Celebrating God’s Hand in Foster Care and Adoption

Read this story from the James Family about how God called them into the ministry of fostering and adoption:

“Looking back, I can see how God was planting seeds for foster care in my heart long before I understood what He was preparing me for. My great aunt and uncle fostered over 100 children, and a dear friend from college grew up in a group home here in South Carolina. When Van and I were newly married, Laura Lindsley, now the Executive Director of Calvary Home for Children, spoke at an organization I was involved with. In one of those beautiful, unmistakable God-winks, I later delivered a meal to Laura when she and her husband were the foster parents in the very same house where our family now lives on Calvary Home’s campus. God was connecting dots we couldn’t yet see.

When we began fostering in 2018, our intention was simply to love and pour into one child at a time, serving our community for what we thought was just a season. We did not enter foster care anticipating adoption as part of our journey. And if you had told me then that I would step away from my career, have seven or eight children at any given time, adopt four precious children, and drive a big ol’ Ford Transit as my everyday vehicle, I would have laughed! But God.

Foster care is a roller coaster. It has brought us unimaginable joy, deep valleys, and tragedies that have forever changed us. It has stretched my faith and grown my relationship with the Lord in ways I could never have imagined. BUT through every heartbreaking goodbye, every uncertain tomorrow, and every beautiful story of redemption, one truth remains: He is near. He is near to the brokenhearted. He is near to the child in need. He is near to the broken family. He is near to the mama or daddy desperately trying to climb out of the pit. He is near to the foster family, and the entire community that says goodbye to a child they have loved for years. He is near. He is always, always near.

Foster care is something you cannot unsee. Once you’ve witnessed the need, the heartbreak, and the incredible beauty of what God can do through ordinary people willing to say yes, you are forever changed. Our journey has taught us that God’s plans are infinitely greater than anything we could imagine, but they require surrender—year after year, day after day, and sometimes minute by minute.

Not everyone is called to open their home, but every one of us can open our hearts. Whether through fostering, adopting, praying, mentoring, or supporting families in crisis, there is a place for everyone in this ministry. We simply have to be willing to say yes and trust that wherever He leads. He is already there.”