"CARING FOR KIDS IN CRISIS"

Sonlight Ministries of New Mexico

[Pastor Don, an ordained minister, has ministered in fulltime Christian service since 1975, pastoring churches since 1980. His current ministry, Sonlight Ministries of New Mexico, is an evangelical, non-denominational, Christian outreach ministry fellowship, in Tijeras, New Mexico. Also, the Schink family attend Calvary Chapel East in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where they are supportive and enjoy participating in a loving fellowship where Gary Cowen is their favorite pastor.]

A Heartfelt Passion Realized:

Chapter One:

This particular segment is about how my wife [Kathy] and I became involved in foster care and adoption. To date, we have fostered three [3] different sets of siblings and then went on to adopt four [4] siblings. Next we became involved in taking in kids for treatment foster care. We love kids and are very thankful for each one that the Lord has allowed to come our way. We love those whom we have adopted as much as we could love any kids. We thank God for each of them.

It all started in the spring of 2005. My mom showed Kathy and I an article that she found in the Albuquerque Sunday newspaper that caught her eye regarding siblings who were up for adoption. They were sisters. Their picture accompanied a short write-up about them. Mom thought that we might be interested in possibly adopting these girls. She didn’t know that we had already discussed the possibility of becoming involved in either foster care or adoption. She also was unaware of the process involved in making such a thing happen.

Kathy and I had discussed our interest amongst ourselves a few years earlier as a result of visiting with workers at the State of New Mexico’s Children, Youth and Families Department [CYFD] booth at the New Mexico State Fair, in 2001. However, at that time, we were not in a position to follow up at that time. We both agreed that if the Lord provided the opportunity in the future that we were both open to it.

Kathy was adopted as a baby. Also, her mom who raised her was also adopted. Shortly before Kathy and I met one another, Kathy had been contacted by a social worker from the State of Minnesota, asking her permission to allow siblings to contact her. She had been unaware of her birth family’s information. So it came as quite a shock. As she got over the shock, she granted permission for them to contact her. She discovered that she had two brothers, one in Florida and the other in Minnesota. It wasn’t long after that that she and her siblings got together. It was a great reunion.

Kathy’s parents had a natural daughter of their own. They adopted Kathy. They also adopted another child, named Steve, who has been a great brother ever since! Suddenly, as a result of that phone call, Kathy discovered that she had the other brothers! You can imagine the excitement that this event generated as they discovered and met one another!

My own interest in foster care and adoption began as a result of meeting a man who worked with my dad in a machine shop in Elmira, New York. Suddenly, the Meredith Wheelock family made an impact on my dad. Then, as I met this family, my own heart was deeply touched, as a young boy.

Meredith and Shirley Wheelock had three natural sons and three foster girls when I first met them. Meredith had extended an invitation to my dad for our family to spend a Sunday with them, which we did. It was a very impressive meeting. We went to church with them that morning, shared Sunday dinner together, and then we went back to church that evening where we kids were included in an old-fashioned taffy pull after the evening service. It was a great day that I would never forget!

What really impressed me was when I discovered that the girls were in foster care, yet seemed to have blended so nicely with the Wheelocks. I would never have known that they weren’t their natural daughters if they hadn’t have told us.

Over a period of several years, the Wheelocks fostered and adopted a number of children. Then Shirley became ill and went to be with the Lord. In time, Meredith remarried. I met his second wife when they came to visit me while I was pastoring a church at Watkins Glen, New York. She struck me as being a very nice lady and an answer to the prayers of the family. She was very supportive and continued foster care and adoption with Meredith.

As I relate this story to you, my mind goes back to an obituary in the Elmira Star-Gazette that I read over the Internet when Meredith passed away. It glowed with his greatest achievement. It was that of reaching out and trusting the Lord to enable and equip him with the gift of loving and caring for a large number of children that his heart and life had touched and rescued over the years. The obituary listed his survivors, which included his natural sons and also a large number of other kids that had become an important part of his family through the foster care and adoption process! The legacy that he left behind is very precious. It is very impressive.

The Meredith Wheelock family’s successes spoke to my heart and impacted my life from childhood to adult. I knew that if the Lord ever allowed me to be in a position to do so, that I, too, would become involved in foster care and adoption. So when Kathy and I met and discovered that we had this common interest, we realized this to be a part of the Lord’s guidance for us as a couple. Mom’s sharing the article about the siblings from the Albuquerque Sunday paper stimulated renewed interest in both Kathy and myself.

Our own natural kids are grown. We are both very glad that we decided to take this route. It is full of both trials and blessings alike. However, the blessings outweigh the trials. We plan to continue reaching out to kids in crisis in various ways as long as the Lord allows us to do so. We also encourage others to do the same.

A Typical Morning:

Chapter Two:

It's another Monday morning. I wake up, look at the clock and see that it's 5:30 a.m. I doze off for a bit, fifteen minutes, actually. As I 'come to' again, I see my wife, Kathy, who had just gotten up, getting ready for work. That's cool. Usually she gets up later than this and leaves last minute for the drive to town, often even a little bit late. As I gather my thoughts, I think as to how I could say either, "Good Lord, Morning?" or "Good morning, Lord!" I decide on the latter. I've always tried to look at the positive side of things. But I'm also a bit of a realist as to how things aren't always what we'd like them to be, which can affect our mental outlooks.

I've made the decision that, as much as is within me, I'm going to trust the Lord for a great day. I already know that there are situations that can challenge that. There is a funeral service for a close friend of ours from church who died unexpectedly in a violent car crash. He was up in Iowa on a business trip when the accident happened. No one knows whether this was caused by a heart attack, an error in judgment or something else. But whatever the cause, we have lost a great, gentle giant whose love and devotion for the Lord is unquestionable, leaving a positive impact on all of us.

As I linger in bed for a few more minutes, communing with the Lord in prayer, I hear our adopted 15 year-old daughter, Samantha, in the kitchen, getting ready for school. It comes to my mind that I need to write her a note for school due to her missing a day of school for not feeling well. So I get up, write the note, discussing the upcoming events of the day, including picking her up from school midday for the funeral. It's a cool, crisp fall morning, still dark, so I decide to drive her to the bus stop, at the bottom of our hill.

My mind goes back to how when Samantha and her brothers first moved in with us, in August of 2006, she was quick to inform me that she didn't trust men. I was aware of an abusive history that she and her siblings had experienced. She, as a young female, had been exposed to more than a young girl ever should. So I assured her that I understood. I know that it would take some time for her to comes to grips with the trust issue. At that point in her life, most of the men in her life had been perverts or violent types, resulting in constant danger to her, escalated by the men's drug and alcohol abuse. She had learned to guard and protect herself, forming the opinion that men, young and old, alike, are simply not to be trusted. So I realized that if I had been exposed to what she had, I would feel the same.

As time went on, Samantha has come to grips with this issue. There will always be points of caution in her heart and mind, as there should be. However Samantha and I have become very close as dad and daughter. She's my girl. We love each other and she knows that she is safe and secure. She does well in school, relates well with others and seems quite mature in her understanding in a variety of areas.

So, having gotten Samantha on her school bus, I realize that it's time to wake up the rest of the kids. My adopted sons, Jesus, 12, and Cypress, 11, need to get up and ready before it gets too late. As I call them, Jesus gets up and begins to get ready. Cypress dozes back off to sleep. I wake up our 11 year-old foster daughter, Gabrielle. She doesn't like to get up any better than Cypress, but she does OK this morning. Cypress isn't as easy to get up. Finally, I take in a squirt bottle of water that we use to keep the cats off of our counter tops. A light spray prompts him to get up. As Kathy goes out the door for work, I monitor breakfast and medications for each of the kids. It's daylight now so they can walk together to the bus stop.

Nearly two-and-a-half years ago, when the kids first came to us, both Jesus and Cypress had been diagnosed with ADHD and are both still on medication. This effects them in a variety of ways, due to limited ability to stay focused on tasks and being overly hyper. Jesus was struggling with a speech impediment and was overweight. His foster dad told us that Jesus sounded like he came from New York City, rather than New Mexico, due to his being unable to pronounce words with the letter "r" in them. He was a special education student. As of today, his speech is normal. He has slimmed down to a normal weight, mostly due to a change in his medication. Jesus likes to please people. That is in his favor as it results in his trying hard to be successful in completing chores and other tasks, at home or in school. One of Jesus' seventh grade teachers seems to have taken a special interest in him. She feels that he is doing so well that he should no longer be in special education classes. I agree. He's becoming a fine young man. Now if I can just get him and his brother to keep their room clean and picked up, I would be happier. But I realize that they are typical young boys and we love them as they are.

Cypress has been a cute boy, with a smile that seems to allow him to get away with much more than he should. This morning, as the kids were ready to go out the door to catch the school bus, I decide to do a quick back pack search. As I do so, I find that Cypress is attempting to sneak a "Game Boy" to school. I remove it, reminding him of the importance of being obedient and honest. He has been struggling in school and we are working close with his teacher and the principle in a concerted effort to keep him focused on the right things and keep out of trouble. Kathy and I have noted as to how Cypress is dealing with issues that Jesus was a year ago. Jesus is doing much better. And we are reminded that Cypress has come a long way, too.

Interestingly enough, the Lord has given us a deep, abiding love for each of the kids. We see that they have responded well to our love, and have bonded very well with us. As time has gone one, they have become increasingly distant from the influence and the effects of the past. We encourage them to keep in contact with those family members who are loving and decent people. We intentionally provide opportunities for them to do so. When the kids first came to us, we learned that they had not seen their grand parents in a long time. So we contacted them and got the kids together with the grandparents as quickly as we could. Everyone was overjoyed and acted as though we'd given them the winning lottery numbers! Family is important. In fact, we took them to an uncle's wedding last weekend. Their blood relatives have gone out of their way to express their gratitude toward our willingness to reunite the kids with them. We feel that this is what the Lord would have us to do and trust that this is teaching the kids a valuable lesson on the importance of maintaining positive family relationships.

Kathy and I both thoroughly love and appreciate our adoptive kids. We also enjoy the privilege of sharing our love with various foster kids who come to us, from time to time. I can honestly say that of all of the things that I have been involved in over my lifetime, that taking in these kids stands as one of the most important and rewarding things that I've ever done. Even in trying times, I have absolutely no second thoughts or regrets over fostering and adopting these kids. Kathy and I both love them dearly. It now seems as though they've always been with us. We can't imagine life without them. They are precious gifts and we thank the Lord daily for each of them!
So as spokespersons for the cause of foster care and adoption, we have first-hand, day-by-day experience. We never know what one day will bring and it is often totally unexpected. There are many complications. Overall, the rewards far outweigh the trials. When people ask us how we do it at our ages, I simply reply, "We don't know any better. We think it's great!" Yes, we do!

You Sure That You Want To Do This?

Chapter three:

So you want to foster and/or adopt kids? What for? Why? What is your motivation? You really want to prayerfully think it over before you consider such an undertaking. It’s not always a thrill a minute. In fact, at times, it can be a very thankless undertaking. It will change your life forever. It will change you. It will affect and change those who are close to you.

If you are married, you certainly want to make sure that you and your spouse are in one accord. You see, it takes a very special love and a strong commitment to the extent that even if the very worst that can happen, actually happens, you have what it takes not to bale out. When things get tough, the tough keep on keeping on! There’s no room for failure. Once you’ve made the commitment, you’re in it for the long haul.

If you can’t handle it, don’t even start.When people ask us why we do what we do, we simply tell them, “We don’t know any better. We think it’s great!” It’s a love thing. It is a strong commitment, as Christians, that this is a part of our ministry outreach. Kathy’s dad wanted to know why we were taking on kids when we should be gearing down and looking forward to doing the lifestyle that retired folks do! As time has gone on, he has respected our decision. In fact, he has become very supportive, which we appreciate.

In training, those who run the classes attempt to give worse case scenarios so that there is no doubt in a person’s mind that it is often a very tough mission. By the time that a child reaches your foster or adoptive home, he or she has been through some pretty tough stuff. Their trust levels are normally pretty low. You may have good intentions however as a care giver, you will be tested by these kids. All too often, these kids will really test you to extremes. They want to see if you are really for real. They want to see if you care enough to hang in with them no matter what they may throw at you. Rest assured, as a foster and/or adoptive parent, you will be tested.

Kathy and I have been doing this long enough that we’ve seen a wide variety of scenarios. As I write this, we have three of our adoptive kids still living at home. We also are involved in treatment foster care, which is quite challenging, to say the least. Kids in treatment foster care have a variety of issues, physically, emotionally, or mentally ill. They’ve been neglected, beat on, raped or about anything else that can happen to kids. They haven’t asked for any of it.

These kids are the victims of adult birth parents who all too often have no idea as to what constitutes a real mom or dad. If they did, they wouldn’t treat their offspring as they do. Such parents are often drug addicts or alcoholics who are so caught up in their own situations that they can no longer properly love and care for their kids. They’ve become their own worst enemies, on destructive courses, destroying their own hearts and lives, along with those who are closest to them.

Some situations are redeemable. There are cases where the kids are taken away from them and then later returned after the parents have been redeemed through various rescue efforts and programs designed to bring them back to the point as to where they can be effective parents again. However, there are many more who can never return to their original families and who need continual loving guidance and assistance to enable them to go on to live productive lives, in site of what has happened in their past.

As such, these kids often have a variety of unresolved issues that result from their past situations. They come with a lot of baggage that needs to be dealt with. They are often angry or violent. It is not unusual for them to need therapy and/or psychological counseling, needing a variety of medications to help them cope with daily situations. There are behavioral issues that surface, due to frustration, uncertainty and a variety of issues that they need releases from.

We had two foster girls, Alieza and Shana, who got out of control one afternoon. Aliza had displayed a variety of behavioral issues. We had been patient with her, discussing situation as they came up. There reached a point where her bad behavior continued and had to be dealt with. We cannot treat one kid differently than others. Can we? Well, in reality, you may very well have different standards and methods that you’ve been used to using with your own kids. You will discover that they may or may not necessarily match what is taught to you and expected of you in training classes.

At any rate, after lots of discussions, letting them know what we expect of them, so that there is no doubt as what our standards and expectations are, continued bad behavior leads to necessary action. That’s what happened with Alieza. She kept up with the offensive behavior as though we’d never said a word. The last offense may not seem all that much. But it was the principle of the thing.

I had bought Alieza some candy at a time when her behavior was better. She decided to pull it out and eat it in front of the other kids. Kathy had told her that she could eat it but to do so away from the other kids as this was her special treat. But instead, she defiantly walked out and sat herself between our two boys, opened the candy wrapper and began eating it in front of the boys, as if Kathy had never said a work. So I went out, discussed why this was wrong and grounded her from certain privileges for the next week.

I got along fairly well with both girls, overall. But Shana hated women. She was fine with guys but wanted little to do with females. So, when Kathy asked her to do something that she didn’t want to do, she went to head-butt Kathy. Kathy reacted quickly, dodging the attack, grabbing her by the wrists and setting her down in a lawn chair. I talked to Shana and we got her calmed down. Kathy went into the house to find Alieza on the telephone, screaming, “Grandma, help us! Call the cops! Get over here! They’re trying to kill us!” She was obviously feeding on Shana’s actions. So now we had both of them acting out at the same time. Kathy told Alieza to hang up the phone. Instead, Alieza hit Kathy in the face with the phone, resulting in Kathy getting a bloody nose and a black eye!

After we got things calmed down, we called our social worker, who talked to both girls on the telephone, getting them both to promise that they’d behave. Shortly after, they ran away together! So this involved the police, social workers, a state investigator from the state agency, and even medical workers. It seems that the girls called the police, telling them that their foster parents had beat them up and that they needed help. So the cops picked them up, took them to the country hospital for checkups, and called other authorities. Soon, Kathy and I were being interviewed by various authorities. Fortunately, everything had been done by the book, according to our training. So there was no problem with the restraint or resultant issues.

We were told that the girls would be placed elsewhere. Shana was on probation and so they debated on arresting her but decided against it at the time. But then the next day, our local director of The Bair Foundation, said that we weren’t allowed to use restraints. We questioned why they had taught us to do so in the first place if it wasn’t allowed. We also questioned them as to what they would suggest as to how things could have been handled differently. They agreed that Kathy was put in a position where she had no other choice. However, rules were still rules and she was put on a probationary status, by our local director. It didn’t matter that the police, the state investigators and other social workers all told us that we did the right thing and that the situation was obviously not avoidable.

The only thing that I could think of that might have been different is that if Shana would have come at me like that, I suppose I could always have stepped aside quickly and let the momentum of her attack launch her head on into the porch railing. Then someone still would have questioned why we let her shed her blood as she busted her head open on the porch railing. I suppose that could have been done. However, some idiot would probably have rebuked us for not restraining her! So our director insisted that Kathy take another training class, one that we’d already taken and had both done fine with.

She insisted that it wasn’t a personal attack. Kathy clearly feels that it was. I can’t say that I blame her. Our director seems to have decided that, even though all of the investigators clearly decided that Kathy had done nothing wrong, she needed to punish Kathy. So she did. Not only did she have to retake that class, but we were restricted from taking in more kids for a few months! Neither punishment was necessary and prevented us from the ministry to these kids that we feel so clearly called to do!

Why do I relate this account to you? I do so because you simply don’t know at any time when something will happen that is beyond your control. There have been cases where men have been accused of sexually assaulting girls, simply because a girl decides that she does not want to be in a particular home any more. And in cases like this, a man is assumed guilty until proven innocent. A stigma hangs over his head and his home long after he is shown to be innocent and declared to be a fit parent after all. Fortunately, I’ve never had that one come at me, but we know that this has happened to innocent families who are trying to simply give loving guidance as they feel the Lord leading them to do. Yes, taking in kids is truly risky business! As a foster parent, you have to constantly be on guard to avoid negative situations.

Overall, there are lots of kids out there who simply need a break. They need those of us who are willing to lovingly reach out to them, giving them the loving guidance and the stability that they so desperately need. We have personally met a lot of these kids. As such, we are determined to obediently follow the Lord’s calling that is such a crucial part of our ministry. Yes, as His Word says, in James 1:27, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world” [New International Version].

It’s A Love Thing:

Chapter four

Hopefully, we didn’t scare you too much with what you’ve read so far. In reality, we love being involved in both foster care and adoption. We’ve been involved long enough now that we’ve had a variety of experiences. Most of it has been good. We fostered three different sets of siblings first. Then we were contacted about the possibility of adoption. As I write this, our adopted kids have been with us for about two-and-a-half years so far. It seems as though they’ve always been ours.

We are taken back to reality from time to time as we allowed what is known as an open adoption. That basically means that we know their birth family and they know us. It also means contact with them from time to time. We have always been a bit cautious with the birth parents because they lost the kids due to their neglect, drug and alcohol use, violent behavior and other types of abuse. We do allow supervised visits from time to time but we made sure that legal documents were carefully worded so that we would have sufficient control, in the best interest of the kids.

We originally adopted the younger three kids first. Our sons were nine and ten and our daughter was twelve at the time. It wasn’t always easy but Kathy and I did so with the assurance that we were doing so in the Lord’s will for us, as well as for them. Our original kids are grown and on their own. In getting acquainted, we started out with short visits. The first time, their foster mom met us in a park, where we showed up with sandwiches, chips and soda. It was a positive meeting. It went well. This was followed by a series of meetings and phone calls over the next several weeks. Next, we met at the foster parents’ home. Then we began taking them out for pizza and other activities. As time went on, we brought them up to our mountain home, first for one night, then two, to give them opportunity to adjust and to accept their new circumstances. They indicated that this was what they wanted. So we finally were able to move them in.

That day, as we were unloading their earthly goods from the car into the house, our youngest stood in the middle of the living room and said, “Good! Now we’re finally home!” Our middle one seemed to take it all in stride. Our daughter, the oldest, who was twelve years old at the time, told me, “I just want you to know. I don’t trust men.” Knowing what she had been exposed to, I said, “That’s OK. I understand completely. If I had gone through what you have, I’d feel the same way.” I knew that over a period of time, she would be OK. But I also knew that it would take time and a fair amount of therapy, which it did. To make a long story short, she and I are extremely close now. She has related several times that she is fine with me and that she is glad that I am her dad. I assure her that I am glad that she is my daughter, and a fine one at that.

As time goes on, we have our good days, as well as trying times. However, I can honestly say that it is a privilege to parent these kids. Interestingly, the Lord has given both Kathy and I a precious love for each of these kids that is far beyond what we could have realized in the beginning days. We are clearly a family and gladly so! It’s a love thing!

About a year later, their sixteen-year-old sister who didn’t want to be adopted related that she had come to the place where she did indeed want us to adopt her. She had observed how happy that her siblings were and felt that she was missing out. So we adopted her as well. She came with a lot of emotional damage. She had an extremely unhealthy stubborn streak. She also turned out to be very jealous of her younger sister. After she came into our home, the dynamics changed in a direction that was clearly troublesome.

She was extremely rebellious, dishonest, and bent on having her own way. Shortly after her seventeenth birthday, she ran away with a boy that she had recently met at school. Both of them dropped out of high school. We didn’t know where she was for several weeks. Finally she called me one night. We were relieved to know that she was safe.

However, after she had ran away, we discovered that she had been cruel to her brothers and sister. She had even taken an aluminum baseball bat to her younger sister, being careful to hit her in areas where marks would not show. Then she threatened her with worse if she dared to tell Kathy and I. She believed her so kept it quiet. This, along with accounts of other incidents, came out after the older sister had run away.

As time went on, she ended up back with her birth mom and her mom’s boyfriend, which is the father of her younger siblings. That old lifestyle was all too appealing to her and she gravitated back to it, which was heart-breaking for us. However, the authorities told us that we could do nothing about it. They told us that once she turned seventeen that she could do what she wanted. They also told us that we are legally responsible for her until her eighteenth birthday.

Her boyfriend ended up cheating on her for another girl so they parted company. She became very bored with staying at home. So she decided to go back to school and we did what we could to make that happen as quickly as possible. She is a year behind however we’re just praying that she follows through to graduate from high school.We love her as if she were one of our own and pray for her regularly and encourage her as much as we can. She communicates with us and we are thankful for that.

Other family contacts that we’ve had with the kids’ biological family have been excellent. Shortly after their moving in with us, we discovered that other family members had been not been allowed to see the kids. The social worker would not allow it. So we decided that we needed to do something about this as quickly as possible. I’ll never forget how thrilled that their grandparents were when I called them, explaining who Kathy and I were, and that we were calling to make arrangements to reunite them. One would think that we’d given them the winning lottery numbers! Since then, we’ve met other family members and are thankful that we have mutually accepted and appreciate one another!

We deal with normal family issues, such as with any family. We also enjoy the various foster kids that come our way. Each one comes with their own unique style of challenges and blessings. I couldn’t imagine life without them now! Is it worth it? Absolutely! After all, in the loving grace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, it’s a love thing!

NOTE: This is a work in progress. Stay tuned for more to come as I find time! :)

- Pastor Don