What support does a foster family crave?

Have you ever been asked how you can support a foster family?  What do they really need to succeed? How can you impact their hearts as they give of themselves to children in their homes.  There are so many things you can do (acts), to list a few: laundry, meals, deliver food, give them a break and watch the kids (this might require first aid and a background check), clean their house, braid hair, take family photos, paper plates, paper towels, yard work, celebrate the child (baby showers), drive them to visits.  Those are all things that will possibly require both time and money.  Not too much of either, but to bless the foster family with one of these acts it will take some of your resources.

Let me suggest those are all well and good, but fall short of the real long term need for a foster parent.  The truth be told, they just need to feel your support, to not be alone. To know that as they stand in the gap for the children in their home they have you with them. I use the phrase "walk out life" too often to express this vital need.  Foster families covet your prayers, your emotional support, you check in via phone/text.  A foster parent needs you to be Aaron in Exodus 17, just to hold their arms up as they fight the battle on front lines.  Want to know how to change the outcome for a foster parent? Go to court hearings, just show up, just be there. Is it fun, nope will you feel like you wasted your day.  This is worthy of shouting, miracles happen when there is a multitude in the room praying for every one involved.  So often the impossible has been reality, just because the foster parents had the presence of support in the court room.

Now for a little heresy, I have joked many times that this is my fictitious life verse. So, I'll leave it here.
1 Corn 13:2 Get off your donkey and serve.

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