Someone recently asked me why I am so passionate about Adoption, Foster Care, and Temporary Safe Care?

 

I guess I have to go back to the beginning where my heart was stirred by The Lord around orphans and vulnerable children.  As a little girl, I was always one of those children who loved babies and other little children, so the idea of loving little ones wasn’t something foreign to me.  It was already a passion and one of my heart’s desires has been to be a mom and have lots of children, ever since I was very young.  I remember interrogating the whole foster thing after looking at an advert in the newspaper when Ash and Cuan were little (they are now 30 and 27), and we went to the meeting at the local children’s home, and my heart was so stirred but I couldn’t get my head around the whole foster thing where you would take a child for a weekend, or just for the holidays, or just for a short period.  It was a traumatic thought for me as I couldn’t imagine having to give up a child that I had invested love into.  Once we had had 3 biological children and our youngest, Mici, who was around 3 or 4 at the time, I again felt The Lord stirring me around orphans and reminding me that the church needs to become relevant again in the life of orphans.  We had a guest from Uganda at our church and he was telling me about the need for the orphans in his village and I must have said something like, “I would love to take an orphan…”  Somehow he got my address and in no time he wrote to us saying he was sending us two children.  It was ridiculously scary!  We had to write back and decline and explain that it doesn’t work that way.

 

God started to speak to me more intentionally around that and when He spoke to me about adopting it was very pertinent for me and I put my heart out there.  I spoke to my husband, children, and church leaders, but it wasn’t well-received by all.  I submitted it all to God, trusting Him to make it happen, as it’s not something one can do alone, and He did it.  At the time I had in mind that we would adopt one child, and we did.  It was the most beautiful, wonderful, supernatural, amazing, glorious experience, and one that was just so sweet and complete.  I wanted to recommend it to everyone, knowing that it was in God’s heart and that He wants to put the lonely in families.  I closed the door on it after that because one was enough for me.  The Lord stirred my husband’s heart the next time by asking, “Only one?”  I had heard that my son’s mom had potentially had another child, and I felt it was a girl, but that lead ended with Naomi’s Joy, the Non-Profit Organisation that I established.  The heart behind it was to help “more than one” by giving vulnerable babies an opportunity to have the best possible start in life that they could.  The most natural way to do that is in an individual, loving, home environment, with a loving mom who would love them to bits.  That started my journey of Temporary Safe care and I loved doing that.  

 

In the midst of that, God brought me my son’s brother, who had been the child rumoured of all those years before, and he was already four and a half years old.  We couldn’t say no and we adopted him as well.  Now we have five children and in between that we did three temporary safe care babies with the help of my daughter – who is amazing.  Since she married and left home I haven’t been able to take any more babies, as I wouldn’t be able to manage and give them what they need.  My boys are now 11 and 14 and I have grandchildren, who I help take care of, so I have limited capacity.

 

I have been trying to lead Naomi’s Joy well and into a place of fruitfulness but it has been difficult for me.  I find admin very challenging and my passion is to rather have a baby in my arms.  I have had to dig really deep to put time and energy into stuff that is not very exciting for me, even though the passion behind it is the same.

 

Into that mix was thrown a foster daughter who was an older teenager.  That has been a learning curve for sure.  It has been a very draining and traumatic experience that has highlighted the need for children and the injustices done to children, not only in our nation but the nations.  It has highlighted so much to me as a person and I have had to deal with a lot of stuff in my own heart.  

 

Having a heart for children is definitely something that I have.  Actioning that heart has been easy on some levels and incredibly difficult on others.  Having to find my rest in The Lord and having to be motivated from a deeper place has been the key to sustaining and moving forward – even though slowly – and He deserves all the Glory and the Honour for taking my life down this path and giving me a destiny.  I remember a song… I have a destiny I know I will fulfill, I have a destiny in that city on a hill, and it’s not an empty wish for I know I was born for such a time as this.