Fostering a Home Filled with Love

Finding your sweet spot was our sermon theme these past few weeks. The thought is that when you are

doing what God has called you to do, your life becomes that much sweeter.

For Tony and Carin Bockelman, their sweet spot is serving as foster parents. It’s not the sort of calling that necessarily results in orderly days, appreciative children or happy endings. Rather, its sweetness comes from taking heart in knowing that you made a difference in a child’s life, if even for a moment.

“It’s a sense of peace that doesn’t make any sense at all,” Carin said. “I used to laugh when someone would say, ‘God put that on my heart,’ but that’s exactly what it is.”

When Tony and Carin first discussed wanting to foster, they had a vague idea of what it entailed. All they knew for sure is that they loved children and wanted to help families. Now eleven years have passed since they first became foster parents, and they have experienced highs, lows, reward, heartbreak, and everything in between.

“I think everything has been tougher than we imagined,” Carin said. “The issues the kids were dealing with, the things the parents were dealing with, the challenges of parenting kids in foster care, the slowness of the foster care system. We took classes to prepare, so nothing was a total surprise, but it was all harder than we could imagine. I think we were surprised how well we took to it, though.”

Foster children can remain in a home for a few hours to days to months to years. It can be respite care for foster parents who need a weekend break, emergency care for a child whose family is in sudden trauma, a short-term commitment while a family is working on healing itself, or a long-term commitment for a child who is in the adoption process.

Rewards can be in the form of rejoicing with a child who returns home to a parent who worked hard for that return, or perhaps in a thank you.

“We heard that a young man who had stayed with us was using some budgeting skills we taught him here,” Carin said. “That really made our day!”

Conversely, a difficult experience was returning a child to a home where they had serious doubts about the mom’s ability to care for the child.



From left: Zeke, Carin, John, Gladys, Tony, Hassani



Tony and Carin have two biological children, Zeke, 13, and Gladys, 10. They have fostered numerous children, and adopted three of them. Prayer and discernment were part of each adoption process. John came to them as a 15-year-old and they adopted him when he was 18. Hassani joined the family when she was 3, and a year later entered the adoption process. Her adoption became official a couple of years later, and she is now 12.

 

Their third adopted child is David, age 6. He has spent a lot of time in hospitals, dealing with medical issues. David has rickets, a bone disease, and uncontrollable seizures. A year or so ago, he was diagnosed with subclinical seizures – seizures that occur in the brain but aren’t visible. Sadly, it’s a fatal diagnosis for him.

“For that whole first year, I was convinced that it would happen (his death) any day, and that was exhausting,” Carin said.

David is now under Hospice care, which allows Carin and Tony to simply enjoy the time they have with him rather than worry about every little thing that goes wrong.

Carin said she is appreciative of the Holy Cross community, the way so many people offer support, greet David when they see him, ask her and Tony how David is doing. She also has praise for our Sunday School program, and the work our children’s ministry director, Amy Viets, has done to ensure that Hassani and David both feel welcome and comfortable.

Tony and Carin are still licensed foster parents, though aren’t fostering anyone right now. But they remain active, using their acquired knowledge and experience to mentor other foster parents. They want people considering fostering to have a realistic picture of what’s involved – how awesome it can be, and how difficult too at times.



 “The thing is, when you decide to be a foster parent,” Carin said, “you do it because you’re willing to suffer.”  Carin explained that when a family is in trouble, someone needs to step in for the kids involved. “Those kids need someone who is willing to say, ‘I’ll love those kids. It’s ok, I’ll get my heart broken when they leave.”

 

From left: Zeke, Tony, Hassani, Carin, Gladys, David



She could say that now about David. He will surely break their hearts when his short life ends. But that’s okay, because in the meantime, they have shown him love, he has known the love of adoptive parents and siblings, and he has enriched their family by his presence.