Featured in our June edition of The Ottawa Advocate

 

THE RIGHT THING.

 

 

“Please, Mom. Please! Don’t do the right thing.” 

My son is nearly hysterical. 

 

“Just this time. Don’t do the right thing! You don’t always have to do the good thing every time!” 

 

   He coughs out these words between red-faced cries. T-shirt wet with tears, he begs, hoping if he screams loud enough, long enough, I might send our newest house guests packing. This child whom I have loved longer than any other is asking that, this time, I pick the wrong path. Wiping the wet from his cheeks, I wish that I could.  

 

   “Baby, hey. Calm down. Take a breath.” He can’t. I’ve lost him. He has committed to the emotional avalanche that’s been building for the past few weeks. 

 

   “I know this is hard. This is so hard for all of us, baby. Mama sees how much you are struggling, and I know you want them to go.”   

 

And we have to do the right thing. Even when it’s so hard.                                                           – Ashley Wirgau

   He hates them and has since they walked in the doorThis eldest child never wanted kids in the house older than himselfSo, we said we wouldn’t do that…until we did. We said we wouldn’t do a lot of things…until we did. That’s how foster care goes. You make a lot of promises that are really difficult to keep.  
  Three years ago, we promised ourselves we would only foster the little ones. We promised we would always maintain the birth order. We promised we wouldn’t take on kids with difficult medical diagnosis or special needs or tricky behaviors.  

How naïve. How short-sighted of us to assume that only certain children of certain ages of certain behaviors or medical conditions (a.k.a. no behaviors and no medical conditions) were deserving of our time. Who exactly did we think we were going to help? A wholly nurtured baby, orphaned in the woods, whose entire family had tragically died on some picnic-gone-wrong? What kind of Disney nonsense did we imagine foster care to be?  

 

  Then our first placement arrived, and while his story was far from an animated happily ever after, it was relatively “easy.” He was instantly loved and welcomed. Our children never came to us in tears, upset over the space this child occupied. No one laid screaming in their beds, demanding we shove him out the door. We didn’t have to try to accept his presence in our lives; it was automatic. 

 

   But now, here we sit, on our son’s bottom bunk, in the wakof all our broken promises. We have taken on a placement riddled with “we’ll nevers” and our biological children are loudly sounding the alarm.  

 

   “But you have to consider the effects on your own children, people say. Believe me when I tell you that I am. Every day, my husband and I weigh the risk versus reward, contemplating which choices best serve not only our family but the world that exists outside of us. Then, we make these giant decisions for our children (yes, occasionally without their consent) because they do not fully understand what it means for another child to live without the support and safety they have always known.

But we can teach themWe can show them firsthand that their reality is not the only reality, and sometimes this means breaking the promises we made when we didn’t know any better. 

 
  But we can teach themWe can show them firsthand that their reality is not the only reality, and sometimes this means breaking the promises we made when we didn’t know any better. 

 

   This time, it seems we have broken nearly every promise in order to keep the one most essential – to do the right thing, to choose love above all else, even when it’s so very hard. I write this from a hospital room beside a child who is not my own while my husband drives the other five north for a holiday weekend. Doing the right thing doesn’t always feel good. Sometimes it tastes like loneliness, flat Pepsi and hand sanitizer. But that doesn’t make it any less necessary.   

 

   Tonight, I sit at my foster son’s bedside, a child we chose to welcome even though we didn’t really want to, knowing his presence would make all of our lives harder for a time. This child we have known for little more than a month is a lot to handle and can be difficult to love. He does not know our ways or our hearts, nor we his – not yet.  

 

   But slowly, hour by hour, I will stand by this choice. I will watch him sleep as the IV drips and nurses tap keyboards behind a rainbow-colored curtain. Together, we will gaze out the wall of windows, waiting for a helicopter to land on the roof across the street. We will make Play-doh pizzas and nibble cold French fries drowning in ketchup. Curled up on a too-stiff armchair, we will watch movies that paint orphans as cherubs who forget dead parents to fall in love with new families. No trauma histories or hospital beds. No screams in the night for Mommies and Daddies out of reach.  

 

   This is no fairy tale.  

 

 

   “I know you want them to go. I know you want that more than anything else right now, baby boy, but you are right. That is not the right choice. And we have to do the right thing. Even when it’s so hard.” 

 

   Hearing this final verdict, the hope still lingering inside my firstborn child evaporates. He closes his eyes and dives headfirst into cold wet anger, knowing this would be my answer. As he begged me to send away a child who a month ago was nothing more than a name, I calmly, quietly, whispered a call to love. 

 

But my goal is to raise children who are resolute in their ability to choose what is right, even when they don’t really want to.

   Behind each name is a wanting child. And to pretend that a child with a history that is inflicted upon them is worth less than the one crying in my arms makes no sense to me anymore. They are all worthy. Yes, it will be hard. It already is. But my goal is to raise children who are resolute in their ability to choose what is right, even when they don’t really want to.

 

   When we started down this road, we took all the safety precautions, setting up guard rails and bright orange cones to keep our family protected. We wanted to do the right thing as long as our path stayed smooth and straight, as long as it didn’t cost us too much. But there are ever so few perfectly nurtured babies abandoned in the woods these days, and so very many imperfect children sitting right in front of our faces, waiting for someone to do something.  

 

   We will do something. We will jump the guard rail and break those promises of “staying safe” in the hopes of providing actual safety for children who desperately need it. I want my kids to know that the right thing, more often than not, requires sacrifice. I want them to see us intentionally, knowingly stepping into the hard things because they are also the right things. How can I teach my children these lessons if I am not brave enough to live them? 

 

   My son’s tears will dry. And should they spill over again, which they are certain to do, my husband and I will dry them once more. We will show him this can be done not just for him, but for any child who enters our home because love is not finite. Over and over, we will walk straight into the hurt and the hard, letting the tears fall, growing our resolve each time that we choose to do good even when it doesn’t feel good.     

____

By: Ashley Wirgau, Michigan Fosters

 

Featured in our April edition of The Ottawa Advocate

 

Braving the Hard Road.

 

 

Foster families rarely follow a straight path. There are blind corners and speed bumps, twists and tangles. Half the time the headlights are out and radio is blaringOddly, the oncoming traffic seems not to be trying to avoid collisionbut at times, forcefully crashAnd once the destination has been reached, or at least the destination for the day, the front tire is flat, battery has gone dead, and an extra passenger (or two or three) have appeared in the backseat.

Enter an afternoon of respite or a frozen pizza or 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Then, it’s back on the road at the crack of dawn. This is the path a foster parent chooses. This is the path Ross and Krista Brower have become accustomed to.

“The need is bigger than we could have imagined and we can’t look away.”                                                             – Krista Brower

    Having traveled this road for six years now, the Browers have traversed their fair share of hope and heartache and healing. “We knew it would be hard,” Krista commented, “but we could not imagine how hard it could be.” 
“We knew it would be hard,” Krista commented, “but we could not imagine how hard it could be.” 
    Licensed through Ottawa County DHHS, Ross and Krista have welcomed a total of ten placements over the years, one of whom they have adopted, but all of whom take up space in their hearts. Loving these children so fiercely has helped shape their biological kiddos, as well. Krista commented that this is one of foster care’s largest blessings. “When we started foster care, we were worried about the impact it would have on our kids, and instead, I could not be more grateful for the way it has grown each one of them. It has helped us focus on what is truly important.” 

   Throughout their journey, Ross and Krista have been fortunate enough to witness successful reunification and have worked to build sustainable relationships with their foster children’s parents. The Browers have seen the amazing results that develop when foster parents and parents in care truly come together.

   Krista says their intentional efforts to connect with one of their foster children’s parents in particular “started us on a really good path with [them]. We worked together for the eight months we had our foster daughter, and we felt so good about her returning when reunification happened. We are still in touch and love to hear about how well they are doing. It just felt like the whole experience was exactly how foster care is supposed to work,” Krista explained.

  Like so many foster parents, though, the Browers have also been swallowed by conflict and sadness over foster children they knew had to move on, children who would find greater success with a different family. Another child, one they cared for over a significant period of time, has been maybe the hardest lesson they’ve encountered along this road.

  “We loved our foster daughter for the two years that we had her. However, it became clear as time went on, that she was not meant to be in our family forever,” Krista said. For foster parents, these intersections of life come with no roadmap to reveal what futures lie ahead. There are midnights laden with questions, prayers for clarity or closure, and guilt that threatens to hold foster families in its grip indefinitely.

“that was still the hardest decision we have ever made,”

 
   “There were so many signs that it wasn’t right, but that was still the hardest decision we have ever made,” she continued. “We felt like terrible people and had an incredible amount of guilt. We know it was the right decision, but we struggled (and still do) with anxiety and depression because of that situation.” This is the reality of so many families who foster, and it is through sharing these struggles with one another that families can start to heal. The Browers have been courageous enough to open up about their journey, and through both counseling and confiding in others who have experienced similar grief, they are working through the recurrent pain. They understand the hurt that comes is a byproduct of all the love they have cultivated.

  Recently, this family has boldly stepped in to yet another unknown. After having put their license on hold after a difficult loss, the Browers were contacted to care for the sibling group of their adopted daughter. Again, the Browers made the hard choice and welcomed these small children, taking their household from five kiddos to eight overnight. This is no simple feat and the overwhelm that follows such a decision can be suffocating at times. However, the family is resolute and walks in to the giant task at hand day by day. “We tell ourselves, “We can do this today. Then, tonight, we will say, ‘We can do it tomorrow,’ but we could not do any of it without our foster community wrapping around us like they have.”

   After all the Browers have endured, it would be easy to understand if they chose to call it quits, to take a straighter path for a while or forever. Thankfully, for the children in their home and the ones who’ve come before, the Browers do not scare easily. They are firmly committed to families in care. “The need is bigger than we could have ever imagined, and we can’t look away,” Krista said.

““The need is bigger than we could have ever imagined, and we can’t look away,” Krista said.”

  And so, the Browers continue to face the blind corners and charge on ahead, certain in their call to keep moving forward, grateful for the community that gives them the strength to keep their wheels in motion yet another day. They choose to stay the path despite the bumps and bruises they know will come. “We can sacrifice our broken hearts if it means these children can experience love and safety,” Krista added, a conclusion with the power to reframe the world of foster care if only more people were as brave as the Browers.

____

By: Ashley Wirgau, Michigan Fosters

 

 

JUST CALL US NANA & PAPA

THE PARROTTS

Few people do foster care like Jan and Keith Parrott. The couple has ridden this rollercoaster for 50 years now, and though they retired from fostering last fall, they’ve already reconsidered and plan to reopen their home to provide respite for other foster families entrenched in this work.

The Parrott’s understand the great need for respite, especially for children like the ones they have focused their energy on over the years. Jan and Keith (known as Nana and Papa to all their bonus kiddos) have spent the majority of their lives fostering teens.

 

 

 

“When they come here, we tell them, ‘We do as family does, and you are family while you are here. You probably will be forever.'”

For the past 15 years, they’ve narrowed their scope to teenage boys within the juvenile court system. The Parrotts have stepped in, time and time again, to welcome the kiddos no one else would take, children who couldn’t find their footing in other foster homes. Without end, for the past five decades, the Parrotts have opened their door and their ever-expanding hearts to the kids who had nowhere else to go. “If they needed a place, we took them.”

They’ve cared for so many children, in fact, they can’t even tell you how many. “God’s going to let me know when I get to heaven,” Jan says. Their first foster child arrived not long after the birth of the oldest of their three biological children. “We had just gotten out of college and joined a church. A Bethany worker stood up and said there was a five-year-old boy who needed a home. We had a 10-month-old at the time, so we waited until everybody left to see if anyone had stepped up.” No one had, so the Parrotts boldly answered, “we will,” just like they would for the next fifty years.  

While they are currently licensed with Bethany Christian Services, they have fostered through four different agencies throughout their tenure and take in children from Kent, Berrien and Ottawa counties, always going where the need has led. “We’ve only ever asked for two kids in particular. Most of them just show up – emergency placements that are taken out in the middle of the night, scared to death. I just want to love on them.” And that’s exactly what the Parrotts do, pour love upon these tough but tender teenagers, children who’ve been through so much.

“The minute they come in the door, they are in my heart – and they are in my heart forever,”

“The minute they come in the door, they are in my heart – and they are in my heart forever,” Jan says. “We have lots of heart to hearts. For the boys, I do their haircuts. ‘Nana, I need another haircut,’ they’ll say a week after their last one, and that’s the time I know they want to talk. I’m there to listen, and they need that time with me. You have to hear their stories. They’re not who they think they are.”

“When they come here, we tell them, ‘We do as family does, and you are family while you are here. You probably will be forever.’ We eat our meals together. We hold hands and pray. We take them out and do fun things, teachable things. We are always teaching.” These life lessons extend far beyond the four walls of the Parrott house, Jan explains. “’If we are going on a trip, you are going with us,’ we tell them, and they do. If they can’t go, we don’t go.”

In 2017, the family even drove three foster boys to Alaska to spend the entire summer with them, a trip that was wrought with success as well as strife. On their journey west, in the middle of the Dakota Badlands, one of the boys ran away, leaving the family stranded, searching and waiting. “I couldn’t feel God anywhere,” Jan said when recounting the event. Their foster son eventually returned, but the Parrotts were two days behind schedule, landing in a different town than they intended when Sunday came, Father’s Day. They found a local church as they did every Sunday on their travels. “There was a guest speaker and most of the congregation was at a conference, so it was really just us. The sermon was on fathers and mothers and foster care. God had gone ahead of us. He was waiting there, and we were all in tears.”

 

“I loved what I did, and I wouldn’t even take back the bad moments. I trust God that much.”

The Parrott’s decision to allow their faith to guide them has kept them on course throughout victory and defeat. “I loved what I did, and I wouldn’t even take back the bad moments. I trust God that much,” Jan says. Commitment to their calling is at the very center of everything the Parrotts do, and it is clear that the children who become part of their home and their hearts benefit so much from the couple’s steadfast dedication.

And when it’s time for the kids to go, many of them transitioning to Lakeshore Lifeworks or reconnecting with family, Jan makes a photo album and homemade quilt for each child to remember their time in the Parrott home, an offering of love that is seldom received with dry eyes. These good-byes are difficult for everybody.

“When I talk to people about foster care who say they could never foster, I ask, ‘Why do you think you can’t?’ The answer is always the same – ‘because I can’t give them up.’ Oh yes, you can. They are still in your heart. My heart hurts when they leave, but there is always room for more. You’re going to feel the pain, but it’s okay because your heart fills right back up again. You’re going to be even better because that love just grows.”

The choices the Parrotts make are not simple ones, and they have faced struggles over the years given the level of trauma their foster kids have experienced. They are no stranger to holes in drywall or doors ripped from hinges, and there have been a fair number of emotional wounds, as well. But for Jan, the greatest challenge of fostering is the silence that can follow when a child leaves. “Not knowing where the kids are now and how they’re doing is the hardest. The ones who are doing the right things are contacting me. The ones who drop off, something is not right. Every night when I close my eyes, I say the Lord’s prayer, and then I ask about every kid. I ask God to protect them.”

 

Not knowing where the kids are now and how they’re doing is the hardest.

The foster community (and the community at large) is a better place because of this family. Their unflinching devotion to children in need is the stuff of miracles, angels – yet here they are, flesh and blood, doing God’s work down on Earth, growing love and learning within each tough teen who walks in their door, and eventually, back out again. Because despite the countless foster children who have called the Parrott’s house “home,” the couple has never officially adopted, but that doesn’t mean these children aren’t family. “They’ve adopted us,” Jan explains. “We’ve been adopted by a lot of them. We are their family, and they count on us.” It’s hard to imagine better people to count on.  

Featured in our February Edition of The Ottawa Advocate

When
Reunification
is the reason.

 

 

When Brad and Leslie Knoper became foster parents through Arbor Circle four years ago, they had imagined the journey ahead would be a means to grow their family. Having witnessed their parents and other relatives tackle this extraordinary work, they watched these families expand through eventual adoptions, assuming their path would look similar. What the Knopers hadn’t foreseen, however, was how God would intervene to use them in ways they could not have envisioned.

“We originally saw foster care as a means to grow our family. Now we see it as a way God can use us to help others.”                                                                                  ~ Leslie Knoper

     As a foster parent, it can be easy to get caught up in the overwhelming number of children within the system. Grappling with the sheer magnitude of this need leads some families to stretch and multiply in ways that many aren’t equipped to handle. Anyone who walks this road encounters at least one foster or adoptive family driving a conversion van bursting with kids, and many of us stop (sometimes only momentarily) to wonder if our own family might someday look the same. While the forever expanding family is amazing, there are other families who choose to take a different route, one that is no less taxing or inspiring. The Knopers provide this type of foster home, a safe haven in which they focus on a single foster child at a time, pouring all they can into that one special kiddo.
“Each child deserves to be loved regardless of the hurt that we will feel when they move,”
     To date, the Knopers have fostered four children, the last two having found successful reunification with their mothers. While this is the central goal of foster care, we know this is not always how these stories end, and we acknowledge how conflicting emotions around reunification can be. “Each child deserves to be loved regardless of the hurt that we will feel when they move,” Leslie commented. Understanding this, the Knopers do all they can to support parents struggling to bring their families back together. Through both the mothers’ difficult work and their own, the bonus children who once filled the Knoper’s home were able to return safely to their own homes once again.
     “It was so beautiful to see these women overcome so much to fight to have their children back. And thankfully, we became friends with them along the way and continue to encourage them even after the cases closed,” Leslie explained. The formation of true relationships between foster families and families with children in care is arguably one of the most difficult aspects of this work, and the Knopers have found healthy ways to accomplish this necessary challenge.
     “We try to establish good boundaries and lots of communication from the beginning of each case,” they stated, often texting parents to keep them informed. “We pass along art work and school papers, so parents feel a part of their children’s daily life.” They also take steps to include Moms and Dads in those milestone moments like birthdays and holidays, providing it’s safe and has met agency approval. “In the final stages of the reunification process, we do the transportation for visits to build trust. We pray for them and encourage them. It’s so important that parents know we are on their team,” added Leslie.
“We try to establish good boundaries and lots of communication from the beginning of each case,”
     This month’s featured foster family depends on their own team of cheerleaders, as well, crediting their friends and family with supporting them through the ups and downs. The Knopers also herald the non-profit organization Mosaic as “a huge blessing” to their family by offering support groups, family events, book clubs and the clothing closet. “Don’t do it alone,” Leslie advises new and prospective foster parents. “You need support, encouragement and a community of family and friends to surround you. And some of these people need to understand trauma. Just being able to share with people who understand is priceless.”

     The Knopers are also grateful for the ways in which their family has grown through this process. The lessons of kindness, generosity, and understanding their two children have gained has been immeasurable, and the entire family has learned “how to really trust that God is in control.” Saying goodbye to each of the children that has become a part of their home has been difficult, of course, but the family knows they are called to do hard things as Leslie explained, “That’s why we keep saying, “Yes!”

____

By: Ashley Wirgau, Michigan Fosters