Last week, our second Baby D was reunited with his father after 8 months with our family This was a much different experience than our first Baby D for a number of reasons. We felt just as good about the care we provided and our service to his family, but the ties were not quite as tight and the sadness wasn’t as deep in his departure. We plan on taking a hiatus for several months, following 2 years of fostering infants nearly non-stop. (In fact, we took a 4 week old for a week after Baby D left to help another foster family. Oh man, was she precious!) This impending break has given us a chance to reflect on our experience and consider the significance of fostering.

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. – James the Apostle

On the surface, this imperative from James seems to say God cares about religiosity and evaluates us based on a commitment to the cause of the fatherless. Certainly, compassion for the hurting and helpless is a reflection of the Father’s heart. But the message of Christ and his gospel is one of dependence on God. If our experience the past two years has taught anything, it’s that the purpose of God in revealing his character to the world through the self-sacrifice of his people seems to accomplish the concurrent goal of completely humbling them.

By following God’s lead to make use of our parenting experience and blessing of space in our 5 bedroom house in comfy Poway, we’ve run into an emotional,spiritual, and practical Ninja Warrior course. Our patience has been tested countless times and in countless ways, with at-best, mixed results. The failures seem much more common than the successes. We’ve loved ‘our babies’ dearly, and strove to support their parents. But our frustration with their choices often boiled to the surface when the text came that baby’s dad was missing their visit for the second week in a row. Despite feeling justified, I was consistently reminded of my own mistakes and weaknesses and need for understanding and grace from those around me. So much for considering ourselves pure and undefiled.

We’ve all heard the phrase, “There are no atheists in a foxhole.” Fostering babies has served to help me realize “There are no saints during a mid-night feeding.” When baby wasn’t going to sleep or back to sleep according to plan, I often found myself exasperated, my ire directed at the helpless little child. Only to be reminded they are completely incapable of telling me what’s wrong and have no intention to discomfort me. But that didn’t stop me from taking offense. I found myself laying down after settling the baby, convicted and ashamed that I could have such horrible feelings toward such a precious being who deserved even more compassion because of the circumstances leading to their placement with us. What kind of religion was I practicing in these moments?

We eagerly embraced each of our three foster children. We really did want to love them, honor God, and witness to his love among lost and hurting souls. We wanted to be that kind of religious. We wanted to serve God and others. Ironically, our service to others has actually revealed our need for God’s forgiveness and help; and has thus been his service to us.

Another way fostering has exposed the meaning of ‘pure religion’ is by requiring us to rely on others and demonstrating the generosity of our community. Nearly every week during the past two years, Sara and I have sat down and looked at the upcoming events and talked through how we were going to manage (or survive!) them all. Work, appointments, games, practices, parties, bio-parent visits, and more, on top of housekeeping, yard work, meals, and bedtime. We are fortunate to live near our parents, and even more fortunate that they are healthy and love helping. They’ve played a major role enabling us to give ourselves to the foster babies. Even so, we routinely depend on friends for rides, childcare, and most importantly, loving our kids and taking time to invest in them. Additionally, we’ve benefited from a steady stream of gifts from clothing to baby furniture, and many other supplies. We stepped into fostering not really knowing all we were in for, but over and over God has shown us he knew all along by providing exactly what we need through the kindness of others.

Finally, this religion of caring for orphans and widows is ‘pure’ because it thrusts its participants into nearly every social issue of the day. What other cause engages poverty, drug addiction, domestic violence, family breakdown, single parenthood, homosexuality, government bureaucracy, immorality, crime, and injustice. While respect to others’ privacy prevents us from sharing many details, I can say without question we’ve been face to face with all of these. It’s not hard to imagine a scenario: a mom’s shoplifting leads to an arrest and home inspection, where evidence of drug use is apparent. Mom explains she has no money and is running from her baby’s father who beats her. She’s explains she’s trying to get off Meth but is a third generation addict with no family support nearby. The baby is taken by the police, run through the county placement system that takes a few weeks, then placed with a foster family who will conduct one-hour visits with ‘bio’ mom and dad twice a week until the court decides the baby can be reunited. After several months in their care, the family needs to leave the child for a weekend trip and the certified couple available are two gay men…

This imaginary case is nothing out of the ordinary from what we’ve seen in our two short years. Every child’s story has been jaw-droppingly incredible. And nothing surprises us any more. We are in the thick of almost every big ‘challenge’ facing our communities. But our attempt at difference-making has been primarily a faith-deepening slog. Each step has been a challenge for us to increase our dependence on God.

Shortly after I began to work full-time for Discovering Light, a mentor told me, “It’s not uncommon when a family begins full-time ministry, for them to retreat, feeling like their work is ‘how they serve.’”  He then asked how we were planning to minister to others outside of my job. Obviously, every family must interpret and answer that question on their own. At the time I wasn’t sure our answer, but when we began to foster it became clearer. I’m sure he wanted to encourage us not to become unaffected by the needs in our community. But the most important reason for my mentor’s question, whether he realized it or not, was that we needed some form of ‘pure and undefiled religion’ to keep our hearts humble, reliant on Christ, the center of our Faith. We are so grateful for the gift of fostering the last few years. Thankfully, God also leads out of the fray into quiet places, where we can reset and replenish. So we’re taking some time for mercy instead of sacrifice, since that’s also the kind of religion he asks us to pursue.