Last week, my husband and I took a big step in our family life: we attended our first class for people interested in fostering and adoption.
Where God will take us on this journey, only he knows. But God set me on this path several years ago, when I worked at Child, Youth and Family (CYF) as a writer. My eyes were opened to the huge need we have, right here in New Zealand, for people to open up their homes for the children who desperately need them.
Most Kiwis could not imagine the abuse and neglect that children who come into care have endured. I met a beautiful little girl who came to a party we ran, she was dressed in angel wings and her face painted into a butterfly - she could have been any other four-year-old princess. But she had been beaten so badly she had suffered brain damage.
On the other hand, I was hugely blessed to work with foster parents. Over and over again they told me that it was their faith that motivated them to open up their home to a child. These people do not receive acclaim, but they are quietly flavouring the world with God’s love. What a beautiful example of God’s Kingdom, here and now.
I felt God say to me, ‘Now that you know, you have to take responsibility to act’.For me, caring for the foster child or the orphan is not so much an individual calling, as a mandate in scripture. One of God’s favourite descriptions for himself is as a ‘father to the fatherless’. The purest form of faith is to ‘look after orphans and widows in their distress,’ says James 1:27.
In this issue, we interview Daryl Brougham, a remarkable person who survived abuse both from his parents and, tragically, from his foster carers. He has written about his experiences in order to be a voice for other foster children in New Zealand. Now that we know, what will we do?
‘A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove … but the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child.’ Forest E. Witcraft
Ingrid Barratt
Luke 17:2 Common English Bible
‘It would be better for them to be thrown into a lake with a large stone hung around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to trip and fall into sin.’
Ruka 17:2
‘He nui te pai ki a ia ki te whakatārewatia ki tōna kakī te kōhatu mira kāihe, kia makā hoki ia ki te moana, ā, kia kaua e taka i a ia ki te hē tētahi ēnei mea nohinohi.