God has placed something on our hearts.
It started on my first day working on my own as an ER tech. I wasn't prepared for the situation I was about to encounter. I turned the corner to see a commotion going on around room 20. I peeked my head in as saw a lady sitting in the corner, an overwhelmed look on her face. In the arms of one of our night nurses was little boy. He was maybe 15 months old. He was only wearing a diaper and cover in what looked like exema, chicken pocks, hives and poison ivy combined (It turned out to be cat scratch decease that has gone untreated for months) At first I though he was having some bizzar allergic reaction, then I noticed his hair, brittle and matted, it was blonde and looked filthy.
I was suddenly so angry and the lady sitting in the corner. How could she let it get that bad. How could she just sit there while her son was obviously in pain.
I asked what was going on and if she was his mother, to my relief she said "no, I am a foster parent, I got a call at 2am, him and his siblings showed up an hour later, I didn't realize it was this bad and brought in right in" I felt instantly relieved.
He itched from head to toe, you could tell he was in so much pain. We had to tape socks around his hands so he wouldn't break open more of his skin, they didn't help that much. He itched so bad for so long he had scabs covering his body where he has tore his skin open from itching so much.
He didn't want to be held, he didn't want to be comforted, fear filled his eye every time someone entered his room.
I knew this was not normal behavior. I asked his foster mom what condition they found him in, this is what she said, "He was found on the floor with rats, cockroaches, cats, even cat poop. His older siblings talked about getting beat every night before bed, not eating for days, and being left alone in the house for hours on end" She went on and on and my heart broke for the little boy on the bed. She said flat out she felt like she couldn't do it, it was to much to have her own kids, him and his siblings, but there was nowhere else for him to go.
I stayed with hime for 6 hours constantly rubbing anti itch cream all over his body, trying to give him some sort of relief.
I wanted to do more, I wanted to take him home, care for him and show him God's abundant love.
Thats when I really started researching how to become a foster parent. I found out that Midland and Odessa are incredibly short on foster families, to the point where they are having send the children all they way to Dallas!
But thats it, all I did was read... I never did anything about it. I found reasons, selfish reasons why we shouldn't do it.
God knows me, he tugged at my heart strings for 10 months, child after child came into the ER, sometime brought my their parents and others by foster families. Most of them had major physical and physiological damage.
I finally had enough. After talking it over with Stephen and praying about it for 10 months we finally contacted a foster/adoption agency.
It has been a long process. We are finally only a home study away from being certified foster parents!
We still have concerns, it's not an easy road, but we know that this is what God wants, he won't give us anything we can't handle. We may not say yes right away, we get a call and have 30 min to make a decision, I know God will guid us and prepare us for whatever lyes ahead.
Pray for strength and guidance as we do our best to answer this call.
