up standing
Baby’s mama didn’t know she was prego when she went into hospital with a tummy ache. Baby was saved by the tummy ache. She had a several-page-memo of problems when she was finally able to survive outside of ICU. Birth mom was still stoned on three substances. But baby had - unbeknownst to herself - saved her two siblings. These had fallen between the cracks, were unregistered, slept on the ground, ate only occasionally when the stupor ceased enough for the adults to remember to feed them. And then they ate with their hands, sitting on the ground. The placement in foster care for these children was unique.
The birth parents were given the red carpet to come clean, get help, receive services, and get the kids back. Visits were arranged. They didn’t show. Appointments were made. They never came. Calls went unanswered. But the children began to eat. And talk. And learn what playgrounds are. And vehicles, And consistency.
Baby walks now. She is upstanding. She has a sparkle in her eye and a personality double her size. She has lived through more hospital and doctor and therapy appointments than many 80 year olds, but she has get-up-and-go. The birth parents disappeared. But the Esme Home didn’t. And Baby is now adopted, safe, and thriving. So are the other kids. They are the reason we exist.
See, every kid that comes into contact with DCF has reasons they need to get involved. I’ve sat through the hearings and have great respect for the people trying to keep kids with their parents. Everyone on this family oriented squad does all they can for months, even years, to foster that bond and keep it alive. But for some kids that’s not the best path. And for some children being kept in limbo like that means they become a stat. Many foster homes are stepping way outside of their comfort zone to make room to help someone else’s children. When the chaos of trauma descends upon their household and begins hurting their birth children it’s rough. When am older parent gets sick, or dad gets a pay-cut, or someone breaks a leg, the going gets harder. This is when one of two things happens:
the family stops fostering and the foster child is moved to another placement
or the foster family has a support system that empowers them to keep going
The goal of the Esmé Home is to - ironically - be weak and vulnerable - against our will, actually - so that we have needed help from the get go. We didn’t know up front that the very vulnerability would be the key to this issue. But because we needed help due to sickness and disease, our community stepped in. The local church, a place where there is (or should be) training and screening for folks so that the children who come into church are safe - that church came around us. From help with getting groceries to reading a book with the kids so Mama could make supper, from working at the honey-do list to opening up the beach house so Mama could take a break; from coming over to sit with the sick to helping pick up the van from the shop. You name it, from play dough to gym mats, diaper runs to car seat vacuuming, folks show up. They keep showing up. So no child who has come into the Esmé Home needs to move on.
Yes, reunification should happen. But until then, or until adoption, a child should experience that they are loved and not going anywhere. They’ve already had enough trauma to sink a ship.
And this is how to un-orphan. Because the ‘orphan spirit’ is real. It’s a sense of not being wanted, of abandonment, of self hating, of blaming oneself for some vague concept that you were so bad that mom and dad didn’t want you, or you split the family. The enemy of souls gets a foothold in this kind of thinking. No matter what a person’s call is, gifting is, nature is, this orphan spirit clings and cripples their future. But the child who knows he or she is fully loved and given life tools in honesty and humility will be empowered to either reunite and thrive, or be adopted and thrive.
And the math? There are roughly 300K churches in America. There are about 500-600K foster kids. If EVERY church became supportive of an Esmé type home the foster issues would dissolve. Roughly 60% of kids in foster care are trafficked, either while in care or afterwards. If every foster child felt loved and safe a huge chunk of human trafficking revenue would end. Let’s un-orphan together! It’s the proactive next step that churches can take to be effective in this epidemic of both foster kids and trafficking.