The Least of These
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| Christ in America by Jeff Hein |
So much has happened since I last wrote on this blog in real time. I haven’t written about foster care in years, but it’s still always been on my mind and heart.
In 2022 we had a foster placement of a 3 year old boy for six months, Orion was his online name. After he left our home, we knew it was time to sell our home. You can read about that process here. Moving was full of ups and downs. Throughout the process our foster care license was open and closed as we moved and got our new home licensed and such. When we miraculously got this big beautiful house I just knew we were meant to fill it with kids. I had a feeling we would be asked to take in a sibling group placement and the thought kind of terrified me.
Nevertheless, we got licensed and on the list for calls again when I was 8 months pregnant with Sorrel. Not ideal timing. I spent the last month of pregnancy wondering if I would be parenting two infants (among other combinations of ages we could possibly get). But we didn’t get any calls before Sorrel was born, and afterwards we let them know we would be on a break from placements for a few months.
(We did get a call anyways, when Sorrel was two weeks old, for a 3 year old girl who we said yes to. She stayed with us 5 days. That is not what this story is about but I want to remember it so I’m including it briefly here.)
As Sorrel got older, and proved to be a somewhat fussy baby, and life proved to be rather difficult with 6 kids under 10, I just could not fathom opening our home to more kids anytime soon.
Still the feelings that we should kept coming to my mind. I knew Heavenly Father had called me to this. I knew there was still more work for us to do with foster care, but I also knew I couldn’t handle it.
Heavenly Father, I pleaded, I just can’t do it. If I take in more kids, my kids are going to suffer. I know they are.
“These kids, the ones I need you to take care of, are already suffering.”
And immediately I knew it was true. Children who are removed from their parents care suffer immensely at the hands of those who are supposed to love and protect them. If you don’t have an understanding of this here are a few articles that may shine some light.
https://www.ksl.com/article/50983514/abused-homeless-siblings-get-help-thanks-to-fast-food-workers
https://www.ksl.com/article/46206356/judge-orders-prison-for-mom-who-exposed-kids-to-drugs
None of these are cases we’ve been involved in at all, but these stories happen hundreds of times a year. The kids we’ve had in our home have all experienced horribly sad suffering and trauma.
And so I knew, the suffering that my kids would go through, by having us take in a few extra kids for a while was NOTHING, compared to what kids who are removed go through.
Still I wasn’t totally on board, and Leland definitely wasn’t, but through months of fasting and prayer we got there.
We opened our home up again for placements in November 2023.
And radio silence. We got no calls. I spent all of the holiday season wondering if we’d have extra kids for Christmas and no calls came.
Which was fine, the not knowing was hard but much better than the way worse not knowing that comes when you actually have a placement.
Then the first week of February we finally got a call. They had a huge influx of small children coming into care and needed all the homes they could get.
They called us with a sibling group of 3. At first I was like no way. We cannot do 3. I cannot.
They gave us a few days warning before they actually asked us which I think was good because it gave me more time to process. And by the time the real call came I knew we should say yes.
And for the sake of honesty, I’ll say that Leland was not fully on board, but he trusted me enough agree to saying yes. And he got his own confirmation that we had made the right decision later.
So on February 3, right after Adele’s baptism, I went and got the kids. They are ages 5,4 and 2. Making the ages of our kids in our home at that time 9, 8, 6, 5, 5, 4, 2, 2, and 7 months.
It was craziness. The first few weeks were SO hard. Navigating one child in public school, eight children at home each day, attempting to homeschool four kids, with four toddlers and babies underfoot. It seemed impossible.
But somehow we’ve done it. Day after day we’ve done it. We’ve kept them all fed and clothed and somewhat schooled. And I’ve tried my utmost to help them all feel loved each day. It’s still a struggle, a lot of days are a struggle. But there are so many happy joyful moments too.
Seeing how much the kids love each other. Seeing Sorrel be the recipient of love and adoration from 8 older siblings. Seeing kids gain weight and words and feel safe for the first time.
But I won’t sugarcoat it, it’s been hard! Leland works from home which is amazing and the only way I survive, but we don’t have a lot of help other than each other. Living in a new ward where we don’t know people well has been really hard. Living further from my family and friends who I know would love to help if they were closer has been hard. Finding anyone who is able to babysit 9 kids has been almost impossible, and when we have found a few brave girls from our ward who were willing, I’m hardly able to bring myself to ask them because I know how much work it is to tend to 9 children.
Dealing with the judgement from others has been hard. I don’t think our new ward knows quite what to make of us. People tend to say “you’re so amazing” and “I could never” to us at every turn. I guess they don’t realize that we’re not amazing and we’re just normal people and actually we could quite use a lot of help. 😅
We’re nearing three months of being a family of 11 and things are starting to stabilize and get a little easier. I still don’t have time to do the dishes or basic house work, let alone many of the things I’d actually like to do. It’s been a hard experience but it’s been so refining. I know I had a lot of rough edges still left, that I hoped would be sanded down slowly over time. Instead this experience has chopped them clean off. I no longer have “me-time” I no longer have time for things that don’t matter. The “things that don’t matter” list grows longer every day.
Suffice to say the only way I’m doing it at all, and not completely messing up all these kids is through the grace and power of Christ. Someone He makes my small efforts enough. Somehow He takes my small well of human capacity and multiplies it to cover 9 children. He is building me and giving me power to do his work through my feeble human hands.
I wish I could share more about the kids and their story online but I can’t. What I can say is that they’re beautiful. They’re loved and worthy. They’re so much more than their circumstances. They’re not bad kids, they’re not broken by their experiences, they’re just normal kids who just want to be loved and cared for. And as difficult as it it, as much as I feel like there are many many people who could do this job better than I am doing it, I am so grateful that I get to know them and love them and that our family is the one that gets to step in and serve them at this time.
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