Foster Care Awareness Month Doesn’t End in May

May is National Foster Care Awareness month {as you probably already know}. While I love the awareness the month has with all the blog posts and social media likes, I also sort of dread what June 1st brings. A new month in which many will forget about the sweet children in foster care and the thought of what good can come from everyone stepping in to do something is just a memory from last month (May).

May it be that on June 1st, the awareness and advocating doesn’t end there. May it be that it isn’t something that DID happen last month, but something that IS happening this month, and the months to come. Every month is Foster Care Awareness month to our family because it deserves to be. So when June 1st rolls around, don’t forget about the thousand of faces that need you to pay attention and need your prayers. Don’t forget that caring for these kids now improves their chances of making it later on and also reduces the chances of them becoming another negative statistic. Maybe for you getting involved is not becoming foster parents or caregivers, but rallying around those who are caregivers to help support them or volunteering your time to an organization that helps children in care. All that to say, don’t disappear in June, because these kids will not.

Jason Johnson — one of our favorite foster care bloggers and advocates,  has some of the best books & his blog is a great read for anyone on the foster care journey. Some of his books include:

Everyone Can Do Something

Reframing Foster Care

All In Orphan Care

He recently wrote a Facebook post that was too good not to share here, so here are a few of my favorites from that post:

• It’s important to be aware that we are not merely talking about numbers and data and stats – but instead real kids, real moms and dads, real humans just like you and me.

• It’s important to be aware of the fact that data rarely changes hearts that are predisposed to find reasons why the data is not their problem.

• It’s important to be aware of the truths we celebrate in the gospel – that God saw our plight and went to extravagant lengths to walk with us in it in order to walk with us out of it.

• It’s important to be aware of the fact that the gospel has the capacity to soften the most indifferent hearts and motivate the most apathetic ones.

• It’s important to be aware that our celebration of Jesus is most profoundly recognized through our demonstration of Him.

• It’s important to be aware of the truth that we cannot raise our hands in worship of a God that steps towards us in our hard and broken and then use those same hands to push the hard and broken of others away.

• It’s important to be aware of the reality that while we may celebrate the same gospel we all don’t demonstrate that gospel in the same ways – we’re not all called to do the same thing, but we are all capable of doing something.

• It’s important to be aware of your tendencies to minimize your capacity to make a difference in someone else’s life – and to, out of fear, sometimes use that self-deprecation as a smokescreen to avoid what you know you are actually capable of (and perhaps called) to do.

• It’s important to be aware of God’s capacity to do what only God can do, and the freedom you have to not expect yourself to be anything for these kids or families that only Jesus intended Himself to be.

• It’s important to be aware of all the things you are not aware of – the myriad of unseen things God will do through you that you might not ever see in full on this side of eternity.

May is Foster Care Awareness Month, and perhaps for you the thing you need to be most aware of is the capacity of God to use you in ways you never thought possible – if you would simply be willing to say “yes”.

So, I encourage you to stop now, pray how you can help the foster system, and see where the Lord leads you. Simply be willing to say “yes” is a great first step.

 

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