What Happened After We Said Yes To Foster Care

Eight years ago, we said yes to foster care.

At the time, we had no idea how much that simple decision would change our lives. We couldn't have imagined the children who would come through our home, the adoptions that would follow, the reunifications we would celebrate, or the lessons God would teach us along the way.

For our 50th episode, we're taking a step back and sharing the story behind Dream Small.

What began after the heartbreak of a miscarriage eventually led us into foster care. We talk about how we first became licensed, what it was like welcoming our very first placement, the trauma that opened our eyes to realities we had never fully understood, and the moments that shaped our family over the past eight years.

Along the way, we've welcomed 14 foster placements into our home, adopted three incredible children, experienced both heartbreak and joy, and learned that God often works through ordinary acts of obedience.

In this episode, we share the hardest parts of foster care, the beautiful moments that made it worthwhile, the importance of community, and why we continue to trust God with whatever comes next.

Whether you've been listening since the beginning or you're brand new to Dream Small, this episode is the most complete version of our story we've ever shared.

In This Episode

• How a miscarriage helped launch our foster care journey

• Why we chose foster care before adoption

• The story of our first placement and the lessons that changed us forever

• What we've learned from eight years of foster care

• The hardest realities foster families face

• The beauty of reunification, adoption, and healing

• How community carried us through difficult seasons

• Why saying yes to God changed our family forever

• The Scriptures that sustained us throughout the journey

• The story behind the name Dream Small

Key Scriptures

Galatians 6:9

Luke 16:10

2 Corinthians 4:18

Romans 12:1

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Speaking Requests

If your church, conference, or organization would like Jason and Whitney to speak about foster care, adoption, faith, leadership, or living a meaningful life through small acts of faithfulness, you can contact them at: [email protected]

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Music Credit

"Paradise Found" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons.

Now I'll never forget. I was doing something. All of a sudden she just stops and look at me and give me a big old gummy baby smile.

And I was like, oh, we're going to make it. Welcome to Dream Small, where we believe God does big things through the small and everyday faithfulness of his people. I'm Jason.

And I'm Whitney. We're a family of eight who's fostered, adopted, and stumbled our way through learning that small, everyday choices can change lives.

In a world that tells you to chase big, we dare you to dream small.

Because you know what? It's not about chasing PA dream. It's about choosing faithfulness. All right, welcome back to another episode of Dream Small.

Not just another episode.

No, this is. Well, I was gonna say this is a really cool episode. It's our 50th episode, and we're being kind of fancy bougie and recording it in a real studio.

In a real studio. Not our basement studio, not our dining room table. At 4am our kid with his 3D printer has taken over. It's pretty cool. We made it to 50 episodes.

Yeah. That's wild. Like, throughout life, we manage that.

Yeah.

Go us.

Go us. Winning.

Yeah.

What are you grateful for today?

50 Episodes, that's a pretty big deal that people listen. You do a great job. I just kind of show up and go along the ride.

I'm the one you definitely have put in the work, and I don't know when or how you make it happen, but you have so well done AI editing. It's been fun to go along for the ride.

I've been learning a lot and helping expedited, and I'm grateful. A friend of ours, Tony Molinaro, owns this company. I'm going to call it a marketing company. I'm not smart with that kind of stuff.

It's called Yellow Line Productions. He invited us into this awesome studio.

Yeah.

To record this and do a video for us. So this is our first live video. You've seen our audiograms. I started making probably a couple months ago, but, yeah. Now we have a real live video.

You see what we actually look like.

Yeah. Leaving the house, Jason was like, you know, this is going to be recorded, Whitney.

Right. I just wanted to make sure that she knew this would be live.

So you're saying I look like poop?

You never look like poop. You look gorgeous.

Well, thank you.

And so for our 50th episode, we figured it would be a good time to kind of do another who we are update. How we got into foster care where we are, and just there's some new listeners.

Wait, you didn't say what you were grateful for?

I did.

Oh, okay.

Tony, in allowing us to record here.

Okay. I didn't know if you officially said that or not.

I did.

Okay. My bad. Go on.

So another. I got to. My son made me feel old today. I want to. So we bought a phone for the house.

No, no, you made you feel old today.

Okay. Bought a phone for the house. We have a 12 year old and 10 year old.

When he goes, that reminds me of your dad's phone. Yes. So I called my son on it, my 10 year old, and he like holds it here and he's like far.

Away from his face.

I was like, dude, hold it to you. It was just remarkable. He had no idea how to handle.

An iPhone and he thought it was cool. Our 12 year old who's been expecting an iPhone did not think it was cool.

She was like, oh, we've been very close and we've been very clear with her. She's not getting an iPhone till she's like 16 or 18 years old.

Well, she's not getting a phone. This is a home phone.

Yeah. Or if they're ever overnight or something where we want them to be able to call us. Right.

But yeah. All right, we're those parents.

Let's do the life update. Where are we? How many kids do we have?

I mean, at the time of this recording, we have six children.

When we left the house, there were six. Yes, we have, when we left the house, six kids.

You think Susie's gonna say yes to a call while we're gone?

I mean, the caseworkers might just drop one off.

Oh, my word. I did get a call last week for three children. Yeah, A five year old, a nine year old and a three month old.

I was like, whoa, saved by the hip surgery. And three kids. I'm sorry, three.

My eyes switching right now.

Yeah, I can't even speak. It threw me off. Our family consists of our two oldest or kids. We made 12 and 10. Oldest is a girl. 10 Year old's a boy.

Next three come the ones that adopted that we adopted that God gave to us. We have a seven year old girl, a three year old boy and a two year old girl. We still have one little foster son.

Yep.

Eight months old today actually.

Yeah. How about that?

That's the life.

That's.

That is.

And we have Maggie.

We have Maggie, the two year old Berna. Mini Bernard, Mini Bernadoodle, a fuzzy disaster.

Who's currently like either hallucinating or seeing a cowlick of her hair and she's like chasing it in the sky.

Or there's ghosts. Or there's ghosts. Like she'll just sit there and she'll do this and you're. What are you looking at, dog? It kind of freaks you out sometimes.

What do you see that I don't see?

When you're kind of in the, like that twilight when you're holding a baby, half asleep, half awake and you see your dog sitting on the floor twitching and stuff. It's. It's yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wild.

Let's get into what are we talking about today? We're getting in. We're sharing our story for everybody. I'll get into.

Yeah, because I feel like we have a lot new, a lot of newer followers.

According to the analytics, there are more people listening now than there was a year ago who might not know our full story. Yes.

And in the world of behavior analysis, data doesn't lie. So there's.

Thank you for that. That was very valuable for everybody. So we're just going to walk you through our foster story.

What we've done, how we got to where we are, where we began, how we got there. So hang on. It'll be fun.

It might be a repeat for some people.

It will be. Yeah. If you've listened before.

And maybe we'll just throw in some extra fun. It'll probably be randomness that you've never.

Heard because when we started, we told our story in like the first episode. It was eight minutes and we haven't. And we're like, our goal is going to be 20. We haven't even sniffed that ever since in episode nine.

So it'll be more detailed.

I feel like the one I just listened to was 50 minutes.

The goal is to give probably the most detail we've ever given on our story with respecting the kiddos privacy still and all of that. I would say I'm gonna say when I think our foster story started and you tell me when you think yours started.

Okay. Yours started when you were like 10 years old.

I wasn't gonna say that because I don't really think that's our, our foster story.

We had a miscarriage in December of 16 and we decided that we were already having Discussions was that did we want to have other kids, was our family good at 2? And we had a miscarriage and we decided that we weren't going to let that be the end and we wanted to do something positive.

Do you remember that day that we found out we were pregnant with our third? And immediately looking at bigger cars, looking at bigger houses.

Yes, I do sit in the emergency room next to it because we went.

To the emergency room dehydrated because you.

Had thrown up for like three days in a row and you couldn't keep any water down. And we went. And when a child bearing age woman goes to the er, a pregnancy test is part of the routine.

I remember you did the whole pee in a cup thing and came back, sat down and the nurse came in. You're like, oh, so was it negative? And she just kind of looked at you, I can't say. And I was like, oh, okay, it was fine. Right.

But then, yeah, lost the baby shortly thereafter and we just said, hey, we're going to.

Make something, we're gonna do.

Something positive from it.

Right. Beauty from ashes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And we've mentioned before, I in middle school had it placed in my heart that adoption would be something I did down the road. I didn't know the details. I didn't know if it be international, if it would. I had no idea. I just knew I was a very, very pro life person.

And you always have been or.

And to reconcile that, I feel like you have to do something about it,.

Not just say it.

Post on social media and hold up a sign like a lot of people do. I'm like, okay, how am I going to help? What am I going to. What's my role to play in this? Like I'll adopt kids. I've always liked kids.

I've always been fairly good with kids. Didn't know how we would get there. So that's how we got here.

And then I came along and before I met you, I was under the impression that, well, if I can have kid. I also didn't grow up a Christian, but I was under the impression that if I can have kids, why would we adopt?

Why would you adopt? Yeah.

And you definitely enlightened me to why we would adopt. So. Yeah. But yeah, you definitely had it on your heart for a really long time.

God placed it on my heart long ago.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And me being a social worker and having had worked for dc.

Yeah, you had worked in that field. Yeah.

It was not on my radar. I wasn't, I was think I never Growing up, had a vision of what my family would look like, how many kids I would have.

I'm still not sure how many kids will end up having. Right. It's like, okay, God, like, do what you're gonna do to tell us when you're done.

But, yeah, it's just typically, from the majority of people we've spoken with, it's the wife driving the train towards foster care and adoption, and the husband just kind of goes along for the ride or gets talked into it.

Yeah.

But in our situation, you wanted to adopt.

I led. You definitely drive.

You led. You wanted to adopt. You brought it up after our loss. But you said.

I brought it up to you. When we were dating, at one point,.

You said you wanted to adopt.

Okay. Yeah.

And I didn't really know what that meant, so I was like, okay, you didn't know what?

Adopt me.

Well, what? Like, stop it. Okay.

But that checks out.

Once again, I knew what it meant. Adopt a puppy. No. But when it came to foster care, that was my input. That was my influence. Because you were thinking, adopt.

And I was like, we were going through Dave Ramsey at this point, and I was like, whoa, slow your roll. Adoption is very expensive. So I said, which is crazy there. It is insane. But I said, there are a lot of children already in need of homes.

Why don't we foster and just see where God leads us?

Yeah.

And we went into foster care not really with the intent to adopt, but just kind of open hands, thinking, God's going to do what God's going to do.

We did not intend to adopt.

Like, a lot of saying, I want to create my family this way. We had our family. Like, we were just gonna foster and see what happened. And if child came and was going to stay, awesome.

We kind of knew there would be a kid somewhere along the way that would come into our house and never.

I mean, the law of averages, right?

Yeah, we've. Yeah. Yep.

We kind of exceed that.

Yeah.

So we joke that our home is where kids go.

Go to stay and stay. Yeah. But we started the process. Discussion of foster care.

It was.

It was okay. Summer of 17, I'm saying, starting. And the paperwork sat on the kitchen counter.

Yes.

Until December of 17. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The paperwork sat. Till Whitney went for a run one day and literally saw yard signs.

Yeah.

In our neighborhood, become a foster parent. And she kind of.

While listening to a podcast or a sermon on obedience, I was like, okay, God.

So sometimes.

Thank you for smacking me Upside the head.

Sometimes God talks to you quietly in a Bible verse early in the morning or a book or through a friend. And sometimes he speaks directly to you with a literal sign. This was that time.

Yeah. And for me, being very.

We weren't dragging our feet to drag our feet. We just were doing other stuff. Yeah. It was life, which is crazy to think. We thought we were busy then.

I know.

With two kids and that we had.

Just moved into a bigger home and we were like, oh, we can do more ministry through this home. We can host small groups in this home. We can host. We're close to church. It wasn't really with the intent of fostering.

Check. Yes.

Hosted. We did hosted. We did hosted. We did hosted.

Did all the training. Yeah.

Did all the trainings. All the things when they come ask you all the private questions that they ask you when you're getting licensed and yeah.

Make you feel like a terrible parent because you didn't have a ladder in the upstairs or all the fire extinguishers or all the things that you have to get to be a foster parent. Check all that off. And then we've got our license. Got the call on a Friday afternoon in April that, hey, you're, you're licensed, you're approved.

And then two hours later, another call, hey, Whitney, are you ready?

Hey, we haven't got a kid. Two hours. When you got that call, what was your biggest fear? That immediately, like your gut, visceral reaction. What did you feel?

That's cute that you think I remember. My mom was in town for the weekend, by the way. Food, packing things.

We've shared this before. When Grammy comes to visit, it's usually a sign we're getting a kid.

Children. My eyes twitching again because she's coming next week.

She is coming next week.

Goodness. Yeah.

Maybe by the time you guys hear this, we'll have. We'll have seven kids.

Stop it. Stop it. I. I don't remember. I mean, I said, yeah, like, I don't even think I asked questions that first phone call.

I kind of learned along the way to ask questions. Right? But I don't. I think I was just like, okay,.

Like, this is what we signed up for.

Okay, bring her over.

She was like an 18 month old little girl.

I remember when they dropped her off, like I picked her up and held her and walked her across the threshold of our door and I didn't know if I Should, like, put her down. I didn't know if she could walk if, like.

Did you just hold her like this?

I just wasn't sure what, you hold.

Her or do you hold her? Did you hold her like.

Like this? No.

Okay, good.

But, yeah. And she came with really yucky stuff.

Yeah. She came with a trash bag of clothes that remain in our garage the entire time she was with us.

I feel like I might have washed them at one point and put them in a different bag, but. Yeah, we never use them. Mm. Mm. No, that. That experience was very eye opening.

I remember when we sent her when she reunified, she went back home a couple months later.

Yeah. She was with us three months, four months.

I remember I sent her home with a whole lot more than what she came with.

We sure did. We sure did.

And I don't remember the details, but I remember her mom asking me, because I was communicating with her mom through email, and she asked me at one point.

She asked you for something?

Yeah. Like, how many cases of diapers are you gonna send back? Or something like that. I was just like, wow. Like, that's. That's what I get. Like.

Yeah.

Like, no, there was no, like, gratitude. Gratitude. And, you know, I didn't do it for gratitude, but, like, being seen a little bit as more than just a means of resources. I was like, wow.

So, I mean, she might have just been trying to plan, right?

Yeah. And I realized that, like, looking back, I was like, she just might. May have had nothing. Right.

And trying to plan and doing the best she could and no judgment, but for me, it was eye opening. Yeah. Yeah.

That first foster kid. I think anybody would share. It's the most mind opening. Right. It breaks your heart, breaks your soul.

I remember standing in church service during worship, and I. God just broke my heart for what breaks his. Like, I just sobbed.

Yeah.

At the reality.

So.

Of this child's life.

Yeah. Her first night, she came to us, went to bed really quietly, which is weird to be in a stranger's home and go straight to bed.

Like Whit mentioned a couple minutes ago, we had a food packing thing at our church as a ministry partner that the church works with. So Whitney and our bigger kids and her mom went over the church, and this is like, 8, 9ish, mind you.

Our bigger kids were 4 1/2 and 2 at this point. They weren't really big, but. Yeah.

Yeah, Bigger.

Yeah.

Yeah. It was 18, so Laney would have been four and Benny would have been almost three.

Okay. Two and a half and four.

Okay.

Yeah.

I'm like, oh, man, our first kid died in the crib and I'm gonna be the one to find her. And jeez, this is not how I.

Remember you texting me. You were like, it's 9 o' clock or 10 o' clock and like, nothing. I was like, dude, I'm not it.

I was like, ah, jeez, man. So I go up to the crib.

How many times over the years have we said that, though? Like, when a baby finally sleeps through the night, I'm like, I'm not going to check on him.

Panic attack. The first time a baby. Anybody who has experienced that joy, you're like, oh, I slept on. I. Oh no, crap, I hope the baby's alive. So I go in there.

She's probably shouldn't laugh about that.

She's. You have to. Dark humor. You have to have humor. Got to go in there. She's a wide awake, just sitting in the middle of her crib. I'm like, hey.

She just, yeah, looks up at me. I go, do you want to get out? She just looks at me.

Didn't cry, no idea what to do.

Didn't talk, didn't. Just looked at me.

Do you remember how she would like,.

Literally, like, that's like, that's the moment I realized, oh my gosh, this kid.

No idea.

She. Because at some point in her life she learned crying does me no good. I'm not going to be held. I'm not going to be picked up.

So I'm just going to be quiet because that's easier. So that's the reality she came to us with and that's. That was our. My first dose of this trauma that we would experience as foster parents. And she.

Even when you would hold her, she would almost like she didn't like it. Like, yeah, like, what movie is it where they're hugging and the guy's like,.

No, don't step brothers maybe.

I don't know. Sounds good. But yeah, she didn't want to be held.

Well, I'm thinking even like, you know, she was 18 months so trying to figure out running and when she would face plant. Oh yeah, she would get up and.

Like, not like I remember she had a little bloody nose.

I would be like, like. And nothing.

Like she. One time she found. Got a little, little scrapage on the end of her nose and she bounced up kind of.

Yeah.

And off she went.

I remember one time she yelled at me when I was eating eggplant parm and she wanted it and I was like, you want. You want this?

Yeah. So that was just so eye openening.

Yeah.

In the journey we would go on,.

She would pull out her hair, like,.

As a form of like frustration and just self soothing. She would yank out huge clumps. Yeah.

Yeah. Poor baby. So, yeah, I don't know how we got that far with that first placement, but I mean.

Yeah, I mean, what would you say for somebody who's thinking about fostering with the first placement, what are some things we can share with them so they don't have to learn like we did? What can we. What can we share?

I would say become trauma informed as much as you can before jumping in. It's a lot easier to. It's never easy to experience trauma and what that show, how that shows up in children.

But being aware of it is definitely helpful.

You have the lens to look through the trauma lens. You can see stuff through that. Yeah.

Trauma is really tricky.

Yeah. It looks different with every.

Different ages, different experiences. Yeah. So I would definitely say read up on it, watch some videos, go to trainings, just talk with other foster parents,.

Talk to people that know what they're doing, talk to counselors, and if this.

Is your first time parenting again, just.

Kind of God bless you.

Like, some people jump into foster care and that's their first taste of parenthood, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. So again, like, do yourself a favor.

I wonder if it would be easier to jump in as just a brand new parent.

I mean, they say it's easier to jump into twins than single. Like, it's easier to go from twins and then having one child than to go from having one child and then having twins.

Oh, yeah. When you go from man to man to his own defense, that's tough. Yeah.

Yeah.

You don't know what that means, do you?

Yes, I know what that means. Explain it. Stop it. I quit.

Explain it.

Jason, they don't need a basketball lecture today. Stop it.

You don't know how to explain it.

Yes, I do. Well, not like quickly. I can draw pictures.

Okay.

Man to man is one of your assigned to the wristband guy.

Okay.

Very good for little kids. So.

Yeah, Same color wristband. That's right.

Same color wristband.

All right, let's walk through the rest of our placements really quick.

Yeah. All of them. I don't have my notebook with me.

So that summer of 18, oh, my goodness. We're not gonna go through each one. But we had a bunch of really short placements. A bunch of babies. We had like a. We had a two week one.

A one day one.

We had a baby for two weeks. We had another little baby for 24 hours. Her mom. Well, the two week placement, she went to a family. Her. Her family. A family member.

And then a couple weeks later, we got a call for a brand new infant. A fresh one.

Yeah.

And what happened there is she was discharged from the hospital with her mom into a halfway house or a rehab, essentially.

Yeah. I don't know that. Yeah.

But mom had some complications and needed to be admitted to the hospital. So this baby needed to go into foster care while mom was in the hospital.

Yeah.

So she stayed with us.

I mean, this is with us for 24 hours. That whole story was just like, holy cow. Like, you just learn, like how some people's situations are just so dire. Dire. Like that world.

And that little girl ended up getting adopted.

Yeah. So didn't you show a picture of her to somebody? Go, wait a minute.

I was talking about her in a foster mom's group. But she's like, wait, what? And this other girl was like, my friend adopted her. Like, same age, like born at the same time, same name, same red hair.

Yeah. Crazy.

Kind of mad.

Like, why didn't they call us back?

Yeah. Because they're supposed to call. But. But that's okay. She went.

We were 24 hours.

She went to a great home. Yeah. She didn't bond with us.

Yeah.

Then we had another two before K, man.

No, he was next.

He was next. So then we got.

In October.

Yep. We got a baby that came to us for on Halloween. Another brand new fresh one.

Took the kids trick or treating. And then I went to the hospital. I had to stay overnight with him.

It was. It was one of those trick or treats that it was like raining, snowing. It was gross.

Like, peace out.

Yeah.

She's like, okay, you have fun. Yeah.

But for him, with new babies, a lot of.

Some hospitals have the rule where you need to stay overnight with him in the hospital and basically show that you can take care of an infant before they discharge the baby to you. So I stayed overnight with him.

Yep. Brought him home.

Brought him home the next day.

He stayed with us for three months. Yeah. Because he went home and his mom.

Never showed back up. But dad stepped up.

Dad stepped up big time. This is one of those awesome reunification stories where.

But also interesting because, like, pretty, like quickly from when he was placed with us. They were like, yeah, you'll be adopting him.

Oh, I don't remember that.

No. Yeah, you never believe DCS doesn't know. They can't see into the future. So pro tip, never believe what they tell you.

Yeah, it was cool. So we formed a bit of a relationship with his dad and I was able to take him formula like three months after he went home to his dad and see him.

It was cool, like. And we were still connected on social media and now he's a big old boy and doing good and yeah, he's.

Like in elementary school.

I know. He's the same age as Leah girl.

Yeah. So then Leah came.

So it was a Friday. He was going home on a Monday. We knew it. Like it was. Everything was lined up. As long as stuff didn't go wrong, he'd be going home on that Monday.

We get a call for Leah on Friday afternoon. Whitney calls me, hoping me to be the voice of reason because I'm not. Leah was also a baby. 2 Week, 2 month, 3 month old.

Had another 3 month old and she called me at work and I said, let's do it.

Yeah. He said, why not?

Why not? They told us she would be with us for. She just needed.

For the weary.

She just needed a little TLC for a couple weeks.

No, through the weekend.

Oh, it was a weekend.

I thought it was through the weekend.

Well, that weekend has now been almost eight years. Yeah, she's ours now.

Longest weekend ever.

Longest weekend ever. We won't get into Leah's now we can get into her story a little bit. This was one of those kids that came to us that dcs.

Oh, she's a happy, healthy baby and she just needs a little tlc. And it turns out that is not accurate.

No. She was actually really sick.

She was almost drowning every time she drank a bottle. Our pediatrician said she was the most malnourished kid she had seen other than her time at the children's hospital here in Indy.

One of the children's hospitals here in Indy. And Whitney connected with a girl. The week after she came to us, said, hey, you gotta go looked at.

And basically within a week of her coming to us, she had an NG tube placed in her nose.

That was a roller coaster.

That was wild.

Yeah.

Her mom loved her, but she was battling some things and just couldn't care for the way she needed. We rolled into Covid.

Yeah.

And that was a disaster. I mean, one. One of my favorite stories from COVID is Whitney. So Leah's belly mom was very inconsistent with visits.

When we all thought we were all dead,.

The DCS was insisting that in person visits happen. But Leah had something wrong with her. One of her lungs. And everybody was worried about lungs. We're like, this is the most.

Yeah. Because it was like a lung thing.

Nonsensical thing ever. So mama bear with me going on.

Those like machines that like hit you and everything and.

Yeah, mama bear. Whitney, I don't know how you had it, but you had the state director's number.

I have my ways.

And you called her and said, hey,.

Well, no, I was taking her to a visit.

You turned around. Yeah.

And before I got on the highway, I was like, no, like, I'm not doing this. This is horrible. This is a terrible idea. I said, I don't. I don't care if I'm in contempt of court. This is not in her best interest.

So I pulled over, I sat in some trucker parking lot, typed out an email on my phone, sent it to the whole team. I said, I'm not taking her. Like, consider this visit canceled.

I remember the visit supervisor messaging me and said, well, you're in contempt of court by doing this, so I don't know what will happen to you. I'm like, I don't care.

Yeah, you didn't care.

I literally don't care. Yeah. And then, yeah, I got the personal cell phone number of the state director.

And I also contacted our state senator too. I don't know what caused it, but the next day we got a memo from DCS that said, hey, we'll do virtual visits.

Which is really dumb to do with a baby anyway, but it was the last two evils.

Yeah.

Also, fun fact, mom tested positive. At least she told everybody she test positive for Covid like 10 days later. Which, yeah, of course she did.

Right.

But we fostered several.

22. But I'm just closing out a story.

Okay. Yeah.

So let's go back to spring or summer of.

This is really going to test your memory.

Well, let's go back to. It would be 19. We got the five year old next, right? Was that our next one? The five year old girl, the kindergartner.

I don't have my notebook.

So, yeah, we Did a five year old.

I have a great notebook.

We did a five year old written out. It's too bad I didn't share this outline with her days ago so she could look it over before he came and sat down.

No, it is not on this outline.

No, it's not. But we're. It's. Oh, you didn't think that talking about our foster placements would be something we would talk about in our.

Not this specific.

No. So along the way we ended up trying our hands.

We've had like 18 kids. Are we really going to do this?

We tried to have. Not everyone, but we tried our hands with a five year old girl. Didn't work out. And we had a disrupt placement. We took in a toddler that was shaking.

Oh, that five year old girl. He really threw me. I was.

Another five year old girl was there.

Yeah, I guess I was thinking of the other one that was five the second time. Just forget it. I need my notebook.

Yeah. So anyway, we'll get back on track. We won't. Maybe we won't go, but we.

You need to go back to your outline that you created.

No, I want to go over all the kids.

Okay.

So we took in a toddler. He was shaken. He was in a wheelchair.

Oh, he was. He was not in a wheelchair.

Well, he would have been if what we were holding him.

I mean at this age. Yes, he's in a wheelchair.

Yeah, he's in a wheelchair.

When he was 2, he was not in a wheelchair.

We just held him the whole time.

And he had a sander.

Yeah.

Like a big old machine that helped him stand.

But we got close to his parents. Unfortunately they were not the cause of his issue.

It was just such a hot mess.

And Whitney actually saw videos of him when he was a normal developing kid and just said how heartbreaking it was to see. So we had him for.

They believe it happened at an in home daycare.

Yeah, four or five months we had him.

No, he came to us in May of 19. Oh maybe it was August. And then right around Christmas time he left because he had Covid.

Yeah.

And he was working towards going home.

But so he went on a visit. They basically just stayed home because I.

Was worried about him getting well.

We all kind of wanted to get home. We were like, this is stupid, he should be home. So we all kind of helped get there. We took that. Took in a five year old girl.

Remember when we took in the COVID baby?

Covid baby. Yeah, they.

Oh, he was so sweet.

He was such a sweet boy. They a little baby.

He was at a shelter. I picked him up from a shelter. He was like three months old.

Yeah. They called us and said, hey, we have this baby. He's positive.

Nobody wanted him because he was positive for Covid.

We were both immediately said, yes.

I'm like, look, I was worried about Leah, so I called my. Our pediatrician first and I said, here's the deal. How much of a risk is this? Because he's positive, but, like, he also doesn't have a family.

Yeah, right.

So somebody asked us, oh, you guys are gonna take in a Covid baby? I was like, yeah. I was like, look, if God calls me home because I get Covid from a baby.

I remember you saying that.

Yeah, cool. What a way to go. Like, why are you here? I said yes to a baby who had Covid.

I remember you saying that.

Yeah.

If this is my end. Okay.

Yeah, cool. That's a good way to go, right? So, yeah, he was sweet.

And our hamster died when I was holding him at night. Remember that? That's when Herschel died. You don't remember that?

I remember Herschel dying. I don't remember.

It was when he was with us because I was up in the night with him and then all of a sudden stopped.

We. Okay, some other highlight. So, yeah, we took a. Tried a 10 year old boy at one point.

Wait, do you remember when we got Herschel and I had no idea what like hamsters entailed. And I was like, wait, we have to like change their bedding.

It was horrible.

Like, wait, they go to the bathroom.

So he was on the main level, our house. One day, we walked in the morning and his cage was tipped over like he had a sweet. He had a Cadillac cage.

Like the kind that had the tubes up the side and all that. And it was open and he was fine. I was like, well, the hamster's dead. And I go down and I'm trying to find him. He's under.

He went downstairs in our house and was underneath the bed in our guest room in the basement where our daughter now lives, just now lives hanging out with us. It was. I couldn't believe.

He was like Houdini. He got out several times.

Well, he's a rodent. That's what they do.

Like, I remember one time, like, in our entryway, like, I couldn't find him and I was putting the baby to bed and he was like, in the entryway, like, like watching me. I was like, don't move. I'm like trying to quickly take the Baby upstairs so I can get him.

I love your Herschel face.

Thank you.

That's a good one.

I practiced it. No.

Yeah. Cool.

Anyway, we added Herschel in there. He was basically a foster kid.

Yeah.

Until we had to bury him in the backyard.

That's what you do with pets when they die, especially rodents. We haven't gotten a rodent pet since.

Remember when the fish died and you were like, all right, Laney, here's the humane options. We.

It wasn't dead.

No. You had to kill him.

It was dying.

Yeah.

So I looked up how to kill a fish.

I'm sorry. I don't know why we're going.

And you had to either freeze it or chop it in half. We chopped it in half, so.

Gosh.

Thank you, Whitney. The hard parts of foster care we're going to go into now. All right, go ahead. You take this one.

Start with the hard parts of foster care.

Yes.

You're going to get me going on a tangent with this one.

That's fine.

We literally got in the car this evening, and I. First thing I said to Jason, I hate foster care.

So if you're new to it and you're like, why are we doing this? This is stupid. I hate it here.

You're not alone.

Just understand, you're in good company. If you're doing it, you're. It's going to happen your entire journey.

Yes.

The hardest parts, without a doubt, is saying goodbye to kids that you don't think should go home. Oh, yeah, that's the hardest part.

Yes. But there's a lot of, like, little hard parts, too.

So the. Listen, the hardest part is saying goodbye to the kids.

Even the kids that go home to their families where, you know, they're safe, loved and taken care of. That's so hard.

You still love them.

You love them, you're gonna miss them, but you're happy they're home. But those are the big hards.

Yeah, the two.

Really. What are some of the other hards?

What gets my goat, gets your. All this business visit stuff, this situation, it's my. And it's. And I. I don't think we're alone in this. But visits when they're not.

You said visits, like, seven times.

Yeah. I don't even know where to go with this.

Go ahead.

When they're so inconsistent, but then, bless your heart, new visit supervisor comes in and thinks, like, it's gonna be different for her. And she's like, oh, yeah, we're gonna.

Do six hours so our baby hasn't had a Visit with his belly mom in months.

Like, lots of months.

Months.

Multiple months. Yeah.

There's a new visit supervisor on the case, and she called Whitney and told her tonight that, hey, we're gonna do a six hour visit tomorrow.

And mom needs you to send formulas.

And mom needs you to send.

Wait, what?

Like, have you done it? Like, parents are supposed to provide everything and it's just like, okay. Like, bless your heart. Yeah, it's one of those.

Just bless your heart and said, I need you to confirm this visit 30 minutes before you pick up this child tomorrow. That mom confirmed in the morning, because this isn't new. Like, it's new to her. And she thinks it's gonna be great.

We know how it's gonna go.

We know how it's gonna go. And if that baby gets picked up, he's gonna be coming home in an hour because it's not gonna happen. It's just frustrating and I hate it for the baby.

You're shaking the table.

Well, I'm. You went there. You.

I did not go there.

So currently. Yeah, that's one of my hards. Trauma behaviors are hard.

Yeah. They're so different, too.

That's what I was gonna say. Parenting multiple children, Some in our family, specifically. Yeah.

Just walk through our family.

Multiple children are neurodiverse. Multiple children have been through trauma.

So neurodiverse. Hold on.

I'm talking.

We have two with autism. Just to say that.

Well, it's gonna get there.

Okay.

Multiple children have been born exposed to a wide variety of substances like dairy, ice cream. There's a lot going on in brains in our house.

Our kids have just were exposed to ice cream in utero.

A lot of ice cream, a lot of dairy, a lot of milkshakes and cookies.

Yeah.

And what was it? I was hooked on those bacon, egg, and cheese croissants from Burger King.

You were. We don't ever.

It was like, we never did before, but it was like two for three dollars. And I would drive past Burger King to work every day.

This is why we gained 70 pounds in our first pregnancy.

Yes, it is.

Anyway, need to get on a second one. That's hard. Just balancing the trauma between each parenting.

Each child, how they need the kids,.

Been neglected versus abused versus.

And how their behaviors show up. And remembering why their behaviors are showing.

Up, how they're showing up, impact the other kids.

And. Yeah, so that is hard. And it is hard to keep your cool and put on your coaching hat instead of your, like, what are you doing? Right.

Like, so, you know, like, As a parent, you're trying to work through your own childhood in some way, shape or form. I think everyone is. We're all doing the best we can.

But, you know, like, our big kids, our bio kids, my big kids, like, they'll be acting crazy. I'm like, I will body slam you if you don't stop. Yeah. You can't say that to a younger kid who's been abused and through trauma. Right.

You can't say that.

No.

Some other hard parts, court and our.

Kids would say, bruh, take me right, right back to you.

You don't want none. They don't want none of this. So court's hard dealing with judges. That. So there. We've dealt some court.

Feels like you're going to the principal's office and you've done nothing wrong. That's what court feels like to me. Like, and I never got in trouble. I never got detention.

You get. Yeah, yeah.

It's stressful and it's not even about me.

I wasn't going to complain about that. I was going to complain about. You never know what judges are going to do.

Well, yeah, that too.

Like, there's not a. There needs to be a more well documented process. Like, very clear, very objective versus subjective. And. Yeah.

And I mean, honestly, another hard part is we. We are the baby people.

And unfortunately, not unfortunately, but the process Whitney and I have figured out is when we get a new baby, one of us sleeps on the couch with the baby while the other one sleeps on our bed upstairs. And then we rotate. I bet we've given up somewhere between three to four years of sleeping in the same bed together.

Ew. Would you guess that I'm actually thinking about the amount of diapers we've gone through in the past 12 years?

When you think about all the babies and all the sleepless nights. But yes, you're right. There's just a lot of sacrifices.

There's a lot of sacrifices. Yeah.

Yeah. Thank God for a strong marriage.

Thank God for a strong marriage. What about the beautiful parts?

I will say, really mad about the visit situation.

Well, let me talk first.

Yeah, you go ahead.

Speaking of marriage, I think Whitney and I have a stronger marriage because we chose to foster. Probably we communicate better. We have been through.

It's forced us to.

We've been through crap.

Yeah.

We've had really hard, like, you know, when you. I'm at work and Whitney comes and said, hey, so. And so we just went home and they're home bawling.

Well, and that's the thing. Like Any kind of adversity, grief, hard times, you know, broken relationships, anything like that.

Special needs will either bring a couple closer together or tear them apart.

It's like pressure for carbon. You can make coal or you can make diamonds.

Exactly. And that's what it is. Right. So you're not wrong to say that it helped us.

Yeah.

Be stronger. Because it did.

Yeah.

Thankfully we're on that end of it.

Yeah.

Thankfully.

Only. Only because of God.

Yeah.

What's a moment you'll never forget? You have one. I know mine.

A moment I'll never forget.

Okay, I'll go first.

So, I mean, our adoptions.

Well, yeah. So the aforementioned Leah.

Wait, were you gonna say adoption? I bet. Yeah.

I was not aforementioned Leah.

I'm thinking aforementioned. Okay. 10 Points.

So I'm just thinking in the foster care journey, not the adoption journey. With foster care. Leah was a really hard baby. If she wasn't, oh, crying. She was puking out her formula. She didn't sleep. Like, she was just miserable.

Like, she, like projectile vomit.

She hated us. She hated formula.

She loved me. She just hate everybody else.

She loves me more now.

Okay. A pushover anyway, if you're a four. Mentioned.

We. She was giving us just a run for her money. Like, we're exhausted, we're strung out. And I'll never forget, I was doing something.

All of a sudden she just stops and look at me and gives me a big old gummy baby smile. And I was like, oh, we're gonna make it okay. Oh, that's one of my favorite memories.

I love it.

Yeah. Another one for me was this fall. We. We've shared about her before in multiple episodes.

We had a kid that was with us when she was 2, went home and came back to us for about a year and a half during. We were celebrating her birthday this fall, and she looked at me and said, daddy, thanks for celebrating my birthday. That just.

It's like heart wrenching though.

But like just that moment, just seeing her grateful for that, like, because she was not a grateful kid by nature. Right. Like, because, I mean, she. She's been through terrible stuff.

And for her just to look and say, thanks for celebrating my birthday, that was really special.

Yeah. I think this is general.

It's not like aspecific, but I think the relationships and the connections that we've been able to make through fostering the relationships, I just think about, you know, different visit providers and therapists that. And DCS workers and agency caseworkers that have essentially become an extension of our family has been so special. It's been a ministry for us. Right.

And it's been so special outside of the heart of foster care, just getting to have those relationships.

So Leah's first.

Yeah. Tamika. She still reaches out.

She was Leah's caseworker when she was a foster kid. She ended up moving to Las Vegas.

No, Nevada. Nevada, Not Las Vegas. Nevada is a large state.

Whenever somebody says Nevada, I always just think Las Vegas. Because other than that, there's just desert.

You looked at me like I was an idiot. I was like, I know where you're going with this.

And she still. Desert and snakes. That's what's in. And casinos. She just. She'll reach out on Leah's birthday every year. It's just fun that she's remembered it.

Yes.

It's also. The beautiful parts has just helped me try. I struggle at it still, but try to see people the way God sees people. That's hard.

Yeah.

But it's also one of the most valuable things about being a foster parent is.

Yes.

The bio parents, the kids, the caseworkers who don't respect your time. The whole thing is there's a lot.

Of opportunities for love and grace.

Remembering how God views them, trying to view them the same way.

Yeah. There's a lot of opportunities to share the gospel and to share hope. Yeah.

I was listening to a guy named. Oh, what's his name? Wes Huff. He's a very popular apologetics guy. He was given a sermon, and the gist of it was there's five gospels.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and you're the fifth gospel. Your life should tell the story of Jesus and how we've gotten to do.

That, like, so good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What other beautiful parts do we want to talk about. Any other beautiful parts? I mean, there's a lot.

I know, like the endings you get.

So what's been really fun for me is seeing you learn how to do little black girl hair.

That is fun.

It takes really, really long. How.

It takes such a long.

How much pride you've taken in that journey.

Yeah.

Us making.

Well, it matters.

Us making sure that our. So our three adoptive kids are all some shade of brown and all different.

Textures of hair, too, which is super fun.

Whitney's goal is to make sure that when we're out, when people see their hair, they don't immediately know that they have white parents.

Yeah.

You've done really good.

Yeah. Yeah. I've.

I came home this week and I looked at nine. Nine's hair, and I was like, oh, my gosh, that's so good you braided it.

I know. I didn't even send you pictures. I was so proud of it. I wanted to surprise you.

Why do we still say yes after eight years?

Because God hasn't told us to say no.

So that's a good segue to it. I was people. A lot of times when people say, you ask them to do something hard, whatever it is, people will say, well, let me pray about it.

Oh, I don't know if God's calling me to that.

That's such a hard. Like, yeah, that's so true. Like, yes, pray about it. But are you. Is that a delay tactic? And why is that like a fear? Like, what's the motivation?

Why is the default answer not yes?

Right.

And let God tell you no?

Yeah.

And so that's embraced along our journey.

It's been our default. Right. We're going to say yes until God shuts the door, tells us no.

And I think that's a more biblical response. I don't think.

And people may think we're crazy, but that's what we've done.

That's fine.

And it's not to say we say yes to every phone call.

We definitely don't say we've said no to more than we said yes to.

Oh, yeah, we've had to way more. But I don't know.

It's just, I. I don't want to get to heaven.

And when God calls me to account for what I did with the gifts and skills he gave me, to have to look at him, be like, I didn't want to do that because that felt hard.

Right.

You know, it's an act of obedience.

Like, I asked you to do this. Why didn't you?

This was. This is. This is the charge I gave you. This is a responsibility I gave you. Why did you not follow through on it?

Well, and the other thing is, you know, we've often said the moment we start to feel comfortable is the moment we know that God's gonna do something.

Oh, yeah. When we start to be like, oh, this isn't so hard.

Oh, we're getting into a good routine. Like, oh, no, what's gonna happen now?

God goes, here's a kid. Right. And it scares me. And it scares me because home's getting a little settled right now.

Yeah.

Like, pretty good. And.

But it's real, though. God doesn't call us to a life of comfort. And as settled as it feels, we still have a lot going on with six kids.

Six kids. You're getting surgery in a month. Then I'm gonna have to fend for myself.

I mean, we're raising an almost teenager. Enough said.

Like, that's enough.

Holy moly.

To send her to porting.

Lord have mercy.

If you have preteen girl. We had a. We made her skip softball practice last night.

That was so hard. I was in tears.

I loved it.

Like, I hate parenting.

I loved it, like, go, kid. Let's play games.

Like, I told her. I was like, I just want you to know, like, this is really hard for me. Like, I. But I also don't know what else to do.

So you're gonna miss softball because I. I was like, if you have suggestions on how I can parent you better, please share them because I don't know what to do.

I wasn't feeling well, so I'm actually coaching the team. And I couldn't make it to. To practice last night because I was pretty good. Yeah, I wish it would have been. I was able to go.

I'm like, well, I'll let your teammates know you let them down and you couldn't make it because you didn't want to listen to mom and dad.

Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. Why else do we say just I can? And another reason why you keep saying yes, because kids need us.

Yeah.

Unless more people step into the role of being foster parents. We like kids. Why kids don't deserve. When we spoke at that panel at that conference recently, there was a 35 year old guy there.

He asked the judge, hey, can I just age out of the system? I'm tired of bouncing around the houses and people telling me they're gonna adopt me. It's too hard. Can I just age out?

Can you imagine?

He has a heartbreak. So much hope.

Yeah.

He just has to age out.

Like, don't even give me a chance at a forever home because I don't want to be hurt again.

Maybe he felt like he didn't deserve it. Who knows all the different dynamics, right? But dude, he is 35 years old, married, is a DCS caseworker, is a foster parent himself.

His caseworker from when he was a foster kid ended up adopting him as an adult, which I didn't know was a thing.

Oh, yeah.

But that's really cool. So this is a neat story now, but how heartbreaking to get to where he had to go. So.

So to bounce off of that and that you keep saying yes because kids need us. There is a family in our church who I think they have four kids. They have two teen boys. They've adopted two girls from a Different country.

They've fostered a lot. Their foster placements recently went home. One of their children was doing a two month stay in Riley Children's Hospital for a chemo.

And in the midst of that, one of their child being in the children's hospital, receiving chemo with one parent being there the whole time, they accepted a placement of two.

They said yes again.

Siblings.

Yeah.

Yeah. They said yes. And she called me because she was.

Like, am I crazy?

I don't know. Yeah. She basically said, I don't. I need advice because I know people are going to judge me for saying yes right now. And I need. I.

She said, I know that you've been there too, and you've been judged.

You're crazy like me.

Yeah. She was like, what do I do? How do I combat this? How do I deal with it? And I was like, you know what? Your calling isn't their calling.

Like, if they judge you, that's their heart issue, it's not yours. You need to keep saying yes if you feel God's calling you to say yes.

And it might not make sense to anyone else, but it doesn't have to make sense to them because it's not their calling.

Yep.

If you and your husband are on board with this. Yes. Then go for it. Like, if you can do it. Yeah. Like, who's going to. Who are you to say no if you feel like that? And she's right.

She was like, if we don't say yes, who would take them and would they even get to stay together? Right.

I mean, like that story of Esther, like, you were made for a time such as this, Right?

Yeah. What a testimony.

Yeah.

And I said, I was like, your life is a living testimony.

They're incredible. Yeah. They're living out Romans 12:1.

Yes.

Your life should be a living and holy sacrifice. Our lives as Christians should be living sacrifices.

Yeah.

Which is good. Let's segue. What are some couple scripture verses that you've leaned on throughout our journey? One I will go first is Galatians 6, 9.

All of you probably know it. Don't grow weary in doing.

I was going to say that one.

I stole it. That's why I went first.

Cheater.

I mean, you're this.

I have leaned on that verse so much over the years.

Journey will wear you out. It'll. It'll jade you towards people.

I mean, another one I think I could say is in Corinthians, I think it's second Corinthians is, fix your eyes on what is unseen, for what is Seen as temporary. What is unseen is internal. Keep that perspective on eternity, on heaven, the impact you're going to have on these kids.

Like because of your testimony, how you love people. There might be people in heaven that give you a hug and go, hey, I'm here because you did this and this. You don't even know.

A caseworker, a judge, a bio parent, who knows What.

Right? Yeah. Luke 16, 10. Having faithfulness in the small things. There's. I mean, parenting. There's so much of parenting that no one sees it but God. Right?

And that's another thing that I think of constantly. Elroy. He is the one who sees no one else sees.

All these little steps of obedience, the hugs, the diapers, the washing of bottles, the everyday mundane blowout every day. Oh my gosh.

Our eight month old, he can't have a normal poop. He has to blow out his diaper.

And it's not that the diapers aren't too small. Like I'm not an idiot. Like, he just can't fit it in a diaper.

He's got a lot of poop.

We've now put him, started putting him to bed in diapers two sizes too big.

I mean, I don't know if you did that on purpose. That's a great segue to explain how we came up with our podcast name too.

Yeah.

So last name obviously, but I wasn't done.

Oh, but you know, just.

Then finish.

I'm working on it. Just how God is the God who sees. He sees it all. He sees. I wanna say it again. Cause I think it matters. Especially as a stay at home mom.

I need the reminder constantly. No one else sees the constant daily everything. That's exhausting. Right.

Sometimes I'll literally list off to you the things I've done so you can tell me you appreciate me, right?

You do. Yeah.

So God sees that and I rest in that. And that helps knowing that. And it's just truth from scripture. Now you can speak.

So dream Small, obviously it's play on our last name, but on one morning I was taking our big kids to school. I don't know how. The song is a song by a guy named Josh Wilson called Dream Small.

Yeah, like I started to tear up in the car because it just talks about doing the small things, you know, loving your neighbor.

And you sent it to me. And in true Whitney fashion, I didn't listen to it for like four days after you kept reminding me.

Yeah. Is that it?

Yeah, go ahead.

All right, sweet. Okay. And we want. We had started to discuss starting a podcast because she had made the decision.

No, no. You told me we were starting a podcast.

I did it. Yes.

When I came home from working full time, you were like, well, guess what? We're gonna start a podcast.

Because I wanted her voice still to be heard, because I think she adds a lot of value. And we settled on Dream Small because it's our name, that's what we do, and that's what we think's important. It's so perfect.

We tried to get permission to song for our intro. It was really expensive, but it wasn't an option.

It was not an option.

We don't make money off of this. We just do it for fun.

We just do it for fun.

It's kind of an extension of our ministry for other people.

It's absolutely an extension of our ministry. Which, by the way, if you're listening.

Yeah, Jason, what should they do?

Like, we always forget to do this. And I actually remembered.

Look at me. Like, just tossing these segues.

Like. Like our show, wherever you listen to it, whether you're watching on YouTube, podcast, like it, share it. That's.

We have had, I would say, a surprising number of people come up and say thank you for your show or message us and say thank you. It's really helped us. We've.

There was a girl in the bathroom at her conference, and she was like, you're Whitney. I was like, I am. Like, she knew me. That's all.

It's a little creepy. Good story, bro.

We were washing our hands. It was fine.

I'm glad you're washing your hands. Good job. We come up and say, hey, thank you for your show. You've really helped us navigate it. Whitney's. This couple from Texas emails her a lot.

Like, they're going through a lot of what we went through in our journey,.

How God put us together. Because a lot of what they've experienced,.

Their journey, sounds a lot like ours.

In their journey so far. I can speak into it. It's like, odd, specific stuff. Like, what's a swallow study like, Right? Yeah. Which is great.

So, Cher, you never know who needs to hear something, and especially if, you know, foster folks or adoptive folks. Like, it's a niche.

I guarantee you we have talked about something that'll resonate with them and leave us a review, if you would, too, on whatever platforms allow reviews.

I forget. And we have social pages, so share that stuff too.

I don't know.

Just get the word out. It's Dream Small podcast.

Yeah. Jason, if you're a foster parent, Stick with it. It's worth it. I know it's hard. It is so hard.

Remember, as isolated as you feel, you're not isolated isolated. There's more of us than you realize there is.

And community is vital. And I would encourage.

Let's wrap up with that. Like, let's talk about community real quick. How important it is.

Well, I was just about to.

That's what I'm saying. Let's finish with it.

So you're telling me to stop talking.

Well, finish talking about it. Like, okay, I don't.

I feel pressure.

Don't look at it. It's not on here. It says just talk about it.

Community is what gets you through on the hardest days.

And they're fun to have around on the good days, too, to get to celebrate adoptions and celebrate wins and celebrate reunification and celebrate sleeping through the night. Right.

Take a baby so you can sleep through the night.

Yes. But then. Yeah, they also show up in the hard. And I will tell you, it takes a great deal of vulnerability to find your people and your community.

Because I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it, people don't know the weight that you're carrying unless you're willing to share it.

I was gonna ask you to do that. Yeah. Like, you have to be vulnerable. You have to tell.

You have to say, I cannot do this on my own. There's no room for pride. You have to admit it, and you have to say, I need people. And this is where and how I need people.

And the other part of accessing community is accepting the help when they offer it. And I learned that the hard way. I learned things the hard way. Right.

That's your thing.

But a dear friend years ago wanted to send us a meal, and she, God bless her, she was going through cancer treatment. And I was like, you're going through so much. Please don't. Like, thank you, but no, thank you.

And she wrote me back and she said, don't you dare deny me this opportunity to bless you. And I was like, oh, ouch.

Like, share. We. We could do another hour on just how our community has helped us. Share the story about how you were at your breaking point with our first place.

Our first place.

You got the doorbell ring.

Yeah.

Yeah. Tell that story.

So what we were saying about being trauma informed is really helpful when you get into foster care. It was hard. We shared a little bit about her challenges, that baby that came to us first.

And, I mean, we had a toddler and a preschooler at that age, and it was Hard. It was so hard. And Jason was working. I was home all the time. And this little girl would just, like, scream.

She would pull her hair out, throw iPads, get like, chuck stuff at her kids. Like, it was. I actually.

We got to the point where we waved the white flag and put in a notice for disruption for placement because we just didn't think it was working with our kids and it was impacting us. And I honestly can't even remember a lot of the details, but it was really, really hard and really challenging.

And there was one day during nap times where all three kids, Praise the Lord, were napping at the same time. And I was upstairs on our bed praying and crying and just saying, God, like, what are we doing here? Like, I can't do this. We can't keep.

We can't keep living like this. Right? And it just felt like I just kept hitting a wall and the doorbell rang downstairs and the last thing I wanted to do was answer that door.

I just wanted to stay and wallow in my grief and cry and be grumpy and maybe take a nap. And something prompted me to go answer the door. And it was a dear, dear woman from our church. And she had a bouquet of flowers in her hand.

And she just said, I was at the store and I felt the spirit tell me to come see you. So I got you flowers because I didn't want to come empty handed. She said, can I pray for you?

And she just stood in our doorway and prayed for me and our family and left me with flowers. And that was it. But her awareness of that holy spirit's prompting saved me that day because it gave me that strength to keep going.

Yeah, it was incredible. I don't know what else to say.

What do we see at the end of episodes?

Are we done now?

Yeah, I think that's a good spot to end. What do you think, Tony? Good spot then.

So we don't want to talk about practical encouragement. Oh, okay.

I think we're good. We already kind of did. Yeah, we're already at an hour.

Okay. Probably past. All right, you guys. Well, thank you for tuning in to our 50th episode.

Thanks for listening of Dream Small and hopefully it was fun having us on video a little bit. I don't know. But until next time, keep dreaming small.

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