Fostering Jesus

Chapter 1

Bob and Wendy
The following story is my testimony as the author of this book. It is Wendy and my story and demonstrates how far God will go in a person’s life to help vulnerable children. For us, he took down every mountain we saw in the way until the ground was flat and all we had to do walk forward.
Jonah was told to go to Nineveh, but he did not want to go, for fear held him back. The Israelites were also afraid when they found themselves ready to enter the Promised Land because the native people looked taller and stronger than the Israelites—and dangerous! Moses, too, was afraid of the challenges ahead because he knew he would have to face Pharaoh when acting as the liberating agent for God’s people. His calling appeared difficult, but that was God’s plan.
In these and other scenarios throughout Scripture, God had a redemptive plan He needed carried out, but those He selected resisted because the plan seemed too hard, and the cost seemed too high. They simply did not think they could do it without great pain. They felt the odds were too great and that the suffering would not be worth the reward. They counted the cost and rejected the opportunity. After some persuading, some conversation, and some struggling, though, all of God’s people in the Bible recognized His calling and became catalysts for His saving work.
God’s redemptive story continues in our world today as He seeks to save those who are marginalized, weak, and unable to provide for themselves. Orphans are one such people group who need saving all around the world, but who will save them? Who will step up to care for them and invite them into their home? Who will do what Jesus is asking even if it seems hard?
The answer to these questions in one small way involves me. Several years ago, I met with county representatives in our city to learn what our church could do to help them. During this meeting, I learned that our city had 197 orphans and only fifty homes available to them. They also told me that 50 percent of these children were under the age of five, which I found surprising because I always thought orphans were in the ten- to fifteen-year-old category.
Who will do what Jesus is asking
even if it seems hard?
So, I returned home and explained to my wife that I thought our church could help meet this need with some recruiting help. I then told Wendy that I thought our family could also do something to help. She was very excited! She said this was something she had been praying about for years and just was not sure how I would ever come to this decision. She really saw God working on my heart and leading us together into being foster parents in His timing. We had the ability to foster at least one little boy or girl, but I remember feeling resistance as I contemplated the extra time, energy, resources, and space that would be needed for an additional child in our home. Would I need to change a diaper again? Not a fun thought. I wanted to move on with my life and not go back to raising preschoolers again. My children were in grade school and middle school by that time, and life was just getting a little easier. So, I struggled. Finally, though, I listened to the direction I sensed from the Holy Spirit and picked up a foster care application from our local foster care office.
Wendy was thrilled! We came together as a couple and started telling our friends and family about this new step of faith to help serve our community. I was not sure what this would entail but committed to just take it one step at a time.
Soon after, we had our first little girl in our home and cared for her for over eighteen months. I will never forget when I first saw her in the car seat only a few months old. She gave me a big smile, and that was it. She had my heart. Sometimes it’s just that easy. We then had the opportunity to adopt her. That was a big decision, but by that point, she was already a part of our family, and the decision made sense in many ways. We knew that her life would be changed forever and that she would have an opportunity to see Jesus lived out in our lives. She would now be able to go to church regularly with us and hear about the Lord. This would provide her with an open door to follow Jesus for herself one day and in so doing be adopted into the kingdom of heaven.
A fascinating observation Wendy and I made was that our family grew more spiritually in those eighteen months of being foster parents than in any other time before it. We were seeking the things of God like never before as a family. We were on a mission together, and it was not about us but about Jesus. Our children embraced the mission of sharing our home, their toys, rooms, and time with someone new. They saw the big picture and loved the difference they were seeing in this little two-year-old girl. The hardest part for me was simply saying yes and walking through the doors of foster care, but the greatest reward was also ahead of me. This journey was about exploring what we could do to help save a child in need and in so doing extend God’s redemptive plan to others in our world.