"Yeah, what she said..." Foster Care Advocate Rep. Karen Bass

"The purpose of influence is to speak up for those who have no influence."

I love this quote from Pastor Rick Warren, author of The Purpose-Driven Life. I've repeated these words ever since I heard them spoken during a CNN interview with Piers Morgan.

I've also tried to live them.

In my own small circle of influence, I've committed to speak up for the fatherless -- children without families, without loving parents, without a safe place to lay their heads at night.

What encourages me even more is when I see or hear or read about someone else speaking up for the fatherless too -- especially someone with huge influence.

So I was excited to read an article in the May issue of Essence Magazine entitled "Fostering Hope: A powerful voice in politics works to reform America's foster care system." "Fostering Hope" highlighted California Representative Karen Bass, founder of the newly-created Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth, whose "voice rings loudest for those she says are most silenced."

Rep. Karen Bass

As I read this story, I felt myself thinking, "Yeah, what she said!" 

Rep. Bass is committed to fight for foster care reform and new legislation created to empower U.S. foster children. 

So I'll share a little of what she said here...

According to Rep. Bass, the worst challenge facing today's foster children is instability.

"They know that at any moment a social worker can yank them out of their foster home or school. Foster youth don't get to be normal, outrageous teenagers... Because of this, these youngsters lack secure connections with adults, and without a stable home and parent, other issues arise, usually with their education and health. Some switch schools multiple times, while others run away, become homeless and abuse substances. And a new phenomenon is that older men -- and tragically even some foster boys -- lure foster girls into sex work, mostly starting at age 12."

Runaways, homelessness, substance abuse, sex trafficking... The future is bleak for many foster children.

Yet as much as I love the push to support foster children, recently God's been moving my heart to take a "step backward" in my advocacy for children. While I'm still very passionate about finding homes for children who need either temporary foster families or permanent forever families, I'm also rooting for ministries that support at-risk children before they are removed from their original families. 

I pray that more children can be supported before they become orphans.

I was delighted to discover that Rep. Bass agrees..

"Most states and countries have serious restrictions on federal financing for foster youth. The system normally requires social workers to remove a child from the biological parents before the foster care system can provide that child with money or resources. A better solution would be to use the money to help that child's family and, if possible, not put the child in the system at all."

All I can say is, "Yeah, what she said!"


**Think about it: Who are you using your influence for today? Who are you speaking up for today?

Carla

Great Minds Thinking Alike: Jen Hatmaker

A couple weeks ago, I felt a heavy burden in the area of adoption and orphan care.

My burden resulted in my last post, "Orphan Justice: How Adoption Only Scratches the Surface". This post led to a great conversation with like-minded people on the subject, and also led me to writer/ speaker/pastor's wife Jen Hatmaker's blog series - "Examining Adoption Ethics."

When I read her third installment, I kept thinking, "Yes! Amen! Hallelujah!" Because I didn't realize I'd been echoing her sentiments in my own blog.

I'll pull out a few highlights and notable quotes for you:

"...Let's get our numbers straight... There are an estimated 153 million kids who've lost only one parent, so the term "orphan" is somewhat misleading... Unicef estimates around 2 million children in institutional care..."

My tidbit: Folks we've got to get our numbers right when we cite the number of "orphans" in the world. Although 2 million is a very large number (and UNICEF admits that this number is low due to underreporting in certain countries), it's a lot lower than 153 million!

Another thing I'm learning from my friends and co-laborers in the Arkansas Department of Children and Family Services... The word "orphan" is a misnomer for the 500,000 children in US foster care. These children almost always have a living parent, so they are nobody's orphans. As Christians, we understand the biblical mandate to "Care for Orphans," but we have to know in our hearts that we are oftentimes not dealing with a true "orphan."

"If we are truly concerned about orphan care, international adoption simply cannot be where we concentrate all our efforts. It leaves too many children behind."

My tidbit: I wholeheartedly agree with my Sister. And I'm the mother of a son adopted internationally. We've got to find strategies to encourage Russians to adopt Russian children, Ethiopians to adopt Ethiopian children and South Koreans to adopt South Korean children.

In his book Orphan Justice, Johnny Carr emphatically agrees, and works diligently towards that end. But I blogged about that last time...

My last Hatmaker quote:

"It is unacceptable that poverty makes orphans. That is a gross injustice at the root of these astronomical numbers. If you must relinquish your child because you cannot feed, educate, or care for him, the international community should rise up and wage war against that inequity. Every family deserves basic human rights, and I should not get to raise your child simply because I can feed him and you can't. 

"To that end, what better response than working to preserve (or reunite) first families where poverty or disempowerment is an orphan-maker?"

My tidbit: Amen! Amen! Amen!

For the last six months or so, God's been doing a transformational work on my heart. I am feeling a draw to support efforts that not only serve and benefit children displaced from their birth families, but to support the efforts that take a step backwards in this process.

How amazing would it be to not only care for orphans, but to care for disadvantaged families, with the hope and prayer that maybe their children will never become orphans?

This is no small undertaking. This is no minor calling. And this isn't as cute as adopting that adorable brown-eyed nine-month-old from Ethiopia.

No, this is a calling to get into the dirt and grime of material and spiritual poverty.

This is a calling to go where Jesus went.

It's a calling to go where He already is.

Let's go, Family.


Love,

Carla