This week has been designated Foster Care Prayer Week by several Christian organizations, including our friends at Show Hope. More than half a million kids are in foster care in the U.S. on any given day.  Many are there because their homes were unsafe for them to remain in, while others wind up in foster care because their parents have been arrested and there were no relatives available to care for them.

I do hope you'll pray for kids in foster care this week, but there are other ways you can help these children. Becoming a foster parent is the obvious way. Kids in crisis need a stable, safe place to live, and if they can do this in the presence of a family that loves God and models His love to those children, what an impact that could have.

There's another way. I'm in training right now to be a volunteer Guardian ad Litem for kids in foster care, part of the nationwide effort to have an advocate assigned to every child in foster care in this country. You can read more about this effort at the web site for the National CASA ("Court Appointed Special Advocates") program. 

The web site for this year's Prayer Vigil is loaded with other ideas and resources, including a section on why this issue and these kids matter to God. Go check it out--and while you're praying for kids in foster care, pray about how you might get involved in helping them.

(Image © Cry of the Orphan)

Comments

[Dan Gill]

This is very timely for my family. My wife and I certified to do foster care over a year ago. Our goal was to do newborn care - short term care for babies being adopted between the time they are born and the time the adoptive family comes to get them. In the past year we have had zero babies. It's partly because the agency we work with is small, and partly because many young unmarried moms are keeping their babies - for a while.

Last week we were asked to take in 2 1/2-year-old twins for 30 - 90 days. That night. We were flabbergasted--we don't have the stuff, we never wanted to do longer-term fostering, we wanted to work with infants. We needed to think and pray about it.

After talking and praying, we felt certain we were supposed to take the twins. We called back and agreed, and already began to make a place in our hearts for those little boys. An our later, the agency called and said that since CPS would not provide funding, it wasn't going to happen.

We don't know at this point what has happened with those boys. I pray that they are getting the care they need.

[vikingmother]

We had to be a bit flexible with the child we took in. In our case, we wanted a 2-3 year old from foster care---but got a couple month old infant.

I suggest people licensed and ready for foster care stock up on a few clothing items at their local garage sales...just in case they get that call. (Maybe buy for birth to age 3-4 just to be flexible.) Our foster care agency makes very quick decisions--on where the kids go.

But it's good to also know your personal limits on what kind of kid you could take. For instance, maybe taking a baby versus a 2 year old might not be too big of a stretch for you, but don't (for instance) take in a significantly different child (say a child much older) if you are not prepared to deal with it.

[Jimmo_D]

I've recently had reason to ponder the issue of cps intervention in people's in lives. I tend to be very conservative in my politics, my opinion of the Republicans is that they're little different than the Democrats. I prefer a lot less government, I even know one Libertarian that's convinced God is of that political persuasion. Funny how He's always of our own party.
So, considering Romans ch 1, is God wringing His hands, wishing he could do something on behalf of neglected and abused children, but not wanting to use wretched government to do the job?
At any rate, this involvement by private individuals sounds like it has a lot of potential. I had pondered a liaison of sorts, and this sounds very much like it. Way to go.

[Jimmo_D]

Oops, should have been chapter 13:1