Mentoring with a purpose!

Mentoring to foster parents should be the calling to all churches...

There are 38 Million households in the US with children in their homes... there are only 184,000 households with at least one foster child in the home and yet, over 400,000 children in foster care. The average household in America has 2700 square ft of living, with the average of 3 bedrooms. If we have enough space for a child, then why don't we have enough room in our heart to care for a child? So you do the math. We need more foster homes!

In my hometown of Jacksonville, FL there are approximately 1500 churches. If each church family took one child/sibling group, I feel we would have foster children with homes. We would have siblings placed together. We would have more children learning how a family with a purpose lives like! I pass at least 40 churches on my 15-mile route to work. What saddens my heart is most don't have more than one foster family in them... or sadly most have none. Why do we have so many believers, who don't want to follow the word in James 1:27, "to look after the widows and orphans?  This is what leads to my plight... that we must mentor, support and pray for our foster parents who are out there, giving our children a home.

Even if you are not called to be a foster parent, is your church body willing to promote fostering? Will you church willing to support a foster family in your own community? Are you willing to sign up as a Godly mentor to a child? All of these questions should be yes! We need to show all God's children the way, the truth, and the life! Are you willing to help our forgotten children?

Usually, our children are put in a bubble because no one wants to hear their stories of abuse, neglect or deep routed pain, however, I am here to say that is why we should hear about their stories. Jesus went into the world to find these special souls to minister His truth. I have seen for myself, if we show God's love to our children, they experience unconditionally love!! I have seen if we demonstrated His love to our children, His light will shine in their lives.

Are you as a member of believers willing to help with us as we support our families? Join us as we give a meal to a foster home, babysit or be a mommy's helper, take a child out to the park and share the gospel of hope to their hurting souls. We are willing to partner with every church as we begin this journey of mentoring foster families with a purpose.

The beginning of fostering can be a leap of faith as our homes who have opened their families, their hearts and their lives to the vast unknown of the child welfare system. Will you help them? Pray for them? or Support them? Please be an active body of believers as we begin this journey WITH THEM!! #mentorwithapurpose


In His Service,
Tammy
president and founder of +Foster Closet
"Mom to the Broken - Hope to the Fatherless"

When Love takes you in... It takes you in FOR GOOD!!

After eleven years of fostering, I can still hear a heart-touching poetic ballad continuously plays in my head, "When love takes you in..." Why this emotionally moving medley? Composed and sung from a father's heart through adoption by recording artist, Steven Curtis Champman. This graceful message of forever love shares the emotional journey that is birthed through adoption. "When love takes you in," has also made an emotional journey into our family's chosen life'swork.

Eleven years ago (February 2005)  two little souls came into our home, our heart and our family. A 13-month-old toddling boy and his 12 day old baby brother still detoxing from birth. Being new to the world of foster care, we were timidly anxious.  God had His plan for these boys in our lives as they would begin our ministry in foster care, the very moment they arrived.

After twenty-one months of loving them, coddling, cradling, teaching them to walk, talk, form sentences, find a sleep routine,  ABCs and 123s... we realized God's greater purpose was we were walk through our obedience as we serve the children in foster care.   These two bright-eyed little boys so full of wonderment were adopted to a couple unable to birth children of their own.  It truly was a God-created family and all to fulfill His will. We are forever changed, as God allowed us to foster them until their forever home.

After the boys adoption, our family had everyone in our home to celebrate this newly formed family. We invited everyone who actively had a part in helping us in their lives. Yes, everyone from their Case-manager who dropped them off on our doorstep at 8:30 am. on a Saturday morning, to the babysitters who rocked them to sleep, so we could sneak away for a date night. We joyfully celebrated this new family to close our chapter in their forever story!

I spent countless hours creating a priceless gift for this mommy and daddy of a DVD.  Sorting through 100s of pictures and precious memories, I wanted to capture every moment their mommy and daddy had missed. I chose pictures of when they were mischievous to those adorable cuddle moments. I needed a perfect song to back up pivotal moments of their sentimental journey. "When love takes you in...", sweetly and sentimentally gave life to this compiled life-movie. I never could listen to that song again without seeing the sweet little boy's faces!...And sadly never saw them again, but I knew this was not the end of our story. It was just the first chapter to our family's life narrative.

The eloquent words of this song have never spoke more clearly than it has Today! "When love takes you in, it takes you in for good!! February 2015, we accepted the call to take two more into our home.  Number sixty and sixty-one were two broken, tortured and abused siblings.... "from adopted". Yes, I said adopted children.

The six-year-old boy was the targeted child. A therapeutic boy, with DMD (Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy) who was never touched with love, locked in a room and denied food. He came to us with an animalistic nature, - a "caged soul" never wanting to trust anyone, but only trusting his 13 months older sister (his constant protector).  His only expressions were to scream, hit himself and spit blood on us. We saw, and even felt his broken spirit and knew he needed a miracle to be whole again. After eleven years and sixty-one children, this was the hardest placement we have ever endured as a foster home. After months of constant love, proper discipline and a structured daily life, he began to trust. He is now a funny, bright and mischievous little boy! It took him six months to say he loved me, and I will cherish those words forever.

As for our baby girl- She is a vibrant soul, who is full of life, natural beauty, who shares her love for others through her positive light. We call her, Supergirl! A Hero to her brother!  Have you ever met a girl who was put on this earth to bring joy, happiness, and love to others? Well, that is our sweet princess. She was meant to do great things for the Lord! And her first call to action, was sharing their abuse with her teachers.... I love her courageous spirit!

As of April 5, 2016, these precious children became apart of a family... forever! Which brings an end of our foster care journey and to the beginning of our family. Also, this is another reason why this beautiful song means so much to me.... We recently had OUR adoption celebration! We invited all our friends and family who had an active part in our children's lives over the last 12 months! I created a movie put to life by this sentimental song with all our children's pictures. I am truly blessed by their  love for our family. As the pages turn to our next chapter of our story - from the chapter titled "The end of foster care" to the final chapter titled "The Beginning of Forever"!

This takes us to where this song began!  The song that impacted on our family's journey, to our path in His Purpose! It begins, and it ends with this sentimental lyrical, "When love takes you in... it takes you in for good"!  They became our final foster children who stayed forever! Now a forever family of six!

The end to our beginning...


Please watch this beautiful video from Steven Curtis Chapman "When love takes you in..."

In His Service,
Tammy
Hope to the broken, Help for the Fatherless,

Foster Children with Special Needs

All foster children have special needs. All foster children are "special",  you know that "not your garden variety kind of kid"? Sure, it's because they are in foster care. Maybe because they've been in more schools than you can count. How about of all the homes they've stayed in throughout their short lived lives.  And always, because they miss their "real families". And why? Because your family is different. Your family with rules,  different foods and culture.  Of course structure plays a big role on why they may feel weird in your home.  But I'm talking about much more....

Everyone was so worried about his therapeutic needs, they put his medical needs on the back burner. Yes, our little boy has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. This is a life-threatening disease that effects a boy's muscles. Other DMD mothers are given this knowledge when their boys are babies or toddlers.... we were given this knowledge one week after bringing in this shattered soul in to our family's new life. Being told that your youngest family member has deep emotional therapeutic needs and a short life-expectancy is a very hard diagnosis to process as a foster mom. Foster parents are here to hold, nurture and heal children as they wait to be reunited with their parents. How do you fully emerge yourself emotional, physical and spiritual, knowing that you will loose a part of each aspect of your soul?

We have never had a case with therapeutic trauma therapist, a Muscular Dystrophy Clinic involvement, a team of ESE teachers and counselors, and multiple yes up to 3 different casemanagers on a team of others.

With a child in foster care, they are already looked at in that special way. Our kids are "those kids".You know the ones, the kids who are seen different from the "norm". You know those kids we label odd or off.  Believe me, I've heard it all. It saddens my heart as their mother. How can my children who were homeless, victims, or brutally abused. When a child has all of the hurts and afflictions of coming into foster care, but have an added disability.  Life is harder for our children in care. Sometimes the system looks at their therapeutic needs and seem to look over their physical needs. Sometimes the opposite. Either way, I'm here to say, life for our that special-needs/garden-variety child will ever be defined by them living in foster care. Life is defined by their living!

Just 13 months ago, we accepted the call to take in two beautiful children. One of the children was the victim of tortured abuse just after six short months after adoption. The six year old boy was the targeted child. He was a therapeutic little boy who was never touched with love.   If this is a "forever" home. This is just one way how our children be come "special-needs". This broken little soul came into our family as an animistic  creature who had never been accepted into any family. His only expression was to scream, hit and spit blood on us. We felt his broken spirit and knew he needed a miracle. Everyone was more worried about his therapeutic needs, yet set aside his medical needs.

Our little boy has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. This is a life-threatening disease that genetically effects boy's by weakening their muscles and paralyzing their bodies. Some DMD moms are given the knowledge as their babies grow.... we were given this knowledge just one week after bringing in this shattered soul in to our family's new life. Being told that your youngest family member has deep emotional therapeutic needy child is hard.  Now we find out the news that he has a short life-expectancy. It was the hardest diagnosis I have ever processed as a mother. Foster parents are here to hold, nurture and heal  the children we hold in our hearts and arms.  How do you fully immerse yourself emotional, physical and spiritual, knowing that you will loose a part of each aspect of your soul? You do it all for the children and for the Lord we serve.

Please find a way to see beyond our children's labels and past to see our children for what God has intended. A life of love. A life of wholeness. A life of acceptance. Please don't give up. Please share with others! Advocate for them! Please inform and educate those who call them different or special.  Our children with hidden or visual disabilities all need to feel equal and accepted. They are not your "garden-variety" children, they are His to be restored and be called uniquely designed.

In His Service,
Tammy
"Mom to the Broken - Hope to the Fatherless"

What it means to be His Mom...

I have a child with DMD (Duchanne's Muscular Distrophy)

I have a child from Foster Care

I have a child from Adoption 

I have a child back to Foster Care

I have a child with PTSD

I have a child with other severe emotinal needs

I have a child that has been saved from tourchure

I have a child who has seen Christ love though our lives

I have a child who knows he is safe our home

I have a child who is safe with each family member

I have a child who has found deep trust in my heart

I have a child who has found a daddy who has given him a new life

I have a child who is still haunted by his past

I have a child who is still miss understood by his peers

I have a child who continuously needs advocating for

I have a child who WILL OVERCOME!

I am a HIS mother who will show him HE IS WORTHY!!


In His Service,
Tammy
president and founder of +Foster Closet
"Mom to the Broken - Hope to the Fatherless"

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"

Forever Embrace

"The embrace of forever"

Once upon of time there was a stay at home mom, who wanted to increase the size of her typical American family. She asked her husband if this was the time and of course, he said Yes, because he not only loved children, he wanted to be a father again.  When realizing that a baby would not come from the wife,  they thought long and hard about adoption. Contemplating, who to ask, the when, the where...it happened. Life! God! and His Time!
Yes, this is our story.

As one ponders the thought of adoption,  please keep in mind the panoramic view of what is ahead and not just the perspective of what is front of your eyes. The view of a child's picture is their "forever portrait".  I thought I wanted a forever baby.  A baby just like the two God gave me from my belly, but there it was... Time.  Time to think. Time to pray. Time to ask all the questions. Time to want our child. Want for what was the best way to receive our child? All for a baby just like the one I think I should have? Or the one I know that was in my heart. The one who was meant to come just for our family?  For some, waiting is not a smoothest of journeys. It can be a sad, excruciating life-altering circumstance that leads you to many slow, fast, ups and downs, on a roller-coaster ride of events.

For us, waiting taught us exactly how many couples share the hardship of creating a new life through their own anatomies.  John and I lived through the agonizing, painful loss of a miscarriage one our twins I carried when pregnant with our oldest daughter. However, there are others who have felt this life altering the state of emotions consistently, over and over again.  We learned that with in vitro, miscarriages, and yes, failed adoptions, it can be hard to recover both emotionally and financially.  Our miscarriage, was true discouragement while waiting on God's perfect timing for our family. I am not saying that I fully comprehend the depth of other's losses, or the eminence void these beautiful families must be experiencing. All I know is that living by faith is meant to fill the void as we wait on His blessings upon our home. God is meant to share our pain. But more importantly, we must find the blessings that He has already given us to permeate as we wait. We must see the Joy in His goodness through the pain.

The greatest epiphany as a couple was the moment that ushered us into our journey. We saw with clarity that if we adopted a baby from the arms of whom are void of a forever soul, we would be taking a cradled heartbeat from the embrace of angels on earth. Who are we to fell led to be so greedy?  Who are we to not listen and purposefully fulfill, what we are called to do? We are to hand-over these sweet babies, to their true forever homes and to the forever arms of the parents who God intended them to cradle as mommy and daddy.

Waiting is the best time to discern through prayer, and God's Word, why we are called.  Waiting means you realize the path you must follow.  Who and not what will innately design you, as you metamorphose into the definition of a "mommy and daddy".  Following your Path to your Purpose and not your fulfillment of want. We realized that God's plan for our home of fostering, was not adoption, but for our family was to be home for children to find their forever. I am truly grateful for this journey knowing that His purpose was made through our obedience to His Will in our lives.

P.S. Although every baby our family has cradled in our home, in our arms, and our hearts has not stayed, they went forever to loving couples not able to have their biological children, yet were birthed into their family just the same. This is our journey's prophecy fulfilled. Our end to their beginning. 

UPDATE: And finally, in 2016 we were given our final two (sixty and sixty-one) a 7 year old girl and her 6 year old brother, who entered into our foster care for the last time. We were obedient to His Will in fulfilled of His Purpose of our family's foster journey. So, after 13 years, we found our "adoption story" and now we have our forever!

 #foreverembrace

In His Service,

TammyPresident and Founder of +Foster Closet

"Mom to the Broken - Hope to the Fatherless"

When they all call me Mom?

Updated: February 2021

Well let's just say it's been hard learning how to be a foster mom. Do you pretend that all 61 of them look like you? Do you pretend that they all came from your belly? Do you allow them to call you mom, even though they are still having visits with their "real" mom? Yes, by the way... I have even heard, "you aren't my real mom!"  And Yes, I am real, every mom is real, just different. Sometimes it is so hard to know how to be their mom. I want to use this venue to share what has given my life meaning. I also want to give you encounters of countless joys and sorrows that have brought me to my wisdom.

I'm here to share my "mommy" words I have learned over the last 13 plus years as a foster / adoptive mom. The most rewarding job I have to date, is being a mom. The greatest gift ever given, is having a child.  Whether from my belly or the ones who God has given to me through my front door, they are all gifts from heaven. The most challenging purpose on earth is showing what a loving mommy looks like to a hurting child. I hope my life's purpose can give others who are fostering or questioning their path to foster care, a hopeful meaning. 

Being put in the mist of our broken system, you realize that it is not about me being a mommy. Foster Care is about how to maneuver through the biggest system of adults, who have control over the state's children. Adults who think they know what it is like to be this child and to speak for the child. Adults who might have never met the child I love and care for in my home, each and everyday. Even better yet, what is the "best interest of the child" I am so purposefully guiding through my nurturing love. I know what is in their best interest, because I am invested in their every interest. Like an Independent Judge (in his courtroom) once said to the system workers... "who here can say they have helped these children with their homework or tucked them in at night?" I have your Honor!! I may not be the one who can make the legal decisions for this child, but I know what they need. 

More than once I have asked do does the system know what our children in foster are wishes or dreams about?  Do they know the secrets each child holds in their hearts?  I do, because I hold them each night, run to tuck them in when they cry out through a nightmare. I know when and how to discipline, with the proper correction.  I know how to advocate for their voices, because I hear their voices each and everyday.

I can testify, after blindly enduring this world of child welfare,  I came to the realization that I am a volunteer caregiver. Sometimes that word doesn't sound like mommy, mom or momma, but I am. Although I know what is best for my children, my voice is sometimes drowned by the endless murmuring of lawyers, workers, supervisors, therapist, GALs and others who have their 25-30 plus on their caseloads. I don't have caseloads, but I have diapers, temper-tantrums, night terrors, homework, dinner be prepared, endless doctor's and therapy visits. I am the one who rocks these precious children to sleep at night and help them learn how to share their prayers, wishes, hopes and dreams. 

I prove how love works by showing our kids pure love. Love that directly impacts their hurting hearts to heal their most inner souls. True love is about given them hope to their unknown futures. True love is never giving up on what might or might not become. True love is always present when all others leave. I want all children to know true love.

My past, my present and my future is to help those just like me. All the foster mommas, who are too many to count, who just want to continue this wonderful journey of foster care. We are truly called to be foster parents. And I am here to share, who calls me mom, is who I am to teach what a mom means and what she should be or become. Come follow my journey as I share my wisdom through support.

In His Service,
Tammy
president and founder of +Foster Closet
"Mom to the Broken - Hope to the Fatherless"