoulders and strapped on their helmets.  "Where are we going?" Willie asked.

            "I think we should try to figure out what's going on.  Remember, before we saw the tiger, we heard a loud noise," Calvin said thoughtfully.

            "Yeah, I remember the noise.  It sounded like it came from near the river," Jack recollected.

            Getting on his bike, Calvin instructed, "Let's go the river and see what the noise was.  Maybe it will explain the tiger."

            "Okay, but I don't think anything can explain a tiger in these woods," Willie doubted out loud as he climbed on his bike.  "By the way, what do we do if we see the tiger while we are riding?"

            Jack looked up and down at his slightly overweight friend, "All I have to do is ride my bike faster then you."  Jack rode away.

            Beginning to pedal, Willie snarled, "That's not funny."

            The boys followed a dirt path  about two miles until they came to the southern end of Bear Lake, which was marked by a dam, holding the lake in place.  The path ran next to Bear Creek for another two miles until it emptied into a larger river.  When they reached the river, the path became wider and ran between the river and roal road tracks.  After following the tracks and river for a mile, they rounded a corner, allowing them to see around a mountain. 

            For the first time, they saw the disaster.  Sheriff's cars, fire trucks, and ambulances were spread out, surrounding a train that was lying on its side, next to the tracks.

            The boys rode their bikes to the engine and started walking around.  The train was like no train they had seen before.  The cars were painted with tents, animals, and clowns.  Some of the cars were cages with animals like lions and bears in them.

            "It is a cicus train," Jack exclaimed.

            "I remember hearing something about a circus train coming through town," Calvin chipped in.  "Let's walk around and see if we can find out what happened."

            Near the engine, they saw the sheriff talking with two men, one looked like the train's engineer and the other was an older man, wearing a suit.  As they talked, they were pointing at the rear wheels of the train.  Calvin put his right forefinger to his lips, "Sssshhhh."  Then, he waived, indicating that he wanted them to follow him.  He led the boys around the engine and stopped, where they would be inconspicuous, but could still overhear the conversation.  Calvin could not overhear every word, but it sounded like a small explosive went off, causing the wheel to come dislodged from the track and the train to derail.  When the train derailed, the tiger's cage broke and he escaped.  The first priority was to capture the tiger before it hurt someone.

            Calvin heard enough.  He wanted to see the tiger's cage.  They walked by numerous people who appeared to have minor injuries.  Calvin assumed they were circus workers who were on the train when it derailed.  Paramedics and EMTs were tending to the injuries. 

            Calvin found the car that served as the tiger cage.  It was tipped over on its side.  It was empty, so obviously the tiger escaped.  However, Calvin noticed something unexpected.  "Hey guys, what's missing from this cage?"

            Jack and Willie looked at the cage.  "We already know what is missing," Willie replied.  "The tiger."

            Calvin frowned.  "Obviously.  But, if the crash enabled the tiger to escape, we should be seeing something.  But, it's missing.  What is it?"

            Jack took another look at the cage.  "I am looking, but I don't know what you are talking about."

            "The cage is not broken.  All of the bars are intact, just like the other cages.  Look, the bears, lions, and other animals are still in their cages.  Those cages did not break.  This cage did not break either.  Someone let this tiger out."

Facing Oncoming Traffic

"I was lying down in the van.  When I looked up, I saw oncoming traffic," my son explained.

In a snow storm, we were traveling on I-70 West, five miles west of Wheeling.  A twelve year old, twelve passenger van with rear wheel drive, no ABS, and no traction control can be a challenge.  The left lane was better then the right; most of the lane was clear with lots of pavement for the tires.  We approached the top of a hill and the road was covered with snow.  The pavement was gone.
The van wiggle.  I let off of the gas and gently corrected for the wiggle.  The van did not want to be corrected and wiggled some more.  Knowing the worst thing I could do is over-correct, I gently corrected the wheel.  Still, no control.  We are sliding left into the concrete wall.  To avoid wall, I must steer harder to the right; although, I know it is risky.  "Keep calm," I tell myself.  The back end begins to slide further left.  If I turn left, I don't think I can get the van back under control.  There are no cars nearby.  The road is wider, made even wider with an on-ramp to the right.  We need to stop.  I turn the wheel farther to the right, hoping I can make the van spin and come to a stop on the road.  The van spins.  I have been braking lightly.  As the van passes 180°, I step hard on the brake, hoping to stop as we complete a 360.  A pick-up is heading toward us on the ramp, but he sees us and stops.  As we complete a 300° spin, the van stops.

Everyone is quiet.  We are safe.  The van is fine.  The engine stalled.  The van starts back up and we drive aware slowly, thanking God for safety.

I am very guilty of taking God for granted, especially His care for the mundane things in life, like safe traveling.  In my head, I know that traveling is dangerous and we need to rely on God for everything.  While we drive a lot (numerous trips to Ohio, Illinois, etc), I have never been in a serious accident.  So, I fail to truly appeciate the danger of driving and my need for God to safely deliver us to our destination.

I hope that this spinning adventure will permanently remind me to truly pray for all things and rely on Him for everything, even mundane things in life that I have done thousands of times.  I hope my adventure will remind you as well.  I don't want God to spin you into oncoming traffic so you will see Him.

My Kids Are Running In Church

It is basically a weekly occurrence.  When church is over, the older members of my family get the younger members of the family from their classes and return to the auditorium.  Before leaving, my wife and I try to talk to different people and build relationships.  Meanwhile, my nearly four year old boy and three year old girl are running around the auditorium, climbing the steps on the stage, jumping off the stage, crawling under pews and anything else they can think of to embarass me.

I feel bad.  Children should not be running in church.  Worse, my children should not be running.  This is not acceptable.  But, if I am going to talk to people after church, my kids are going to run around; it is unavoidable.  I can only stop the running by leaving, which essentially consists of dragging the kids to the van.

I feel bad that my kids are running in church.  I judge myself.  I did not used to let my children run in church, but I can't stop these kids.  If you are wondering, there is a reason that I now let my children run in church.  My older children, the non-runners, are my biological children, so I could effectively discipline them and stop their running.  These running children are foster children.  So, everything I do with them is regulated by the State.  Discipline is especially regulated.  These regulations make it impossible to effectively discipline.  The result is often chaos, as seen when they are running in church.

At this point, I have learned to accept the running so that I can do other important things, like build relationships.  Also, I use their running to remind me that I need to pray for them.

I ask that people in church who see them running will also pray for them.  In his book Adopted for Life, Russell Moore explains that the church needs to develop a culture of adoption.  While many things go into developing a culture of adoption, one item is praying for adopted and foster children.  Not only can the running children remind someone to pray for the children, it can also spur them to pray for other nations.  He writes, "The children running through your church halls can be a perpetual signal to pray and labor for the nations to know Christ."  In my case, it is surely perpetual, as these kids are perpetually running.

When you see my children running in church, please pray for them.  Don't just pray for their behavior.  Pray for my sanity, and my wife's sanity, as we raise these very active, strong-willed children.  More importantly, pray for their salvation.  And the salvation of their mother.  And the salvation of their sisters who do not live in our home.  And the social workers who oversee the children.  And the attorneys who represent the State, the children, and the mother.  You get the idea; there are many people to pray for.  While we can address their physical needs, like behavior, it will mean nothing if they spend eternity in hell.  My goal in raising these foster children is not to save them from hell on earth, but to save them from a literal hell when their lives end.  For this, they need prayer, and less judgment by me.

Beginning the Year With The Passion Conference

Like the last two years, my family started 2013 by watching the Passion Conference online.  Here are some of my thoughts from opening night.

First, it is a joy to see my children excited about watching Passion.  All four of my children (ages 18, 15, 11, and 8) could not wait for it to start.  Throughout the day, they were playing Praise and Worship music for Passion Prep.  During Giglio's message, the oldest three were taking notes.  Yes, three children were taking notes and this was without any parental persuasion!  After the message, my kids were quoting their favorite lines from the message.  As a parent, I love the fact that my kids love God and are passionate about Him.  I pray that this will continue.

Second, I pray for the salvation of my Foster Children, especially the oldest one, who is nine.  He has not accepted Jesus as his Saviour; although, he has been presented with the gospel numerous times.  While we watch Passion, he is with us.  Having an unregenerate heart, he does not understand or experience it like the rest of us do.  I am glad that he is being exposed to the Word again and in a different format.  He is getting an opportunity to see our family, and thousands others, getting excited about Jesus.  He is hearing that, no matter your past or what enslaves you, Jesus can give you a new life and freedom.  These are things that he needs.  I pray that God's word will not return void.

Third, when God is working, Satan will be opposing.  With the Georgia Dome only able to hold 60,000+ young adults worshipping God, the Conference is streamed on the internet so people all over the world can join in the worship.  When the conference started at 7:30, we could not get the stream.  After checking around online and on Twitter (the first time I have ever checked Twitter), we learned that the Conference was having techical difficulties (perhaps too many people wanting to worship for human technology?).  Eventually, they fixed the stream and we were able to participate.  Personally, I saw this as an attack by Satan.  The last think he wants is hundreds of thousands of people around the world worshipping God and being energized to let God work through them.  I also found it ironic how upset Christians (presumably) got when they could not get their "religious" program.

Fourth, God can do more than we can imagine, as Giglio preached.  God is the all powerful creator of the world and can do anything.  But, we limit His power in our lives.  Instead, we choose to be a slave to sin and to be satisifed with ordinary, mundane lives.  We need to ask God to do more in, and through, us.  He wants to do it, we just need to ask and have faith.  When we lack faith, we should pray that He will help our unbelief.

Spiritual Adoption, Human Adoption, and Russia's Anti-Adoption Policy

As a Foster Parent, who is hoping to adopt four foster children, God has taught me a lot about spritual adoption.  It is truly amazing that God would choose to adopt me, especially when I was an enemy of God.  He did not choose to adopt me because of any merit that I had.  He simply chose to love me and make me a part of His family.  He loves me unconditionally.  By making me a part of His family, I have all of the rights and benefits of being a child of the King.  i have an incredible inheritance, heaven, ahead of us.  I can call the Supreme Being, "Daddy".

Adoption by human parents is a similar way to show God's love.  The children I hope to adopt were not chosen, because of merit.  Often, they misbehave and are not very lovely.  One has even been called "rotten"; I was not even offended because too often the child merits that description.  Yet, I love them anyway, unconditionally.  They get all of the rights and benefits of being a part of my family.  They even get to call me "Daddy".

As I have learned the significance of spiritual adoption, I have gained a greater passion for human adoption.  I love it when people share God's love through adoption.

With this background, my heart is broken to hear that Russia has stopped all Americans from adopting Russian children.  From a human perspective, it is terrible that these children will now remain in orphanages, with very poor care.  Some are disabled and will get very little care in a society that has limited resources for orphans and little interest in disabled children.  My heart breaks for adoptive parents, especially those who were in the the process of adopting.  Many had already visited Russia, met their future child(ren), exchanged pictures, and would finalize the adoption after a waiting period.  Now, these adoptions will not happen.

More importantly, many of these children would have been adopted into Christian homes, heard the gospel in these homes, and accepted Christ as Savior.  Now, many of these children will not get this chance.  I know God is sovereign and He can reach these souls in other ways, but my heart breaks knowing that these children will not be in Christian homes.

I am praying, and urging you to pray, that Russia will change its plans.  I know there are many different causes to pray for; it is impossible to be interested in every cause.  I know my passion should not necessarily become your passion.  But, part of me thinks that God has a special interest in human adoption because the Bible talks so much about spiritual adoption.  In addition, Jesus paid special attention to the little children and the Bible speaks often of caring for orphans.  For these reasons, I hope you will at least pray for these orphans and adopting parents.

For those unfamilar with the adoption situation in Russia, Russia recently stopped all Americans from adopting Russian children.  As I understand it, they claim to have taken this action because some Russian born children have suffered after being adopted by Americans.  I do not know any details, but have read claims that a couple of children died and one child was returned to Russia, alone, on an airplane.  If such things happened, these are tragedies and efforts should be made to proect these children.  In reality, it appears that this is only an excuse for Russia's actions.   Russia's anti-american adoption policy is really political.  I understand the US is going to label Russia a violator human rights.  Russia is responding with this policy.  Meanwhile,  thousands of children are being harmed as Russia uses them as pawns.

I pray that soon the orphans will stop being pawns, can be adopted by Americans who can provide for their physical needs, and share the gospel with them.

Best Books I Read in 2012

I thought I would take some time to highlight some of the best books I read in 2012.   These are in no particular order.

The Meaning of Marriage by Timothy Keller.  Keller is becoming one of my favorite authors and this is one of the best books on marriage that I have read.  It seems like many marriage books contain similar material and very little original thought.  This book takes a unique approach, which is probably why I liked it a lot.  As the title implies, Keller explains the biblical foundation of marriage.  Understanding the foundation on of marriage helps with the practical day to day aspects of marriage.  I highly recommend it for singles - yes a marriage book for singles.  Keller preaches to many singles in his church and he specifically addresses singles in this book. For example, he explains why marriage is better than living together.  Again, understanding the foundation of marriage helps singles find a spouse and have a godly marriage.

Weird:  Because Normal Isn't Working by Craig Groeschel.  Groeschel is also becoming one of my favorite authors.  Here, he explains that most Christians live normal, ordinary,  mundane lives and this is not what God intended.  Instead, God intends for Christians to live extraordinary lives of faith.  This is a great challenge and a must read for everyone.

Sun Stand Still by Furtick.  In some ways, this book is similar to Weird, but it is a challenging in its own right.  Using the example of Joshua asking God to make the sun stand still, Furtick challenges Christians to look for God to do extraordinary things in their lives.  He says we should pray for, and expect, God to do seemingly impossible things in, and through, our lives.  How many of us actually expect God to do the impossible in, and through us?  This book is a faith builder.

A Tale of Two Sons by John MacArthur.  Here, MacArthur provides an in depth understanding of the Prodigal Son.  As I said before, Timothy Keller has become a popular author and many have read his book, Prodigal God, which examines the Prodigal Son.  While Prodigal God is good, I think MacArthur's book is better.  I think MacArthur includes everything that Keller included, but MacArthur includes a lot more, which should not be surprising since MacArthur's book is more than twice as long.  This book caused me to see the Prodigal Son in a whole new light and how it applies to everyone, even to Christians.  We can really see ourselves in the life of the Prodigal and the older son.  I especially like his "tragic" ending of the story, which I had never heard before, even in Keller's book.

Bonhoeffer by Metatexas.  This is a good biography of someone that I had heard of, but knew very little about.  It is fascinating how he, early on, saw the dangers of Hitler and Hitler's influence on the church.  Then, how he tried to combat Hitler, even to the point of being part of a plot to kill Hitler.  I have some questions about how accurately Metatexas portrays Bonhoeffer's theology, but the book is very good.

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand.  Fascinating biography of Zamperini, who was a wild child, ran in the 1936 Olympics, survived an airplane crash in the Pacific in World II and weeks on a raft, was a POW tortured by the Japanese, returned home a broken man, and accepted Christ at a Billy Graham crusade.  It gives a good understanding of World War II in the Pacific - heartbreaking. A little long, but that probably helps the reader understand the torture that Zamperini lived through.

What reading recommendations do you have?