“Is It Harder Than the Cross?”

Below is a letter I typed to our close family and friends in January of 2016 as we were beginning the Foster Care Certification Journey.  We did wait until our Social Worker with CrossRoads NOLA came back from maternity leave.  We officially submitted our application on July 24, 2016, so we must be certified by October 24.  Our last Home Visit is scheduled for September 22.  I share this below so you all can have a glimpse into how we arrived on this Foster Care Journey and so that you can know how to pray for us.  My goal is to periodically update this blog to be able to further communicate where we are in the process and what specific needs we may have.  Thank you!

“Is It Harder Than the Cross?”

“Is it harder than the cross?” My question was answered with that question, and it penetrated my soul.   My question to Teri Hrabovsky in her “Multicultural Issues in Foster Care and Adoption” breakout session of the Equipped to Care Fostering and Adoption Conference was “How do you and your family handle the difficult emotion of letting a child you have fostered and grown to love go back to his/her family knowing that he/she could be going right back into a terrible situation?  I know it is so hard.”  Her response was convicting…hard…challenging.  I had never thought of struggles exactly that way before….is what I am going through/dealing with harder than what Jesus did for me on the cross?  Mediate on that question for a minute.

Bo and I have been praying for years about the possibility of adoption, and Bo actually approached me two years ago asking me to consider fostering.  My immediate response, “Absolutely not! I could never give a child back!!”  However, after attending the Equipped to Care Conference, God started working in our lives (especially my life) concerning the great need for Believers to foster children.  John Fuller, VP of Focus on the Family's Audio division and the co- host of the daily Focus on the Family radio program, made the following statement in the Friday night general session of the conference:

            “If God has called you to care, then He’s equipped you to care.”

I have been taught that truth, but hearing it in the context of this conference, I once again was convicted of how little faith I had concerning God’s call on my life.  If God was truly calling us to adopt or foster, how could I doubt His equipping Bo and me to do so, even in the emotional part of having to let a child go?  Fuller also made the statement that “not everyone is called to adopt but all are called to care” which is based on James 1:7.  As believers, we all have been taught that truth, especially as Southern Baptist as so much focus in recent years has been placed on orphan care.  Bo and I have participated in orphan care throughout the years, but at the end of this conference, God confirmed the call that we needed to take the next step of bringing an orphan or a child who has been abused and/or neglected into our home to show Jesus’ love to him/her.

When we decided to move to New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary last year and then made the decision to homeschool due to the quite unusual school situation in New Orleans, our primary concern was how were we to engage the lost in an effective manner and teach our children how to engage the lost in a meaningful way.  Our children have been in the Public School System in Alabama, and we had a great experience not only academically but also emotionally, socially, and spiritually.  The children as well as Bo and I were able to form friendships with people outside the walls of the church and within our community.  The children were able to engage socially with people who were different than them—children who only had food when they were at school, children who didn’t have the same skin color as them, children whose parents did not care for them well, children who came from very broken homes, children who needed to see Jesus and hear about Jesus.  We prayed over our children every morning before they walked out the door to school that they would be Jesus to these children, that they would tell these children about Jesus, and they would be a true friend to these children.  They were given real world experience of engaging the lost at young ages.  Nic Ripken, a retired IMB missionary, shared during Chapel the week before the adoption conference that so many of our churches and theological schools are training “the sheep to be sheep among sheep, but we need to be training our sheep to be sheep among wolves.”  Again, a powerful statement.  He put into words what Bo and I long for our children….to know how to live in a lost world and engage the lost for the Gospel. 

As we have been living on the NOBTS campus as a family for the past 7 months, we have constantly been asking ourselves, how do we engage the lost? How do we teach our children to be “sheep among wolves,” what does that look like for our family who lives in the “bubble” of the Seminary and homeschool? Of course, we must engage with a local body of believers in our community, and we are.  Our church is intentional about being in the community and trying to build meaningful relationships and share the Gospel outside the walls of the church building.  However, we feel that we need to do more.  So, once again, fostering rings loudly as a great opportunity to show Jesus love, grace, and mercy to a child who has no hope, who has come out of unthinkable situations, and “who has been among wolves”, so to speak.  What an awesome way to teach our children to love another child as his/her own sibling and show Christ to that child through meeting physical and emotional needs.

We would love to foster a child with the purpose of adopting and bringing that child into a “forever family.”    What a beautiful example of Christ adopting believers into His family!  I know it is going to be hard.  In fact, in my mind, it would be much easier to raise $30,000-$40,000 for an outright adoption than it would be to foster a child and have to give the child back to his/her family.  However, “is it harder than the cross?”

We do not know what the future holds for our family.  We do not know what fostering will look like for our family.  We do not know if we will adopt.  We just do not know.  However, we do know that we need to take a step of obedience.  We do need to continue to pray and ask God to continue to direct our path as we step out in faith.  We do need family and friends to intercede on our behalf.  We do need support and encouragement. 

We are pursuing fostering with the intent to adopt through Crossroads NOLA, which is a ministry of Louisiana Baptist Children's home and First Baptist New Orleans.  They act as an advocate for Christian families who want to foster children through the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services.  (You can read more about Crossroads NOLA here: www.crossroadsnola.org) We are assigned a Social Worker with Crossroads NOLA and a Social Worker with DCFS.  With Louisiana, once you complete certification to foster, you have completed adoption certification as well….it’s dual certification.  So, that is a good component of the process.  Right now, we want to stay in birth order, and we will be certified for 0-4 years.

The statics of what happens to foster children who “age out” of “The System” is staggering.  Very few actually go on to be healthy adults.  Most end up on drugs, in prison, on welfare, and continuing a cycle of destructive behaviors.  We are praying that our family can be a part of the redemption story of a child out of a life of poverty, physical and emotional abuse, substance abuse, and unimagined horrors.  We know through Jesus Christ that all things are possible! 

We look forward with anticipation to what the future holds for us.  I will be honest, I do have to fight anxiety and fear.  But, I continue to go back to the question, “Is this calling harder than the cross?”

Love you all, and thank you so much for being a huge part of this process for us!

Bo and Rebekah