It's Official.....I am CRAZY!!!

A few weeks back I told the people in my Weight Watchers meeting that I was thinking of putting my membership on hold because we had taken on another Safe Families girl. I know that these placements can be extremely stressful for me....and with stress comes unwanted added poundage.

As I was walking out a woman came up to me and inquired about my kids. Mainly the Safe Families kids. I told her we have 6 children and now we have N. as well. I will always remember the look on her face and the words she said. The look was like "YOU ARE CRAZY"....and the words were...."You have SIX KIDS, and you take on MORE?" How I wish I could convey tone of voice...but it was an incredulous tone.

I walked back to my car and put my head down and started laughing and said outloud to myself.... "LORD...I'm CRAZY! I am truly CRAZY" It was the first time I ever thought I was crazy. Who in their right mind has six kids for one....but then volunteers to care for other peoples kids as well?

With the newfound revelation about myself came much introspection. I've always known I was weird, not normal, off the wall, different....all terms I've heard throughout my life to describe me. But crazy?

I had to ask myself....why do I have six kids? The simple answer is...obedience. I answered the call of God on my life. Before God drew me to Him I didn't want one child. NOT A ONE!! They were too bothersome....I couldn't relate to them...they would get in the way of MY dreams and MY goals.

I still remember the first time I encountered the idea of loving children....of wanting children. The preacher at this little country church I attended was speaking on Mother's Day and I remember him going through various scriptures and talking about his Mom and the role she had in his life...yada, yada, yada. I remember walking away extremely ANGRY. I HATE KIDS....there is no way. Is this guy serious? Me.....husband???(yup, even a husband was not on my agenda!!)....homemaker???....kids????

Here I am 20 plus years later. Married...homemaker... 6 kids!!(10 if you include the babies I lost....or 12 if you also include the Safe Families kids!:) And I'm loving my life. OH, it's busy...and definitely CRAZY. But for me it is where God is at. Jesus is in the HARD. He relates well to CRAZY!! I mean who leaves a perfectly comfortable spot in Heaven...to come down to this earth to die for mankind even though sinless? That's crazy isn't it? But that is the definition of love!! Laying down your life for someone...LOVE!!

So if the definition of crazy means following Jesus. Then YUP...I AM CRAZY!!! And I'll joyfully proclaim it!! To His glory and praise and honor!!! CRAZY!! AMEN!!!

Safe Families....What is it?

I was directed to this website tonight by our director.  The author is going through a series of interviews and informative articles on Safe Families for Children.   Please check her out!!!  She's explaining the ministry much better than I can!:)


World Next Door:  Safe Families

Safe Families....Our First Placement

Sunday morning Jason woke up and said there was an email from Maridel, director of Safe-Familes Twin Cities.  Three children ages 1, 2, and 3 needing placement for a little over a month with weekend breaks.  He asked me what I thought.  I began to pray.....seek my heart....look at my calendar.....but then... I had to not think of how BUSY I was because I'm always going to be busy.  I thought "If this were my daughter calling, what would I do?"  I would drop everything and take care of the kids.  After consulting with our kids, we decided to take the 2 & 3 year old.

Happy One Year Baby Carson!! 

Sunday evening we were excited and nervous all at the same time. Here we were about to pick up two more children!  We couldn't help but think of the timing of it all.  This exact Sunday one year prior we left our home...during Amazing Race...to go to the hospital to meet our surprise blessing!!!  We were now going....during Amazing Race... to meet TWO surprise blessings!!

We arrived home late, but had a time of introductions and snacks before bedtime. 

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are a blurr to me.  I do know they were the most difficult yet strangely life altering 4 days of my life.  The kids are coming from a loving, caring mom who wants to do the right thing for them, so they resisted our care of them.....to put it mildly.    The days were long, the nights longer for my teenage girls...who dealt with the night mares.  I knew the first day or two would be bad....but by Thursday Baby C was picking up on some of their "habits"...and I became fearful.

This morning I was ready to throw in the towel completely.  I was concerned for my kids.  Jason and I prayed this morning.....me through sobbing tears....I asked God for a glimmer....just a small little ray.... of hope.  Hope.....that it would get better.... that we would at least have ONE semi-good day.

I'm here to tell you God is faithful!!  He gave us an awesome day!!  Not without it's trials, but there was more joy and laughter and compliance today than the past 4 days combined!! The 2 yo girl loves to help in the kitchen, so we baked a pie together!!  She loved it!  And the 3 yo boy seemed to want to please today....more than ever.  We went on a nature walk in the afternoon where the girl loved finding new leaves, and acorns, and dried corn!!   Thank you Jesus!  Forgive us for our frailties!!  Thank-you for that ray of hope....and showing us that what we do in YOU is not in vain!! 

All week I've been thinking of the saying "Filled, to be poured out again...."  It's in the banner of a blog from a woman in our church that is raising 11 children....or is it 12?.....anyway.....many of them have fetal alcohol syndrome.  I kept thinking of her all week, and her saying on her blog.   I didn't quite "get it" when I first went to her blog....but now I get it....or at least starting to......I'm sure she'd laugh if she knew I was only caring for two....without FASD.    I can't imagine how often she is poured out daily....hourly....minutely...:)...only to be filled!!!(and the funny thing is all week I thought it was "Poured out, to be filled again...".... until just now when I went to her blog to get the URL for the link!!  OH WOW!!)

But the beauty in all of this....this "life altering" work we are doing.  It's not just that we are changing these kids.....although I hope they remember our love and care for them.....it's that these kids are changing us!!  I am so full of heart transforming work it aches.  I'm not sure I can even begin to tell you all we've learned about God, about ourselves, about the world, about women/kids in crisis, about leaning on Jesus every minute every hour....about remembering His promises and claiming them for ME personally....about crying out to God....about asking others to cry out to God for us.  WOW!!  I really wouldn't change all this....I wouldn't....and I'm ashamed to say I was wanting to give up....because I'M STUBBORN and I HATE TO QUIT......but I'm more ashamed that I didn't wait for God.....but He knew I needed to be humbled.....to get off my high horse thinking I have all the answers.  God is soooo good that way.

ENOUGH....I am so tired this makes no sense.  I have the mind to do ABSOLUTELY no editing.....just raw writing.....so I will......

POST PUBLISHED!!!(O.k....I edited a little!!)

Still On-Call!!

I think that's what you'd call us.  A (safe) family "on call".

Shortly after I wrote the last Safe Families update the Minneapolis area Safe Families went through a bit of restructuring.  So....knowing that it would take a bit for all that to be settled, we put Safe Families in the back of our minds....and moved on with our normal hectic but very fulfilling lives.

The past few days, however, there has been a flurry of phone calls our way.  Three actually.  The first one was for two toddlers.  That decision is mostly on the mom and where she would like her kids to be placed.  She has time.  The other one was for three older children....and it could be long term.  Jason and I prayed and knowing the full situation decided it wouldn't be the best for us to take them.

Today, we received another call.  This time from a mom sent unexpectedly to the hospital and needing care for her two sons.  This mom wasn't familiar with Safe Families and how it worked and was really scared to allow her kids to come to our home.  She feared her kids would be taken by the state and not knowing who we were she had many reservations.  I was asked to call her and talk to her.

This was my first Safe Families interaction, so I was a bit nervous.  I prayed before I made the phone call, and left it up to the Lord.  I was able to reassure her about our family and our home, and that we are here to care for her children and give them back, not to keep them.  After hearing about our home she was then scared (I believe jokingly) that they wouldn't want to come home.  I reassured her that they would definitely want to be home with their mom.  I told her that the kids would be occupied enough to not be worried about her.  They would have a little mini vacation while she was able to heal.  She said she believed she would say "yes."  But we haven't heard back.....so.....

Again...another "leaving in the Lord's hands" scenario......He knows what this mom needs and what the children need.  I've been praying for her all evening.  How scary...to be in the hospital and no one to care for your children. 

I suppose I'm writing tonight to get the word out on Safe Families.  This mom had never heard of the program.  She thought we would take her kids away.  But that is not the intent at all.  In fact it's the opposite.  We want to help her so she doesn't get to a place in her life where her children would need to be placed with the state.  We want to help her and her children.

It may take awhile for the word to get out in our area, but I hope it does.  I hope more families come forward to help.  Is there room in your home?  In your heart?  Maybe you aren't in our area.  Safe Families has offices across the US....check out their website to see if they are near you!!  God Bless!!

Safe Families: First Call & Star Trib Article

We got our first Safe Families call today.   Maridel, our local director, gave us the scenario and wondered if it would work out for us.  I called Jason who happened to be almost home.  We prayed and decided we could do it.  It was a short stay situation, which we are somewhat hoping for in the beginning to get our feet wet!  While talking to Maridel she alerted us to an article in the Star Tribune about Safe Families.  It's exciting to see Safe Families get some press!!  Read the article....good stuff!!

Anyway......our family was excited and anxiously awaiting a call with more details about pick-up times etc.   We were bummed, however, when Maridel called to say the mom had made other arrangements.  Oh well!!  We know that's just how it works sometimes!  We have to be flexible.  Apparently God has another child/children in mind.  That's just fine with us.  But we'll pray for this family and mom.(As a side note:  We are obligated to privacy in regards to the moms, kids, etc.  So most of the details I give will be vague, generalized.....and obviously no pictures....unless my resident photographer does a great job of editing!:)

Safe Families for Children Training for Minneapolis Area Sept 17th!!

EDIT: Obviously most of this information is out of date...being it's almost OCT.....and Bethany went through website restructuring...so none of those links work...but I'm leaving this post up because I think the prayer requests are still needed.  Thanks!!
I got an e-mail yesterday from our local Safe Families for Children director stating that they will host a training day on September 17th in Eden Prairie.  This will satisfy the requirement needed to become a Safe Family.  If you are interested and want to know more leave a comment and I'll get back to you....or contact the number on the website.

Other needs that were stated in the e-mail are:

1. Drivers: Could you volunteer to drive a child to his Safe Family host?
2. Notary: Would you be willing to meet us when papers need to be signed when a child goes into care?
3. Fund Development Committee: Our program is only available through the generous gifts of our donors. 
4. Marketing: Social networking, advertising - we could use your help to get the word out to family and friends.
5. Event planning: Do you like planning/coordinating events? we could really use your help. 
6. Can you host a child OR provide respite to a host family?  We need 100 more families to volunteer. 
7. Administrative/organizational skills with data base background.
8. Pray for all the families in crisis who call for help. We are only able to serve 1/5 of the calls due to our limited capacity.

Please join us in praying for these needs!!!:)

Our Story.....so far!!

UPDATE ON OUR STATUS:  They forgot to have us sign some paperwork when they were here last Friday, but we were able to get that completed this week.  We have been presented with a few cases that are coming up in the next couple of months.  Pray for our discernment as we strive to serve the Lord in His strength, yet knowing our feeble human strength can only take us so far.....it is a battle we face daily as we honor Him!

We're Approved!!! So why am I so nervous??

The final step in our approval process was this afternoon.  The director and her intern just drove away.  Seems like we "passed".

"When can you take kids?  I almost brought two with me today."  M.queried jokingly, yet seriously.

The need is so great, and we desire to help, and we know the Lord is with us, and is leading us.....yet....now I'm nervous.  Before it was all about filling out paperwork.  Going through training.  Passing the home assessment.  Each step along the way I asked God to stop the process if it was not what HE wanted for our family.  So now we are approved, and in waiting mode.

It all started with the first week at Camp Good News.  This particular week they had almost all homeless kids.  Two of the volunteer workers were not "regulars" and as I sat and talked with them I was informed of the inner city crisis in a new way.  A tornado had swept through North MPLS in May.  Some of the landlords decided to abandon the houses instead of fixing them.  Many families became homeless or continued to live in the condemned homes.  They didn't have anywhere to go.

The conversation with these ladies and the difficulties they were facing, seemed so foreign to me.   We have a support system of family and friends that would be here in a heartbeat to help us in our time of need.  Many people don't have that luxury.

Jump ahead a few weeks later.  I stumbled upon a need on our church community website.  It described an organization designed to help people in crisis with their kids. I hopped over to the website and watched the videos.  I called Jason and described the program as I saw it online.  He didn't hesitate and called the number I gave him.

At first M. said "NO."  We are too far away.  How would they get the kids to us?  Jason told her that wouldn't be a problem because he's all over the map....his office is in the cities, he's always on the go....to him the cities are not that far.  When she heard that, she was more on board with us.  We were signed up online for the training.

I took forever to do the training.  Mainly I wanted to NOT do it, but knew I had to.  It's so hard to get stuff like that done.  BUT...I'm thankful I did.  I learned sooo much!!!

We then went to see the founder, Dave Anderson, speak the following week.  So much of what he talked about had me nodding my head in agreement.  Safe Families is a ministry of hospitality.  A word lost in our culture to the Martha Stewart's and Better Homes and Gardens of this country.  I've always known that hospitality as it's used in the Bible actually means "love of strangers".  I never understood how that definition jived with what we Christians like to call "hospitality". (Oh...I have so much to SPEW FORTH about this....but I will hold off and maybe write separate blogposts!!!)

So....anyway....here we are today.  It's no longer a what if?  It's no longer...Are we going to pass?  We are now a SAFE FAMILY!!!  We are hoping to be a home where we can minister to parents in crisis....who need someone to help with their children, but have nowhere to turn.  Please pray with us and for us!!   We know the road will be difficult but we also know that we are called to serve.....God is with us!  Amen!!

I will now write down my fears and put them in my Faith box!!  God is FAITHful!!  He is always with us, and we don't have to fear....O.K....I will...but I'll give it to God...AGAIN!!:)