Hi, my husband is active duty military. Our story is very long and involved, but I will keep it short. We met and fell in love with a teenage girl that was in state care. We went with a private agency to get her in our home. They pushed us through all the training classes and paperwork. The delay was with the fingerprints. In the state of WA if you have lived here less than 3 years you have to have a federal background check. At the time this girl was put in our home we were offered a baby. Now keep in mind we were and still are not licensed. We said yes to the baby and I spoke with his foster mom and set up that we were suppose to have him for a Sat. We got word that Thurs. that the grandma had come forward and wanted him, no big deal we knew that was always a possiblity. There is a law in WA that allows parents in the process of completing their license to have legally free children placed in their home, the catch is you don't get any of the subsidy for these kids. That was ok with us b/c we were not doing this for the money. Our story ends with the placement of the teen did not work, she has no clue on how to be part of a family. We had started all of this in June of this year. It is now Oct and the state has lost our licensing packet twice, then after all that was resubmitted they lost my husband's finger print card. We are done!!! We have taken this as a sign that it is not the right time for us to be doing foster care.
In regards to the military, every agency we spoke with loves military families b/c of our insurance. It was never a problem or issue with any of them. We did not use Bethany Christian, but I HIGHLY recommend them. If it comes down to you are in the middle of a placement and your husband gets orders to leave here, you can always request an extension. There are ways to get around things. Good luck to you and your family!! By the way, we were offered three children under the age of 2 in a couple month period. There are young ones out there. Most agencies here also work very closely with the state of OR. They are known for not letting kids sit in care too long so they have a large number of younger kids. Check out the website
www.nwae.org It has a photolisting that they keep pretty current