[jeremiahforchrist]

I would like to see the church get more involved in the foster care system. It seems like there are not enough avenues for the body of christ to get involved in the lives of alot of the older kids who are harder to adopt out and are basically stuck in the current foster care system. There are two options on each end of the spectrum and nothing in between open to people who want to be involved in the lives of these kids.

1- Get married and adopt/foster some kids. Not an option for single people. Unfortunately, there's also not enough people willing to do this who are married.

2-Make a career out of working in a foster
care facility. Lacks the warmth of a home environment. Sometimes likened to a prison (though they have come a long way since the turn of the previous century)

There is the third option of being a mentor, but this doesn't really provide a substitute for the parent/child relationship (please correct me if I'm wrong) I think when we live life next to someone is when we build the deep relationships neccesary for real healing and redeption to begin. A once a week game of catch for an hour or two is good, but if you want to really want to show love to them, a more immersed relationship is needed. From talking to home directors, it doesn't seem like the mentors keep at it very long either.

When I go to church, the kids there are loved, and they know they are loved. I see them on sunday morning, on sunday night, an wednesday night and usually anouther day along the week. If the church could be this immersed in the daily life of an average foster care facility, I think we'd see much fruit. Also, maybe if there was a midsized FCF, halfway between a real home and a FCF, or kind of like a house church.

Anouther good thing could be if we could open the doors of our churches and hold an outreach for these kids, a chance for for all diferent personalities in our church to interact with all the different personalities of kids. This way each kid could be loved uniquely and personally. This could be an ongoing thing like once a week, along with personal visitations to the FCF by members of the church. Kind of like a partnership.

Sorry if I got off subject, but these ideas have been swimming around in my mind for a while. I'd appreciate any feedback any of you might have.