An Open Chair at Our Table

It’s been a while since we posted regularly on here, but we wanted to tell you guys about some big changes. Both of our families started foster care this summer! We wanted to update you with where our families are in the process so you can be praying for us as we begin this journey.

Let’s start by explaining why we feel called to foster care. We’ve always had a heart for serving, and what better way to love your neighbor than to provide a safe home for a child in need? We both feel we have a safe & loving home to offer (though maybe a little crazy sometimes!) and more room in our hearts and homes, so we wanted to get involved.

Reasons We Are Fostering

• To care for orphans (though not all foster children are orphans) (James 1:27)
• To love our neighbors (Mark 12:31)
• Because we love kids (Ps 127:3)
• To keep families together – We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It’s easy to say, “It’s not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.” Then there are those who see the need and respond. (Fred Rogers)
• To share the gospel with children and their parents (Matt 28:16-20)
• As a way to worship the Lord (1 Sam 12:24)
• We feel called to open our homes to children in need (1 Peter 4:8-9)
• To inspire others to get involved (Prov 27:17)
• To model these things for our children (Prov. 22:6)

Reasons We Aren’t Fostering

• To grow our families – while we would both be open to adoption, reunification is always the first goal of foster care “Foster care is less about getting a child for your family and more about giving your family for a child.” (Jason Johnson)
• To be the “savior” (John 8:7) 
• For the money – this is a common misconception, you’re really just reimbursed enough to cover the needs of the child in your care (Matt 6:24)
• Because it’s easy (2 Cor 12:9)  We know this will be difficult, but those are the times the Lord grows us the most

Ways You Can Pray

For the Kieklaks – We are working though a local foster care agency called Youth and Family Services. We have completed our home study, alllllll the paperwork, the required volunteer hours, and about 3/4 of the training. We have some online training and an in-person meeting scheduled later this month. Please pray that this last leg of the process goes smoothly for us. Also pray for our family as we prepare our hearts to take in children in the next couple months. We’re hoping to have 1 or 2 children under 1 year placed in our home by the end of 2018.

For the Kramps – We have completed our in-person training, alllllll the paperwork, had our physicals and background checks, and begun our online training. We still need 3-4 home studies and then we’ll be approved. The Louisville social workers are way overworked and understaffed currently, so we were told “We have 3 months to initiate your first home study, but expect it to take 9.”  So, we will likely be approved by Spring of 2019, but since we are currently pregnant we cannot be placed with a child until our youngest is 6 months old. August of 2019 is when we should be ready to go! Please pray for us to work diligently on our online training, for our biological children as we prepare them, and for God to continue to prepare all of our hearts for whatever is to come. The Kentucky law only allows for 5 children in a foster home total, so we will only be allowed to take 1 child in at a time. But if there’s an emergency sibling group and they were willing to bend the rules, so would we! We are willing to take in children born after 2016.

So, it looks like we continue to live the same lives as each other even states apart. Church interns together, roommates, engaged at the same time, married and in each other’s weddings, seminary husbands, life in Louisville, twin babies, and now foster care! Perhaps the funniest part about it this time is that neither of us knew the other family had started the process, and we actually started the exact same month! We are so thankful to be going through this at the same time as each other though. We have already loved sharing resources and training material, and can’t wait to lean on each other even more when we have actual placements.