SE
CTION
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FOSTER
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If God and the Church Don’t Help ... By RICK DUBOSE
M
y journey in foster care ministry began in the office of Bishop Aaron Blake. I had spoken at his church’s Sunday morning service. Afterward, he invited me to his office. His first question was what I thought about the children’s choir that had performed during the service. I remarked that it was impressively large for such a small church. “Yes,” Blake said. “They are all foster kids.” He told me about his involvement in foster care. He recited the statistics about the depth of the problem. And he described how his church was making a difference in the lives of many foster children. In fact, he said theirs was the first county in Texas to have more approved foster families than kids who need placement. “What would happen to the foster kids in the rest of the state if you used your platform the way I have used mine?” Blake asked. At the time, I was superintendent of the North
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Texas District Council of the Assemblies of God, which had 550 churches in its ministry network. When I said I didn’t know, he asked whether I would consider praying about it. “No,” I said. “You don’t have to pray about things the Bible already commands. I’m in.” The next thing I knew, I was attending a lunch event for leaders who worked with the foster care system. I sat between a Children’s Court judge and an official in the Texas Board of Criminal Justice, which administers the state prison system. The judge shared the story of the first child he removed from an abusive home and placed in foster care. Sixteen years later, he encountered her again. By then, she was an adult. She was also the abusive mother of a child who was entering the system. “Reverend” he said, “if God and the Church don’t help us, all our effort is in vain.” Then the prison official chimed in: “Pastor, I determine how many beds we will need in our prisons based on how many kids age out of the foster care system. That system only works when the right people are in it.”
