First Placements

First placements can be scary. You're so excited to be a foster parent! PRIDE is finished, and now you wait. It's 12:30 pm on a Thursday afternoon and phone call comes in from licensing - "It's official, You are licensed"! And then IT happens, a call at 2:00pm,  from "placement"! Wait! WHAT! Wait! Yes! You can be after officially foster parents? If you only say yes? Yes to two little boys 13 months apart, and you will make their 3 placement in 12 days? The voice on the other end of the phone ask, "Can they be apart of your family". But of course I thought about it? For about a SECOND, And said, YES! And in my moment of shock, placement's second question was, do want to know more? Oh, but of course you say - Uh, okay... OH MY YES, Please can you give me anything/everything you know about these precious baby boys?! I want to know everything!!  They share with you all they know, which is very little of ...of NOTHINGNESS!! Yet, again you say, But of Course, YES! Oh ya wait, then you remember you must share this yes with your husband! WHOOPS? Although he has more in depth questions about the children, you say - Duh - YES! And so our family's 11 year journey began into the world of foster care ministry. With 61 souls loved in our home (from infants from the hospital to young adults), it's all now hindsight, that this life is just His big picture! Not knowing then just what the journey is that God planned, you know it will be vast. Be willing to be His open vessel for the "least of these". If not I, then who? Pleaes don't pass up the biggest blessings of our lives.

Just remember, God loves to share His humor with us... be willing to laugh, learn and love!

That is when it hits, you have a 12 day old boy and his brother who is 13 months coming soon and in less than 48 hours!! And then it sinks in... "What did I do"? "Am I ready?" Is our famly ready? Four children under the age of 11?!! OH NO!! What did I say yes to? Do I have what they need?" Do I know all I need to learn? "Will I be everything they need?" "Will Our family change"! This is real. These are all true thoughts we all have had with our first placements. Please don't to be taken lightly. Life does change... and I mean forever. God knows the life you once had is gone, but the life to come, will be to His fulfillment! As you ponder the never-ending anticipation of forgoing thoughts, you must remember you only have less than 48 hours to prepare your heart and your home.  God only knew from that moment on, our first placements forever changed our lives. Forever changed the course of our family-life. Yet more importnatinly forever change our hearts towards each child's souls we've forever touched.

We are blessed, stressed and pressed to finish the journey. Keep the faith new foster parents! Keep the faith with your first placements. Keep the faith, that God doesn't give you a journey that He doesn't personally see to it's end.

Hold on for the ride of your life! I pray if your first placement is your last, it's forever! I pray if your first placement isn't your last, you keep His journey until it's fulfilled. There are to many children who need their first placments to be in your home!

In His Service,

TammyPresident and Founder of +Foster Closet

"Mom to the Broken - Hope to the Fatherless"