Foster Care Awareness Month
As many of you may know, May is Foster Care Awareness Month. If you had told me three years ago that I would be working in foster care everyday I wouldn’t have believed you. But God sure is good at making His plans prevail even through our own doubts.
How do I, without names, ages, faces, or stories share about these phenomenal kids and how foster care has changed my life? While I have not had kids uniquely assigned to my individual care, I have for the last almost 2 years spent everyday with fostered youth. This has been both in my life here in Honduras as well as in the United States. You may know that my parents have opened their home to multiple foster children for the last 15 months. They are my super heros and the most impactful role models as they live out the same ministry as me in a different part of the world. So while I’m saying so, HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY, MOMMA!
I tossed around a few ideas about how to write this newsletter about the complicated topic of foster care. I wrestled with the notion of respect for these children and their stories because their stories are not mine to tell. I wanted to write something that I would be proud to have them read while at the same time expressing how truly challenging and exhausting this work can be. I never experienced trauma until I entered this work, and did not know how vast and varied trauma can be. So with all this in mind, I decided to write them a letter that I hope they will each read someday.
Even as I sat down to write it, I couldn’t come up with who to address it to; to my world changers, my door knockers, you wild children, my Oreo eaters…
So to them, whom I could never encompass in a single word or phrase.
I had no idea that I was going to be your neighbor when I moved here. Originally I was only working at the school and was supposed to live by the rest of the teachers on the hill. Our relationship started as simply being a part of your daily life, but as you know that really only involved things like me getting beat in tag and hide and seek, reading books, going on bike rides and taking beach trips. I got to do all the fun things with you! BUT God opened up the doors for me to get to work with you on a spiritual level through Monday night devos, Wednesday night Bible Club and teaching Bible in your classes at school.
It feels like overnight you captured a special place in my heart. I care about you sooo much. LOL, you don’t know this but I wake up in the middle of the night and think about you all the time. I think about if you were able to get calmed down and not let the sun go down on your anger, I think about if you realize who carried you home after you fell asleep watching a show on my couch, I think about if you know how much I love you, I even think about things like if you finished your homework. I love to bring you to God in prayer. I think it is a privilege that I know the specifics of your heart. I love that you feel comfortable enough to come to my house to share exciting news and even sometimes what is making you upset. I pray that you see all the people in your life who love you so greatly for the person that God made you to be.
One last thing, will you please dare to believe that God is for you? Despite how broken things may have been, He is making all things new. He loves you with this unconditional, unchanging, always and forever kind of love that is so much greater than we can even imagine. We have talked about this verse several times, store it away in your heart. “But God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” Romans 5:8.
Getting to be a part of your life is my biggest joy. I love you.
Love,
Chase Gray
