It’s been too long (again) since I posted an update
here. For the last few weeks we have
just been plain busy. Patti has been
preparing for, and then actually being a part of, a weekend of Kairos prison
ministry at the Northeast Pre-Release Center, a women’s prison in Cleveland
and, as always, there is a lot going on at church. During this time, we also continued to work
on our Aunt’s house and have moved some of her furniture to our house. Moving furniture, particularly beds and
dressers is the biggest part of what we had left on our “to do” list before we
felt ready to accept a placement.
A few weeks ago, we discovered that we were ready
before we knew we were ready. Knowing
that we were very close, one of the folks from Guidestone called us and asked
if we would consider taking in two boys from a neighboring county. We agreed to talk about it, but at our next
training meeting a few days later we discovered that as soon as we had said we
were willing to talk, they had submitted our file to the county for
consideration. Nothing ever really came
of it, but we realized that we were ready.
Then last week it happened. A Guidestone foster parent had some trouble
with a high school aged girl that had been living with her. We knew them both and they knew us so, at least
in the short term, Guidestone asked if she could come to our home for a few
days of respite care while they searched for a new, more permanent,
placement. We said yes. The girl was supposed to stay with us for
just two or three days but we are already approaching a week. Everything has gone fairly well so far. The worst part for us has been that her
schedule is dramatically different than ours of our children’s so it has been
something of a challenge for one of us to be around when she is home. Today she is meeting with her county social
worker so things may change but we don’t yet know what will happen or when.
I suppose this means we should also finish up that
last bit of paperwork too…
