April and I have completed all our foster parenting classes through DHS and are now simply waiting for "the call" from DHS asking us if we'll take a particular child or sibling group into our home.
It's kind of interesting that we don't call foster kids orphans....they're "foster kids"
Definition of orphan:
A) A child whose parents are dead.
B) A child who has been deprived of parental care and has not been adopted.
"B" seems to describe foster kids perfectly. These kids have been deprived of parental care by parents who are checked out for one reason or another (often drugs/alcohol) and the kids suffer from neglect or worse....
Sometimes I wonder if we think that the biblical mandate to "look after orphans....in their distress" doesn't apply to foster kids. I think it does apply to them as much as the orphans in India or Africa or any other place in the world.
It's not that I take the view that "we need to take care of our own first" They're ALL God's children! In fact April and I are in the process of adopting a little girl from India. (More on that in future blogging) It's just that I think it's easy to think that the "real need" is overseas while we miss "real needs" right under our nose! If we take the view that foster kids in our communities...our neighborhoods are in fact modern day orphans, than doesn't James 1:27 take on more of a personal feel? "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."
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