A wonderful journey!

I thought it might be a good idea to share with others how the process of becoming a foster parent goes as we go through it ourselves.  We attempted to start this process many times starting many years ago.  One of the problems we kept running into was my being in the military.  One of the things required to become a foster parent is completion of PRIDE classes.  They are frequently scheduled on weekends, weeknights, or all weekdays.  It's considered a 30 hour class and there's a lot of useful information, but for the first few tries my wife and I were never able to complete the full 30 hours because something would always come up at work.  This time we were determined to let nothing stop us!  We signed up for a class through Youth For Christ (whom we are also going through for our licensing), that would run on Friday and Saturday for two weekends.  It wasn't long after we signed up to take these classes that I found out a lot of people were going to be going for training and I was much needed to be available to work every day while they were gone, which of course was while the classes would be going on!  So we prayed a lot, I talked a lot with the other people that were also staying behind, and praise God it all worked out and we were able to finally complete the training!  Along with the training we had to complete a very large packet which included a lot of information.  We basically had to tell our life stories, as well as a plan for how we planned to raise and discipline these children that would be coming into our lives.  My wife and I have no children of our own unless you count our two Shih-tzus so the answers we gave were pretty much based on how we've helped out with other people's kids and what we've learned from watching Supernanny!  Don't worry though, if you have no idea how you're going to do it, disciplining foster children is explained very well during the classes.  Plus you have to complete 12 additional hours of training each year to remain licensed.  In addition to this type of training you have to complete a first aid/cpr/hiv training.  The really good thing is that all of this training is given to you for free.  All we have left to do in order to receive our license is get fingerprinted for a background check, complete the first aid/cpr/hiv training, get TB tests, and get our homestudy done.  A homestudy involves a social worker coming to your home, interviewing you, and ensuring that your home is ready with all you need for the children.  There is a pretty long list of what you need, but they do provide the list for you so you can be ready!

Some people I work with have strange senses of humor, some are very blunt, and some are just really rude.  I mention this because a lot of questions have come my way from people I work with and sometimes I'm just not sure how to take it.  The first one is "don't you make a lot of money taking in foster kids?"  Anybody that does foster care can tell you it's not the money that drives you to take on foster care.  From what I understand it's only about three or four hundred dollars a month per kid depending on their needs.  That's probably not enough to cover the increase in power, water, and food bills, not to mention clothing, bedding, school supplies, and personal hygiene items that they will need.  The reason we want to take care of children is because we feel God has given us a nice home with room for children and hearts to love these children and take care of them.  Another question really hurt my heart to hear: "what if you get a child of a different race that is handicapped?"  (this was phrased much differently but I didn't even want to type how it was originally said.)  First and foremost I don't care what race of child God wants in our home and He's not going to give us anything we can't handle.  Also we've been told that when you are offered children you are told what they know about them and given a choice.  You will never be coerced into anything you're not ready for and saying no will not keep them from calling you later to ask about taking other children. 

We're both really excited about this journey we're on and looking forward to all that's to come.  I hope to share as much as possible here with anyone looking for information about foster care.  Of course we can't share names of any children we take in, but we will share stories of experiences good and bad in hopes that it may help or encourage others either going down this road as well or even just considering it.