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.
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