The Temporary Mom is hosting a 31 challenge this month in honor of National Foster Care Month.

The first day was introduction:
Julie Rothacher. 
I am 33 years old, I’ve been married to #myhubs for 14 years [this month], and we have 4 bio children who are 9, 8, 7, and 4.
Our #lifewithlots is an amazing blessing so why not add more fun to the mix, right!? We’ve been an open foster/adoptive home here in Arkansas for 2.5 years and we have had 21 children placed with us and done respite for 6 children in that time. My hubs is a church planter, USPS carrier, shaved ice stand owner, and so many more things while I homeschool our bio children. 

Then there's been fun writing prompts since then that I've been inconsistent in participating in but yesterday I remembered and it was actually pretty fun. The prompt was Ask a Question so I had my friend blow me away with some really good, and lots of new questions on my personal facebook page. Today is Answer a Question. Even though I answered them in the comment section with them, I thought it could be fun to share them here as well.

1. What if bio kids sleep with you...do the fosters always have to sleep in their own bed in their own room?
   Your bio kids are allowed to sleep with you but fosters always have to sleep in their own bed. There are lots of reasons for this but mainly for the protection of you And the child. 
   
2. Do you ever have behavior issues that make you worry about your bio children repeating it or anything happening to your bio children?
   We always have behavior issues. Some are typical/age appropriate. Some make me worry about my bio children repeating it but not a lot different than having friends with different rules for their kids- my kids just know I expect different and we remind them we are working on it with the foster friends. There have been a couple times we had aggressive (biting, hitting, kicking, etc) kids but all of ours have been younger so it was a little easier to deal with. 
   
3. Do you ever have behaviors that are severe and you can’t handle it?
   We have had behaviors that are severe. Some we handled but we have had one time we couldn’t and had to have a child moved. It was very specific to the situation and season of life so others might have been able to handle it. 
   There will ALWAYS be behavioral issues. We are very intentional about never moving children if there is Any way to make it work. Moving children adds to their issues and we do not want to contribute to that. With that being said, you have to know your family, think Long and hard before accepting placements, and know what you can handle.
   
4. Are your bio children ever upset with the fosters and wishing the fosters weren’t there?
   My bio children have gotten upset with the fosters lots! My kids are way better at following Jesus than me and have honestly never ask us to move a child. They’ve ask lots of questions about why, they’ve ask for breaks, but have always begged for them to stay no matter how hard they’ve been. 
   
5. When fosters leave are your bio children always sad?
   My kids have been sad to see every child go. Even when they were "hard". The "easy" kids brought a few more tears for a longer period of time but they've been sad every time.  
   
6. It seems hard to homeschool and foster any school age children bc they’d have to go to public school?
   It is hard for Me to homeschool and foster school age children bc they Do have to go to public school. It’s learning a while new world and trying to mesh the two. One of the reasons I homeschool is for the freedom and the structure of public school cramps that.
   BUT I know some homeschool families that like fostering school age kids because they can have bio-family time during the day which can be relief.
   
7. Does most of the $ given to foster parents to care for fosters...does it have to be mostly used on clothes and food etc for child, do you have to show proof of how it’s used, can it go towards home/bills...I don’t know how all that works...
   The board payment given to foster parents is supposed to be used to reimburse the family for the child’s clothes, food, etc for child. They do ask that you keep receipts Incase they’re ever audited. 
   
8. Do you have to be emotionally strong for the fosters/is it often heartbreaking/or do you just show sadness with them?
   LOL It would be nice is we had to be emotionally strong before they’d allow you to fosters but alas, we all just loose our cool. It is often heartbreaking. Depending on the situation, we hold it together in front of our kids (bio and foster) for their benefit but often just let it all hang out. I just pray God uses that to their benefit as well. 
   
9. Do the kids always want to return to bio parents?
   Our fosters have had lots of different stories- some have gotten to go home (reunification), some have gone to relatives (provisional care), and some don’t go anywhere. 
   
10. I just remembered you might only do very young fosters like babies...
    When we first started, we only did boys younger than Jamin (4) but as Jamin’s gotten older we have taken older kids and a few girls depending on the circumstantial. We’ve had three 6yo, one 5yo, two 4yo, four 3yo, three 2yo, three 1.5yo, 5 newborns/infants and 6 random aged kids 8 and under for respite.
    
11. Have you ever regretted the timing of entering foster care? For example, do you wish you would have started sooner or waited another couple years?
    If we are being totally honest, I did feel rushed into foster care.
    I’ve always wanted to adopt, even received applications for overseas adoption.
    El wasn’t even a year old when we went to our first info meeting and was just over a year and a half when we opened. BUT God...
    I wouldn’t change anything. I love that my kids are growing up with them as a part of who we are as a family. I love that they don’t know any different, that they’ll be sad if/when we ever stop. That they never had the option to not wanna.
12. I see in your pic that the three youngest girls are wearing matching patterns. Do you find that your longer-term placement foster kids want to "fit right in" with your family usually, or are they resistant to being part of the "family" because they miss their own family?
    That’s a great question!
    Our kids love making fosters fit right in. They try to make sure everyone has the same stuff and match if possible.
    Fosters have, for the most part, also loved being made to feel a part. Being included, knowing they’ll be treated equally, and even matching on occasion has helped lots of then adjust quickly. They like knowing “their color” for particular things like the other kids. (We assign colored towels, toothbrushes, plates, cups, water bottles)
    Most of ours have been tiny so it could very possibly be different for older kids. For example, on holidays we include everyone that is with us that day. Only once have we had a child avoid or ask not to be included in a family picture to which we obliged. Although discouraged, we do the stickers over the face because we never want to exclude a child for simply being “in care” if they’d like to be included. Videos are a little trickier so we avoid those in general so we don’t have to avoid any beautiful faces.
    
13. Also, are there rules about "religious" instruction (for lack of a better word) with your foster kiddos?
    This is a little trickier for older children because you are “supposed to” accommodate them if they have other religious preferences.
    There are no rules about sharing as much Jesus as you want to with children. We’ve never ran into families who have other religions. More often than not, they are unchurched and curious about -this Jesus We speek of-. lol
14. Who did yall go thru to foster? Can a person adopt thru the folks u use?
    We work with the AR state DCFS. We were trained through The CALL.
    As a christian home, you can work with and be trained through both of those respectively if you are interested in adopting children waiting in coaster care to be adopted.

If YOU have any quesitons, please ask away. Just be nice.

I feel like it’s a bit clique when seemingly every post about fostering address the comment, “How do you do it? I could never foster because -->I’d get too attached.<--“ but sadly, that is THE thing I hear from strangers, family, and even close friends. It’s something I probably thought years ago even if I wouldn’t have said it out loud. I’ve learned there’s some major breakdown when we have this thought process though.

I’m not here to make anyone feel guilty for not fostering, embarrassed for asking that question, or even ashamed for thinking this way. I do want to make people thing for a moment though. To reevaluate our thinking and motives because it is our core believes that dictate how we think, and our thinking how we behave.

So, when someone asks, How do you do it? I could never foster, I’d get too attached.“ I just want to cry and shout and jump with joy and walk them through my family’s journey and ask,

“How could you not!?

Do you think I am heartless and am not the kind of person who would cry over the bag of teeth?

Would you rather these innocent children live in houses with there’s no chance for attachment, real love, belonging?

Should we leave it up to the pagans of this world to show them the love we are supposed to be sharing in order to point them to Christ?

Can we justify furthering their painful long-term suffering because we might be uncomfortable, inconvenienced, or heartbroken?

Has Christ not enough love showered on us to multiply onto those seeking refuge?

Do you not want to experience His joy that comes from giving all you think you have only to be given more to share?

Do you not want your biological children to learn how to selflessly love at a young age?

Would you rather we sit complacent with where we are instead of growing in our knowledge and spiritual understanding of what adoption looks like in a Heavenly Kingdom?”

I’m not here to say the road of fostering is an easy one; by all means, it’s the hardest thing I’ve even done. I'm not here looking for accolades, because, for Real, we are no heroes, lots of people could do this better, we are just attempting to serve a big God. We'd much rather have more people join us than think what we do is unattainable. I'm not here to scare people off from this hard work.

I am here to ask, “Will you please investigate your heart and what God is calling you to do in the area of caring for orphans?” Not everyone is called to open their house to become foster homes but all of us who claim to be under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, are called to do something. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful day if DCFS was having to turn away families because there were too many volunteering, too many answering the call, too many so they had to be picky about who’s homes were opened.

I’m gonna be honest, when we first looked into working with DCFS, it was to become adoptive parents not foster parents.

As we went through training we changed our minds and chose to go the route of fostering as well as hopefully adopting eventually. Over the past two and a half years, we’ve loved 20 kids, ranging from 5 days old to 8 years old. Their time as a part of our family ranged from a record 3 hours to nearly 8 months. We’ve worked through eating and sleep fights to behavioral issues that involved physical violence toward our biological children.

I will never say we’ve seen it all; the friends we’ve made have us beat either with placement stories of their own or cases they’ve worked. I will say it has been an eye-opening adventure, one that allows us to live the deepest sorrows as well as the greatest joys that life has to offer. We experience the need for God’s forgiveness, mercy, and grace. We celebrate His provision of family, protections, and restoration. Some of these things, I’m unsure could be learned in any other realm.

Let me tell ya, if you’re considering working with DCFS, at all possible- Chose One.

• Go the route of fostering and use your gifts of flexibility to love children whole heatedly as they work toward reunification in healed homes.
• Go the route of adoption and use your gifts of perseverance to seek out children whose parents have lost their rights.

Attempting to do both may kill you. To some extent, that has been the source of all our frustration with the system: battling the emotional stress of loving a child that might stay forever or might leave in an hour is torturous. Giving your all and making yourself stay checked-in for the sake of the child is agonizing.

That means, rocking that newborn for his at 4am feeding to make sure he develops healthy attachments, even if that’s with someone else. That means cheering on strangers as they make progress to earn back the right to parent the children you’ve fallen in love w children.

That means consistently disciplining the child who doesn’t know how to resolve conflict without his fist, even if your biological children are at the other end. That means being frustrated with parents don’t make the progress you [and your self-righteous standards] wanted them to before their children go back into their care.

That means waiting for a child to wake after an oral surgery. That mean holding his something tightly, wondering if these will go in his baby book as a treasured memory or if, to someone else, you’re just holding a bag full of teeth- an odd thing someone else possibly won’t care about when you’ll eventually send with him as he leaves your care to finish the rest of his life.

It means trusting God to use all things for good in your life because you love Him.

Trusting God is good and has good things He desires for you in your life is a process of being broken, shattered, smashed to smithereens and then reformed, molded, and made into something new, hopefully stronger, braver, and more faithful to the plans God has for us. How does God want to break you in the area of caring for orphans in order to grow you in your walk with Him?