Training.

I have to say, even though I was dreading having to go to training for Foster Care and expecting it to be boring, I am now very thankful that this is a requirement to get your license!

Not only was our trainer really great, but the entire "session" was very informative! We both really learned so much. It is also nice to hear things from people who actually know, rather than from "people who know people who have fostered" or even actual foster families who don't give you the entire story when telling you something.

I am blown away with how great every social worker we have had to work with has been. I hear so much negativity about social workers not caring about the children, taking forever to get things done, ignoring you...etc. But our experience has been nothing short of fantastic! I know for a fact that each social worker we have worked with truly cares for these children, and they show it. They might be a little slower than what we want, but everything is going to happen when God want's it to, no matter what kind of social worker we get. They have been a big blessing to us, and we are praying that our child's case worker will be the same.

Today, not only did we learn about the different types of abuse, drugs, and effects they have on children, but we learned about why children may do what they do. Why they may hoard food, why a five year old might eat with his or her hands, why they may be stand offish for a while etc. We also heard some heart breaking, gut wrenching real stories about cases either in our county or in our state. The two that really stuck out to us was a sibling group taken from a home meth lab...who had been given a road kill deer to eat. Yes, a dead deer was placed in the living room for these children to eat when they were hungry. In my state. I cant even begin to imagine something like that...and it was very hard to not get emotional when hearing such awful things.

This one is very sad, but sweet at the same time. A sibling group was put in foster care and had to split up. The oldest of the four was a boy, and right around the time they would go visit his siblings the foster parents noticed that food would come up missing. Cans of food, jars, snacks, drinks..you name it. They soon found out that the boy had been taking the food and putting it in his back pack for when he visited his siblings, then during the visit he would give his siblings the food to make sure that they were eating. :/

What can I even say to that?

After today, I think you could only leave with two different emotions.

Utter fear.

Or the eagerness to help.

Thankfully, we along with the others in the room will be coming back next week, but she said that some don't.

It was also clear that each couple in the room served a God who is bigger than any fears, doubts or worries we could have. That alone rocked!

It has been a good, sad, heart breaking, informative day and has definitely brought us to our knees and given us a totally different outlook now.