#15: Where the Gospel Meets Foster Care

#15: Where the Gospel Meets Foster Care

Note: The Love Thy Neighborhood podcast is made for the ear, and not the eye. We would encourage you to listen to the audio for the full emotional emphasis of this episode. The following transcription may contain errors. Please refer to the audio before quoting any content from this episode. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Hey guys, before we get today’s episode started, I’ve got three quick announcements. Number one, next Monday, July the 16th, is the application deadline for our fall year-long program. If you are in a season of life where you have been thinking about serving for a year, this is your chance. Just head over to lovethyneighborhood.org and apply now. Number two, we’ve been given a generous $40,000 matching grant. And the only way that we can receive that $40,000 is if we have folks who step up and help us raise that $40,000. So the way that you donate to help us is by heading over to our website, which is lovethyneighborhood.org, and when you click on the donate button it will take you to a page and then just select ‘matching campaign – summer 2018.’ And finally, number three, for the last several months, we have been working on a brand-new podcast series on the side. And we are thrilled because today the mystery is revealed. So right now I would like to play for you the trailer for our brand-new podcast series. 

ENNEACAST TRAILER: This is a show about self-discovery, about understanding ourselves, about looking into the mirror to see the good, the bad, and the unknown of who we are. This is how we relate to God and everyone else. Coming Tuesday, July 24th, a new podcast series from Love Thy Neighborhood. Welcome to The Enneacast. This is a brand-new show exploring personality, relationships, and the gospel through the lens of the Enneagram. With a few twists up our sleeve. 

Okay, so make sure you go and subscribe to The Enneacast now. We are so thrilled. It comes out July the 24th. Okay, let’s get to the episode.

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JESSE EUBANKS: This episode contains mature content that may not be suitable for young listeners. Content may be an emotional trigger for victims of abuse. Listener discretion is advised. 

RACHEL SZABO: Some names in today’s story have been changed to protect identity — including all names of children. 

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JESSE EUBANKS: So I always like to say that normal life is like a slow cooker, but your time serving with Love Thy Neighborhood, it’s like a pressure cooker. You just experience so much in such a little amount of time. And because of this highly pressurized experience, adjusting back to normal life can be tricky.

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, and that was certainly true for Leila Morris. So Leila served with Love Thy Neighborhood for a year, and after her time of service she moved back to her hometown. But life back at home, it seemed to be missing something.

LEILA MORRIS: When I first came back from my time with LTN, I felt really like lost. I felt like I had heard God’s voice clearly tell me to come to Louisville to serve at LTN, and then like leaving LTN I didn’t feel like I heard a clear voice.

RACHEL SZABO: So Leila wasn’t sure what direction she should take her life now. She’d just had this amazing experience of a year of social action and intentional Christian community. And she’s like — ‘Now what?’ And it seemed like God wasn’t really giving her any answers. Until one night.

LEILA MORRIS: I was waitressing, and my table — one of the guys was a pastor, and he, he thought he should pray for me.

RACHEL SZABO: So Leila’s serving this table at this restaurant and one of the guys at the table is a pastor and he’s like ‘Hey, can I pray for you?’ And Leila’s never met this guy in her life. But she doesn’t want to be rude, so she’s like ‘Okay, sure.’

LEILA MORRIS: And so when he prayed for me after, he just spoke to me like ‘Oh, um, I feel like there’s something you’re supposed to be doing, but you’re not because you’re afraid.’

RACHEL SZABO: And so first Leila has no clue what to make of this. She has no idea what this pastor is talking about. But she also kind of agrees with him. Like she feels like there’s something in life that she’s supposed to be doing. She just didn’t know what it was.  

LEILA MORRIS: That night I went home and I was thinking really hard, a little too hard, and nothing came to me.

RACHEL SZABO: But then, after a good night’s sleep — she had it.

LEILA MORRIS: But the next morning when I woke up, it was like — boom, bam, like foster care, like foster! And I was thinking like ‘No, this is crazy.’

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JESSE EUBANKS: You’re listening to the Love Thy Neighborhood podcast. I’m Jesse Eubanks.

RACHEL SZABO: And I’m Rachel Szabo. Every episode we hear stories of social justice and Christian community.

JESSE EUBANKS: Today’s episode is where the gospel meets foster care. We’re telling the story of Leila, a single woman in her mid-20s who answered the call to be a foster parent. But for Leila, the fostering experience — it didn’t end up being quite what she expected. Welcome to our corner of the urban universe.

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JESSE EUBANKS: On any given day in the United States, 438,000 children are in foster care. And those numbers have been on the rise for the last several years. But — what hasn’t been on the rise? Is the number of foster parents able to care for those kids.

RACHEL SZABO: According to a recent study from the Foster Care Institute, anywhere from thirty to fifty percent of foster parents will make the decision to stop fostering.

JESSE EUBANKS: And that makes sense. Being a foster parent is extremely challenging. I mean you’re dealing not only with a child who may have severe trauma. You’re also dealing with case workers and court dates. And then there’s the grief that comes should the child be reunited with the family.

RACHEL SZABO: So Reverend Charles Loring Brace is considered the father of foster care in the United States, and he said this — ‘When a child of the streets stands before you in rags, with a tear-stained face, you cannot easily forget him. And yet, you are perplexed what to do. The human soul is difficult to interfere with. You hesitate how far you should go.’

JESSE EUBANKS: And it’s good to know your limitations, what you can and cannot handle. And for Leila, y’know, she’s in her mid-20s, she’s single, she’s still establishing her career. Nothing about her life circumstances say ‘You could handle being a foster parent.’

RACHEL SZABO: But for Leila, it’s not so much about circumstances. For her it’s more about what God has to say.

JESSE EUBANKS: In the book of James chapter one, James is urging Christians to not just be hearers of God’s word, but doers as well. That we cannot truly hear God and then go about our life unchanged. And he ends this section with these words — ‘Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.’

RACHEL SZABO: And this is what Leila believed and why she wanted to become a foster parent. And just to be clear, that morning when she woke and she was like “boom, bam, foster care!” — that thought didn’t just come out of left field. Like fostering was something she had already been planning to do. She was just planning to do it much later in life.

LEILA MORRIS: I had like a whole box image of like how I wanted it to be, like I wanted to be married, I wanted to be secure in finances and my home, like I wanted to have my own biological kids first. Like that’s how I thought it should go.

RACHEL SZABO: And y’know, for some people, that is how it goes. You’re married, you have your own kids, and then you start fostering. But for Leila, she thought fostering was something she should do now. Like right now. Which kinda didn’t make a whole lot of sense.

LEILA MORRIS: And that’s why like when it kept coming to mind, I felt like ‘No, this has got to be all wrong because this is not the way it’s supposed to be.’ This is kinda like a phone like when you don’t wanna answer the phone cuz you don’t wanna hear what’s on the other side, but it’s ringing. 

RACHEL SZABO: So all throughout the day, this thought persisted in her mind. Foster care, you should foster. Just call the agency. And so finally Leila couldn’t ignore it anymore. So she picked up the phone, and she called the foster care agency. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Oh my gosh, I, I just can’t even imagine that. Like she’s voluntarily offering to be a single parent. You know, a single mom? I mean I’ve spent time with plenty of single moms. It is a very, very difficult lifestyle.

RACHEL SZABO: Right, and she’s never parented before.

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, I mean surely like some of her friends have got to be looking at her and going like ‘You’re not ready to be a single mom.’

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah well, what’s actually really surprising is that most of her friends were super supportive. 

LEILA MORRIS: I’d say maybe 95% of the people in my life were very supportive. They were like ‘Yeah, like this is meant to be. Do this!’

RACHEL SZABO: And so with the support of her community, Leila begins the process of becoming a licensed foster parent.

JESSE EUBANKS: Okay, so let me jump in for a second here. For folks who aren’t familiar with the foster care system, I think it’s important to know the process of becoming a foster parent.  Now it can vary some from state to state, but it’s basically a five step process.

So the first two steps are basically both about paperwork. Step one is about basic information — y’know, your name, where you live, where you work. It’s all simple. But step two — they’re digging into things like your finances, your family history, your hobbies. I mean you even have to describe people that you interact with on a regular basis. So imagine just having to take everything about your life and put it on paper. That is step two. Okay so then step three — after all the paperwork, you attend a training class. And depending on who you’re working with, if you’re going through the state or an agency, these classes can last anywhere from four to 12 weeks. And you learn things like what to expect, common behaviors in foster kids, how to deal with trauma. And after you pass the class, you move to step four. And that’s the home study. 

RACHEL SZABO: Okay so this is the part of the process that I hear a lot about. You know, a lot of times I hear people saying like ‘Oh, please pray for us. We’re having our home study.’

JESSE EUBANKS: Well and that’s because the home study just determines a lot. I mean not only do you finally talk with one of the social workers face to face, this is where they really pay attention to what you can handle — what age range, if you have ethnic preference, religious preference, if you can accommodate a kid with special needs. And of course, they’re also making sure that your environment is actually clean and kid-friendly.

So then, after the paperwork and the classes and the home study, you finally arrive at step five, where the state officially issues you a license to be a foster parent. And after that, you wait. I mean sometimes you can end up waiting months before you get placed with a child.

RACHEL SZABO: Which that’s probably a good thing right? Like it gives you some time to mentally prepare for having new kids in your home.

JESSE EUBANKS: Well yeah, I mean if you think about when a woman gets pregnant, I mean she’s got nine months to prepare herself for having a kid in her home.

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, well here’s the thing though, is Leila actually didn’t have much time to prepare. Because she got her first placement just three days after receiving her license. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Oh my gosh. Three days?

RACHEL SZABO: Yep.

JESSE EUBANKS: That’s like no time to prepare at all.

RACHEL SZABO: Exactly. And so just like that, Leila’s now the foster parent of not just one but actually two kids — a boy who’s in third grade and his preschool age sister.

LEILA MORRIS: The driver came, dropped him and sister off at my house, signed a few papers that showed that I could bring them to school and that I could bring them to the doctor, that I was now the foster parent, and then another paper for each of them that said that they were medically cleared. He gave me the papers, brought in all their stuff, and drove away. And that was it.

JESSE EUBANKS: Whoa, that’s incredible. I mean that’s just so fast.

LEILA MORRIS: You know, your own biological kids, like you embrace them from being a baby where you’ve known them and you know what they like and what they don’t like, what sets them off. Like all those things, like I didn’t know it. Like I didn’t have anything to pull from. I only have two pieces of paper for each of them that don’t tell me much. 

RACHEL SZABO: Despite, y’know, not knowing anything about these kids, I mean this is still kind of an exciting moment for Leila because she’s felt like God has called her to be a foster parent, she’s been obedient to that call, she’s gone through the process, she’s gotten her license. And so now she was able to be a safe environment for these kids right when they needed somebody. Which was huge, especially since the boy was labeled as somebody having behavioral special needs, which Leila had said in her home study that she could handle.

LEILA MORRIS: I had said I would accept special needs because I had taught a special ed class for one year in an elementary school, and so I felt confident that I could at least take low-need special needs.

RACHEL SZABO: But within just the first hour of these kids being in her home, Leila realizes there must have been some kind of mistake.

LEILA MORRIS: And when they first came, I soon realized that the older child was more needy than they had known.

JESSE EUBANKS: Coming up — tantrums, a trip to the ER, and what to do when you’re at your wit’s end. We’ll be right back.

COMMERCIAL

JESSE EUBANKS: You’re listening to the Love Thy Neighborhood podcast. I’m Jesse Eubanks. 

RACHEL SZABO: And I’m Rachel Szabo. Today’s episode is where the gospel meets foster care. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Today we’re telling the story of Leila. She’s in her mid-20s, and she has just become a single parent for two foster kids. Which in and of itself is just a daunting task. 

RACHEL SZABO: And on top of that, she finds out that the older one, whose name is Trent, who was supposed to have minor behavioral special needs? Well, she finds out that his needs are not exactly minor.

LEILA MORRIS: It’s hard to paint the picture, but he’d run around the house, he’d like throw punches, it was a lot. Like a lot of swearing, a lot of spitting. So there were a lot of shocking behaviors.

JESSE EUBANKS: And this is actually, it’s not uncommon. I mean in fact the estimates are that 80% of foster kids struggle with mental health in some way.

LEILA MORRIS: And so when they came and I saw that it was, it was really wild, I, I didn’t know what to do. I cried the first night. I actually cried.

RACHEL SZABO: Leila knew that fostering was gonna be hard. But she was not expecting it to be this hard. And so typically what do we do when life becomes hard and it becomes too much for us to handle? We turn to our community. And so Jesse, remember when she said that 95% of the folks in her life who had been super supportive of her doing this and becoming a foster parent? 

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, it was awesome. It was so great seeing so many people wanting to support her.

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, well now — when Leila called on them for help and they actually met the kids and saw how these kids were behaving, especially the boy Trent, they weren’t so sure that this was the right thing anymore.

LEILA MORRIS: I would say maybe 75% of the people I knew told me I should give them back because of the behaviors that he was showing and that it was too much. And I wasn’t getting support from a lot of people, y’know, comments like ‘He needs a two-parent home, like he needs a therapuetic home, he needs a dad.’ And I’m thinking ‘I obviously know what they need. All kids need stuff like that, but there’s a difference between the ideal and the real and this is what’s really happening right now.’

RACHEL SZABO: Leila knew her situation wasn’t ideal. But ideal or not, Leila needed help. And if wasn’t going to come from her community, she was gonna have to find it elsewhere. And so just two weeks after having these kids arrive in her home, she signs Trent up for therapy.

LEILA MORRIS: We were gonna go to a therapy session and I was so excited because I thought that this was going to help us and I guess I was looking forward to it because I thought, y’know, now we’re gonna get the support that we need.

RACHEL SZABO: But even the therapy ended up being less than ideal.

LEILA MORRIS: So I brought him to the therapy session, and he basically just flipped out. Things were everywhere, people were everywhere, my keys went missing, my car keys. It was crazy. Yeah, and he was running around the place. He was violent. The words he said were violent. And it seemed like he was a danger to himself. And the therapist was saying that in her opinion he was out of control and she felt that when kids are beyond parent control then they can be admitted to the ER and then from there they would go to a treatment center.

RACHEL SZABO: And so Leila has to make this decision really fast. She can either admit Trent to the ER to help him calm down, or she can somehow try to get him back home. 

LEILA MORRIS: Like a lot of people are talking to you and saying like ‘What are you gonna do?’ and like the social worker is not there and no one’s there, but it comes down to like me being the foster parent, like I have to decide what’s gonna happen.

JESSE EUBANKS: And so, so what does she decide to do?

RACHEL SZABO: She signs the paperwork. And so Trent is taken to the ER. And from the ER, he’s put in a treatment center.

JESSE EUBANKS: Wow. I, I just could not imagine having to make that kind of decision. 

RACHEL SZABO: Right, I mean like you are now responsible for this human being who you don’t know very well and who also isn’t able to conduct himself in a socially acceptable manner. And it’s like ‘What are you gonna do?’

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, I’m also wondering like, y’know, what about the therapy session made him flip out like that?

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah okay, so I asked Leila if she was able to better describe some of the behavioral needs that Trent had and why he was acting this way. But for safety reasons, she said she wasn’t able to elaborate any more than that.

JESSE EUBANKS: Well okay, so let me jump in for a second then. In order to actually better understand foster child behavior, let’s leave Leila and Trent at the treatment center for a second and actually go to another treatment center.  

WILL PRATT: These are kids that have been like really abused growing up and have been through it and then traumatized, and because of that trauma they end up acting out.

JESSE EUBANKS: So this is Will Pratt. And Will, like Leila, he’s also an alumni of Love Thy Neighborhood. And he works with foster kids every day.

WILL PRATT: And so I work with those kids that are very physically aggressive, verbally aggressive, they can struggle with sexually acting out, also suicidal, homicidal ideation, really intense behaviors.

JESSE EUBANKS: Okay so the place where Will works, it’s a psychiatric residential treatment facility here in Louisville. So after a kid like Trent is admitted to the hospital, he will then go to a treatment center like this one. And Will says about half the kids that he works with, they come from the foster care system.

WILL PRATT: Some of the kids come to us with foster families and then had to leave their foster families and are no longer able to go back to their foster families because of how much they’ve struggled. 

JESSE EUBANKS: So I asked Will if he had any kids at the center that are like that now,  who weren’t able to go back to be with their foster families yet because their behavior’s so dangerous. And without hesitation, he told me about a 12-year-old boy named James.

WILL PRATT: James hated me when he first got there. He — everytime he was upset, he would target me. Really physically aggressive, he was trying to punch at me, he was trying to like — well he defecates on himself. Kids who typically do that have a history of like sexual abuse or sexual trauma, and they use that as a defense mechanism. And then he’ll start throwing his poop at you basically. And the littlest thing could set him off. Like for instance, this past week I asked him to fold his pants and then he like threw a fit and started crying and sobbing on the floor. 

JESSE EUBANKS: So the reality for a foster kid is that they don’t feel like they can trust anyone. I mean either they’ve been abused or neglected, maybe bounced from home to home. They can be coming from some very dark pasts. And they’re just kids. And they don’t have the emotional maturity to express their feelings in a healthy way. And so they get violent and they act out. And so as part of Will’s job, they practice what’s known as SCM, which stands for Safe Crisis Management. It’s a set of approved physical restraints. And they’ll hold the children in these restraints as a means to de-escalate the situation and calm them down, to keep everybody safe, including the kid. And recently James had a day where he was so out of control that he kept having to be restrained repeatedly.

WILL PRATT: One time I remember, maybe two months ago, I went through four different restraints with him in the course of three hours one day. He was being violent, he was throwing stuff, he was punching at us. He was trying to strip naked and throw his poop at us. And we would have to do restraints for like 20 to 30 minutes while this kid is screaming and crying. And like he would just scream ‘Break me, break me, break me.’ By the fourth restraint, like, not only was he screaming ‘Break me, break me,’ he was screaming ‘I want to die like my mother. Like I want to kill myself like my mother.’ I just, I had to be switched out, like I — he calmed down for a minute and I had to go to the office and I had to like take some self time and like cry a little bit, just process through that because I love this kid so much. But what he’s been through in his trauma and what he struggles with, he doesn’t believe that anybody cares about him, he doesn’t believe that anybody is fighting for him.

RACHEL SZABO: Oh my gosh. That’s awful. I mean when I think about a foster kid, typically I just think like ‘Oh these are kids that just need a little love. And like while that’s true — they do need to be shown what love is — like they’ve just got layers and layers of trauma that — I mean it’s not going to be undone overnight. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Well in Scripture, in the book of James chapter one, y’know, we’re told to visit the orphans and visit the widows in their distress, and we conjure up Facebook profile images of holding sweet babies in our arms because we like our Christianity sanitized. We like the big victorious ending to everything. When the reality is that orphans, y’know, because of what they’ve experienced, they’re likely gonna be relationally and emotionally damaged. And we’re called to visit them — to step into their damaged world. And that just means this is gonna get messy. 

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, and when things get messy, y’know, our initial reaction is to just step out, to get away from it. And so going back to Leila’s story, Trent is in the treatment center and every day Leila’s going to visit him. And the staff at the treatment center are actually asking Leila what she wants to do because one of the options on the table for her is to actually leave Trent at the center and not come back. There’s a clear and acceptable path for her to step out of this mess.

LEILA MORRIS: And I had quite a few people too when he was in the treatment center ask me like ‘What are you gonna do now?’ because, y’know, I could leave him there. In my own humanness, every day I thought of that. I thought of like ‘What if I just don’t come back?’ or tell them that I can’t do this anymore because it was overwhelming to me, but then I realized but this is overwhelming to him and like how sad is it when you’re at your lowest point that because everyone else is overwhelmed that we walk away.

RACHEL SZABO: And so after a week, Trent is discharged from the treatment facility. And Leila decides — to bring him home, to continue to be a foster family. 

JESSE EUBANKS: And I just want to say this, y’know, we are not wanting to pass judgment on any foster parents who have been in similar situations and have chosen to give their children back. Each situation, it is just unique, and none of us can really say what we would or would not do. Some of you have just been in impossible, difficult, no-win situations and have had to make some very difficult decisions. And we just want to extend compassion, not condemnation.

LEILA MORRIS: There’s a way like the textbooks would say to do it or like there’s sound advice that people could give or like you think you would do in a situation of that nature, but we really don’t know until we’re in it. It gave me a deeper compassion for the people who do have to make a choice and do choose to walk away too because there’s no easy decision to make.

RACHEL SZABO: So at the time of our interview, Leila had been taking care of Trent and his sister for six weeks. And the hope is that Trent and his sister can be reunited with a family member. But the reality is — there’s just no telling how long that process is gonna take. 

JESSE EUBANKS: And so the real question is, I mean, does this make any difference? I mean, sacrificing your life for a foster kid, sticking with them, trying to love them — does any of that really change them in the end? Well to find out, we talked to this gentleman.

JIM SHIELDS: Somebody was asking me about like ‘What’s your deal?’ And I’m like ‘I was a foster kid.’ And they were like ‘What do you mean you were a foster kid? What?’ 

JESSE EUBANKS: Stay with us.

COMMERCIAL

JESSE EUBANKS: Welcome back to the Love Thy Neighborhood podcast. I’m Jesse Eubanks.

RACHEL SZABO: And I’m Rachel Szabo. Today’s episode is where the gospel meets foster care. So far we’ve heard from Leila and Will about the real struggles of caring for foster kids. And so we wanted to know — is this struggle worth it? Does having to hold a kid like James in a restraint for thirty minutes or taking a kid like Trent to a therapy session that just blows up in your face — does any of this make any difference in the lives of these kids?

JESSE EUBANKS: And to answer that, we asked someone who grew up in the foster care system. And his name is Jim Shields.

JIM SHIELDS: My mom was never abusive in the sense that she would hit us or strike us, but it was just a neglect. Uh, the house was, um, you just imagine a hoarder with four children. Laundry, dirty laundry everywhere. Cats, there was just always cats. And not well-maintained, so it was always, it always smelled bad, it was dirty. We would go to school and literally have cat feces on our clothes. And you were so, I guess, numbed by it that you didn’t even notice until you got to school and got teased about it. So it was just a very dirty environment. 

JESSE EUBANKS: And while his mom wasn’t abusive, Jim had other family members who were.

JIM SHIELDS: So my earliest memory was being sexually abused in a pickup truck. I was preschool age. And that happened repeatedly until, um, you know throughout preschool.

JESSE EUBANKS: And then when his mom got married, Jim’s stepdad — he was also abusive.

JIM SHIELDS: You know, the abuse started with him the physical abuse. Being the oldest, I sort of took the brunt of it because he, y’know, he would look to me to be the quote unquote man of the house when he wasn’t there.

JESSE EUBANKS: And so around eight years old, Jim is basically taking care of the house — watching his siblings, doing all the dishes, making all the meals.

JIM SHIELDS: A lot of cooking, a lot of cleaning, a lot of, y’know, and obviously at some point you’ve gotta do some schoolwork in there too. And it was sort of a Lord of the Flies environment with, y’know, four kids, y’know. Some people talk about, y’know, the best shoes and a cool jacket and great music, and I’m like ‘It’s cool that I get to eat today. It’s cool that I didn’t get the crap kicked out of me by the people who are supposed to be caring for me.’

JESSE EUBANKS: And as Jim grew older, he started becoming aware of his circumstances and his reality. And he no longer wanted anything to do with it.

JIM SHIELDS: It was like when I turned 14, 15, I was really cognizant of what was happening. I was more mature than most of the adults that I knew at that point. All of the men who had been in my life had been, with very few exceptions, were, y’know, using or abusing me in some way, and I just said ‘That’s not gonna happen anymore. If it kills me and it knocks me out or gets me killed, I’m not letting another person put their hands on me.’

JESSE EUBANKS: And so Jim ran away from home. Eventually, the cops found him. And once the situation at home was assessed, Jim was taken before a family court judge.

JIM SHIELDS: I do remember the judge asking me ‘Do you want to go to a group home or do you want to go to a foster home and be like a family?’ I didn’t know what family meant, but I knew that in the group home that it felt like a jail, be hard to escape. But if I was in a house, now that I could run away from. So I remember thinking ‘Yeah, put me in a foster home dummy. Y’know, the first chance I get I’m out.

JESSE EUBANKS: So Jim was placed in his very first foster home, and this foster home was on a farm.

JIM SHIELDS: It was a steer farm, and they were looking for young boys who were, y’know, between the ages of 12 and 15 that really were strong enough to do the labor but not really savvy enough to understand that they were really using the system. And, y’know, it took me about a week to sort of figure out what their game was.

JESSE EUBANKS: And one day the father laid a hand on Jim, and you remember, that was something that he vowed would never happen again.

JIM SHIELDS: And he sat on my chest and hit me in the face. And I looked him in the eyes and told him I know where your guns are at and I’m gonna kill ya. And I meant it. It was that commitment that I had made to myself never to let another person abuse me or touch me. I never want to hurt any other human being, but I’m not willing to be hurt.

JESSE EUBANKS: After that, Jim’s case worker came. When she found out what was going on, all the foster kids were removed from that home. Including Jim. Jim was placed with a new foster family — a lady named Carol and her husband Gary.

JIM SHIELDS: He was a little short guy, worked at Bethlehem Steel as a crane operator. I remember sizing him up. I’m like ‘It’s a little guy. I can take him, y’know, I can get out of here.’ Y’know. And again, within the first five or six minutes, I’m already thinking of my escape. And can I take this person? How would I do that? How do I escape danger? Because I was so in tune with I’m in danger regardless of where I was.

JESSE EUBANKS: So the case worker leaves Jim with his new foster dad Gary. And Gary tells Jim he’s got something for him. 

JIM SHIELDS: Gary said ‘Alright, come on. I wanna take you out to the garage’ and I’m like ‘Alright, here it comes. I’m getting ready. Here comes the fist, y’know.’ And he showed me this row of dirt bikes and he said ‘I understand you like motorcycles.’ Yep, I said I do, and he goes ‘Alright pick one.’ And I’m like ‘I’ll play your game,’ and I pointed to this yellow two stroke Yamaha dirt bike. And he goes, he said ‘That is your responsibility.’ He said ‘You’re gonna pay for the fuel, you’ll pay for all of those things, you’ll maintain it on your own. If you break it, you’re gonna pay for it.’ He goes ‘Now if you get in trouble, you’re not riding it.’ And then he put his hand on my shoulder. He said ‘I’ll never lay my hands on you.’ And um, that family welcomed me in. I felt safe. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Jim stayed with Gary and Carol until he turned 18. At 18 you age out of the foster care system, which means the state no longer compensates the foster parents.  And since throughout his whole life Jim had never been wanted without any conditions, he figures Gary and Carol won’t want him anymore either. 

JIM SHIELDS: So, you know, why would they keep me? By that time I wanted to stay there, but I’m like ‘Who’s gonna — like they’re not getting paid. Why would they keep me? There’s no more check for them.’

JESSE EUBANKS: So Jim starts packing up his things.

JIM SHIELDS: That night Gary and Carol pulled me to the kitchen table, and they said ‘Why do you want to leave?’ I said ‘I don’t, I don’t want to leave’ but I said, y’know, ‘State’s gonna quit paying.’ And they’re like ‘Jimmy, you’re part of the family. We don’t have you here for the check. We love you.’ That changed me. I don’t wanna say my mom didn’t love me. She didn’t know how to do that. This family who had no incentive to do so cared not only for me, but they had been fostering as I understood it for like 19 years. I was one of their last kids that they were ever going to bring in. And uh, they said ‘You’re part of the family, Jim.’ 

JESSE EUBANKS: It is hard for me to think of a more clear picture of the gospel than this moment. Here’s Jim who’s broken and wounded and hurt and feels terrified by all the people around him, and here it is that this family, they welcome him in, and even when there’s no paycheck for them, they just give of themselves freely. And that, that is a clear picture of the gospel. God comes to us, and he says ‘I wanna take you into the family, and there’s nothing in it for me. I’m just simply doing it because I love you.’  

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, like that’s, that’s something that everybody wants, like not just foster kids. Like that’s a universal longing.

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, I love this story.

I mean, but here’s the reality. I mean even though being loved by Gary and Carol had changed him, I mean that doesn’t mean that the rest of Jim’s story is perfect. So in fact shortly after having that conversation with them in the kitchen, Jim actually did the surprising thing — he left.

JIM SHIELDS: I ran away that summer, literally snuck out a window in the middle of the night. I remember them calling me and going ‘Jim, we want you back.’ Again, there’s no money, there’s no — they just want to take care of me. But I ran away, and it became very uncomfortable to be loved. I didn’t know what was going on at the time. I was just like ‘I can’t.’ I didn’t know how to deal with this new thing. I didn’t know how to be loved.

JESSE EUBANKS: So when Jim ran away he actually ran away to try to reconnect with his mom, but that did not work out. So Jim actually ended up joining the Navy. And fast forward through time, Jim now actually has a family of his own and he’s got a great job. And when people find out that he’s a foster care kid, a lot of folks just can’t believe it. They’re shocked because Jim defies a lot of the stereotypes of the foster care kids. He didn’t end up going to prison, he’s pretty emotionally healthy, and that investment that Gary and Carol, his foster parents, made in his life, that love that they showed to him, it has stayed with him. Something else that Jim does is he volunteers with an organization called Orphan Care Alliance, where he shares his story in order to be a mouthpiece for other kids that are in the foster care system. And he wants to see kids impacted in the same way that he was. 

JIM SHIELDS: And I’m going to mess it up, but Reagan said that we can’t do something for everyone but everyone can do something for someone. And if you’re looking for that reward or looking for that payoff it may never come, and I know there were so many people that helped me that will never see the payoff, that have never seen my family. That, you know, the fact that I’ve been to college, that I’ve been around the world, that I’m now able to give back and take, y’know, these lessons to other people and encourage them. They never saw that. So if you’re that person who wants to do some good, you may never see it but do the good anyway. Because every once in a while, a young kid gets through and ends up becoming a contributing member of society. And uh, it’s doing the good because it’s good and let God do the rest.

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, and let me just say this too, that some of you out there who are listening to this episode, you’re thinking, y’know, this is all great but I’m not going to be a foster parent. Like some people are called to foster parent, but I’m not one of those people. And that is true. Not everyone is called to be a foster parent. Y’know, God says the church has many parts. And so for you,  maybe visiting orphans in their distress looks more like taking a meal to a foster family or hanging out with a foster family. In fact, that has a huge impact too. Here’s Leila again.

LEILA MORRIS: I was like having a major breakdown cuz I brought them to Sunday School and they went all nuts in Sunday School and this lady and her cousin, they saw everything that was happening, and she’s like ‘Come out to lunch with us. I wanna, I wanna go eat with you guys.’ And I was kinda shocked. I was thinking like “Do you know what you’re getting yourself into? Like I don’t want you to be the next person that comes out to lunch with us and then is like ‘Oh okay, never mind, like you should return these children.’” But they took us out to lunch and that was like the most refreshing thing ever, like one of them, her cousin, like sat with the two kids and she sat with me to talk a little bit and then we joined them and like I felt so refreshed after. It gave me like the energy and like the motivation to keep going. And every day we wake up like it’s a new day and like it’s a new chance to try again.

JESSE EUBANKS: One translation of the book of Ecclesiastes 11:4 says ‘If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done.’ And the good news for us is that God didn’t wait until things were perfect. In fact, it’s when things were at their worst that God gave his most. In foster care, it isn’t about waiting for perfect conditions. It’s when things aren’t perfect that kids need us the most. 

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JESSE EUBANKS: To learn more about becoming a foster parent, visit our resource section. There you will find a link to Kentucky’s child placing agencies. For other ways to get involved, visit Orphan Care Alliance at orphancarealliance.org. You can find all these links, as well as past episodes of this podcast, by visiting lovethyneighborhood.org/podcast.

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JESSE EUBANKS: Special thank you to our interviewees for this episode — Leila Morris, Will Pratt, and Jim Shields.

RACHEL SZABO: Our senior producer and host is Jesse Eubanks.

JESSE EUBANKS: Our co-host today is Rachel Szabo, who is also our producer, technical director, editor, and my kids’ favorite babysitter.

RACHEL SZABO: Additional editing by Janelle Dawkins and Justice Smith.

JESSE EUBANKS: Music for today’s episode comes from Lee Rosevere, Podington Bear, Blue Dot Sessions, and Murphy DX. Murphy DX also did our theme music and our commercial music.

RACHEL SZABO: Apply for your social justice internship supported by Christian community by visiting lovethyneighborhood.org. Serve for a summer or a year. Grow in your faith and life skills.

JESSE EUBANKS: Which of these was a neighbor to the man in need? The one who showed mercy. Jesus tells us, ‘Go, and do likewise.’