Series: Women of Valor~Keitha Parton

I have known Keitha Parton all my life, but there were many years that we did not see each other. When I saw her again, her son pictured in the middle was about two months old. I greatly admire both her and her husband for the Godly work that they do.  

PPM: How did God move you (and Scott) to become foster parents in the beginning?

My body and pregnancy just didn’t go together. I stayed morbidly sick with each pregnancy and spent more time in the hospital, hooked up to IV fluids, than I did at home. So, when our youngest daughter was born, we made the decision for me to have a tubal ligation, which was a procedure that would render me infertile. Scott and I had always wanted more children, but just couldn’t have them. Then, in the early 2000’s I found out I was pregnant, and we were ecstatic!! What a blessing and a miracle at the same time. Then, several days later I miscarried and we were devastated. After grieving for our loss, we decided that we would like to pursue adopting a child. We checked into international adoption and the cost was way beyond anything we could ever afford. We checked into domestic adoption and were afraid that we would get a child, become attached, then the birth family would change their mind. So we started to pray that God would either take the burden for more children away, or let me conceive again. That didn’t happen.

At the same time, my sister-in-law was a foster parent in a neighboring county. She would often tell me about the children they had living in their home, and the circumstances out of which each was taken was horrific. My heart went out to the children and I wanted to do something. So I called my local DSS to inquire about becoming a foster parent…then got scared and backed away. This went on for about three to four years. In the meantime God started working on us in His subtle, yet obvious, way.

Everywhere we would go, we would see billboards advertising for foster parents. We would hear commercials on the radio and see them on the television. We would hear stories of children who were taken into custody on the news and then we got a flyer in the mail. How many people can say that…in the mail?

I went to my pastor’s wife and said, “I really think God wants us to be foster parents.” She said to me, “If God wants you to do it, you take the first step and He will take care of the rest.”

I once again inquired, we went to MAPP (Model Approach to Partnerships in Parenting) Classes, the required curriculum for the state to be licensed, and the rest, as they say, is history. Out of the whole class of about 10 to 15 couples…Scott and I were the only ones who got licensed, that I know of.

PPM: What has been the biggest thing you have learned from being a foster mom?

The biggest thing that Scott and I have both said that we have learned is but, for the Grace of God, it could have been us involved in the system, and have our children taken away. Throughout our journey, we went from a mentality of “how could anyone treat their child this way,” to thinking, “no wonder they made the choices they did that got their children taken away.” Most of the children that lived with us came from broken homes, where the parents were themselves raised in neglectful, abusive, and addiction-filled homes. You hear the phrase all the time the apple doesn’t fall that far from the tree and, unfortunately, we learned firsthand how correct that statement is. Sometimes, we got to see a light go off in the parents’ head, and they actually took the steps required to change the patterns of abuse that they had been subjected to all their lives. They would work their case plan, and get their children back, thus the cycle of abuse stopped with them. In other instances, the parents were never able to pull it together and change what they had always known, so the children would then be placed in adoptive homes. God thought enough of Scott and I to make sure we were raised in good homes where we were loved, taught what is right and wrong, and led by example of how we are supposed to live. Not everyone is so fortunate, and the cycle continues on with the next generation, and the next, and so forth and so on, until someone takes the steps needed to change it.

PPM: What advice would you give anyone else thinking of going into foster care, especially from the Christian perspective?

The main thing I would tell someone is to pray about it and make sure that God is leading them in this direction, because it is challenging and a blessing at the same time. When anyone  becomes  a foster parent,  they  have  the  potential  to change someone’s life forever.  They will

open their heart and their home to children and birth parents, who will come in and out of their lives, and often get their heart broken by circumstances beyond their control.

A person must have the ability to love each child like their own, but be able to keep in the back of their mind that they are not their children at all. More often than not they will love them and lose them as they watch them move to another location or go back home. A person must have a strong relationship with their spouse, birth children, parents, friends, and neighbors as open communication crucial.  Each child placed in their home will bring challenges, issues, and different outlooks that they are not used to. And, developing a working relationship with their social worker is crucial.  

The second thing I would say is there is a huge need for loving foster homes in this country, and it is a beautiful journey that I would do all over again. But, only with God at my side and the support of my amazing family, church, and community.

Series: Women of Valor~Diane Earley

                              

Diane Earley loves the beach. When she and her husband go on vacation, along with fishing and other beach activities, she loves to walk the shore line, praying and meditating on God’s word. It gives her a sense of peace, with the sound of the waves rolling in, and the warm sand beneath her feet.The scenery and the tranquility sets the tone for her to commune with God in a quiet, intimate environment. In essence, the beach is her prayer closet.

But, since she lives in the mountains, those beach visits are confined to a few days a year. So, Diane brings a little beach back home with her every time she goes. Seashells, a little sand, pictures and large helping of rejuvenation from those walks along the beach.

But, Diane has another love. It’s a love for people, but her heart is especially directed toward young women. In the last several years, God has opened the doors for her to minister to women in various homeless shelter, as well as several jails, and she has seen fruit from her labors. 

Her heart is for the hurting~to help undo the damage done to them from others, and from themselves. The Lord has now moved her and her husband into an orphanage as house parents, where she ministers to young girls from all kinds of backgrounds, with all kinds of issues. Here is a little of her story, in her words, that explains how she got here.

PPM: How did your burden for women, and in particular young women, begin? Did it stem from experiences from your own childhood?

Diane: Yes. It came from not being understood. I know the Lord had my heart from a young age, but from not being fed through the church body, I chose to go to the world. I see now that it was a path that God let me take. And I spent many years there, but I can see where God had His hand on me all the way through it. By man’s standards, I should have been dead, or in jail. 

The people that I hurt should not have been in my life, but God used it to teach me forgiveness by having them forgive me. Through the whole thing, God was teaching me perseverance. It was a lesson in persevering to the end goal.

It was at a young age that I made a “deal” with God. I had always heard of people making deals with the devil, but I made mine with God. If you let me do more than sit on a church pew, when I hit my 30’s, I’ll come back. God kept me to my word, and brought me back. But, He allowed me to go and do what I thought was fun, yet I always knew that He was there. That’s why I kept pouring in the drugs and the alcohol, to create a separation between Him and me, and through all that, trying to fill the void that was His place in my heart. 

I see the same thing in the women in the jails, the homeless shelters, and the girls in the children’s home. Whether it is unhealthy relationships, food, cutting, drugs, or alcohol, they all are trying to fill that void. I look back now, and know that I missed a lot of blessings, and I hurt a lot of people but, I hurt Him most of all. 

PPM: How old were you when God had you honor your end of the deal?

Diane: I was 33. And I hear a lot of people say that when they begin their new walk with Christ, that everything from the old was gone. It wasn’t that way with me; it was step, by step, by step. And that process helps me recognize the different traits in the girls at the home. Because I didn’t get what was needed in my little home church as a young woman, I am sensitive to those young women that seem to “have it” but don’t. They still need guidance. And my past definitely helps me to bear what the kids at the children’s home dish out.

I’ve always said that God has a great sense of humor, with me wanting kids. In never having children of my own, and then Him blessing us so much with *Angelice~with me being in my early 50’s~and being house parents in the children’s home, I something that could not happen naturally.

Even when my mother got Alzheimer’s, I never questioned God as to why. As hard as it was to see her like that, He gave me a child in her. He knew that I could not have handled a sudden separation from her; He knows that those kinds of things has to come in little chunks for me.

I see an element of myself in the kids; I know what they thinking, feeling, and doing. I want to spare them from any of the pain that I walked through, and to encourage them to think about the choices that they make, and what the outcome of that will be. And that helps me to understand that it’s tiny, baby steps that they have to make.

*Angelice is a bubbly 20 month old that the Earley’s have had from birth, and are in the process of adopting.