“Someday we want to adopt.” This statement surfaced while we were dating in college, but honestly, we knew nothing about such a thing, seriously NOTHING!  It was just something cool & sexy to say.  It was our, “hey we are college kids and one day we will save the world” statement. Extremely naive.  Yet, that is where our foster care journey began. 

A few years later we found ourselves married and embracing the grown up life.  Staci was a Special Education Teacher in a lower income, predominantly Hispanic school and Keith was working as an Investigator for Child Protective Services.  As a couple, we were being immersed in the brokenness of abuse and neglect.  The reality of our college statement began to sink in.  We were starting to grasp how parental choices wreak havoc on children’s lives and it began to wake us up. 

Our experiences would continue both professionally and personally over the next several years as we were continually exposed to children and families in crisis, all of which, changed the cool, sexy, save the world lingo into hard, messy, real life experiences. 

These ‘real life experiences’ helped evolve the statement from “someday we want to adopt” into our current question of, why don’t we become foster parents and give children a safe home for a season in their lives?

We now find ourselves back where we began, two hearts determined to let their lives count, but this time we understand what we are saying. We have counted the cost, we have seen the children’s faces, we’ve heard their stories, we have been challenged by the Gospel and instead of idealistically talking about it, we are ready to live it out. 

Not for us, but for the children who need someone-ANYONE-to stand in the gap for them. It is no longer sexy, but real life.  And, this time it feels so right.