“We do not have anyone to take her home from the hospital, and she has already been here four days. We need somewhere for her to go. Would you guys be open to a newborn?”  

Only a few days after we officially became foster parents and the paperwork was complete, we received that phone call. My voice quivered on the other end of the line as I told the caseworker I needed to confirm with my husband. He was an instant yes, and we took baby Kami home. I was working in full-time ministry and remember the fear and joy I had as I told my boss I may need a couple weeks off because, although I wasn’t pregnant, we were bringing home a baby. He graciously gave us time as we learned an entirely new way of life: the life of foster care and parenthood. 

I brought Kami home and, because I was more invested in Kami than her mother’s issues, I struggled to want anything to do with her mother. God has a way of getting ahold of us, though. Very soon after Kami came home, we began putting money on her mother’s account at the jail so she could video call us once a week. Video calls turned into radical acts of grace and love by God that taught us an unimaginable amount about loving in the midst of brokenness—all of our brokenness. God used foster care as a way for us to not only fall madly in love with Kami, but to also fall in love with her seven brothers and sisters, her mom, and her dad. We learned more about God in the foster care system than in any Bible study I had ever taught or attended.  

“God has a way of getting ahold of us, though.”

Kami’s mother spent the remainder of her jail sentence fighting for Kami. We chose to fight with her because that is what God asked us to do. She was released, and our journey continued. We helped her stay clean, get plugged into a church in her area, and get a house (our friends helped make sure the down payment was donated along with first month’s rent). Then, Kami went home. Though we weren’t prepared for the grief of parting from the child we had grown to love, we felt strongly that this was the call of God.

The second call also started with pain and urgency. Onna had been kidnapped by her drug addicted parents, almost starved, and severely neglected. We drove to Detroit, MI, and saw a tiny three-month-old baby. We didn’t know Onna, but God wrapped us up in the most incredible love, the kind we didn’t know we could feel after living with Kami. He showed again that loving like parents didn’t require a biological tie. He showed once again that loving like Him can occur when we are obedient to a call, the call God gives to ALL who follow Him (Isaiah 1:17, James 1:27). We fell in love with Onna, but her case was complicated. Her parents did not want help, and ultimately, we said goodbye to Onna in a tragic court case we never intended. In this, we discovered the reason so many say “no” to foster care. 

“I could never do what you do.” We have heard that a lot since starting our foster journey. I understand that fostering isn’t possible for everyone. When we felt God’s call to foster, we felt afraid, too. But, we learned that you don’t need to understand how to survive the ups and downs of fostering to begin. We just need to see a child’s face. We didn’t know how we would “do it” until we met a young girl who was headed to her foster home holding nothing but a garbage bag of three to four items. Each time we wanted to give up we saw her face, her story, and we remembered we are God’s people who are mandated to step up and care for her. Later, we didn’t know how we could say yes to another goodbye. Then we saw Onna.

God asked us to be a part of this mission in foster care because of the faces and stories of these beautiful miracles, not because it will always be abundantly joyful. He asked us because there is hope in Christ that we are called to spread. 

THAT is holiness. THAT is God’s call on our lives.  

Godliness doesn’t always promise glee.

Chelsea MacAdam is the Student Ministries pastor at Chelsea Church of the Nazarene, and also the NYI Vice President for the Eastern Michigan District Church of the Nazarene.  She has served in pastoral ministry for seven years, and has a deep passion for homelessness and foster care ministries.  Chelsea and her husband have one adopted daughter, Rory, and reside in Sylvania, Ohio.