Meet Our Families - Ben & Anna

Meet Ben and Anna! They have a 4-year old son and have been foster parents for a year and a half. They typically foster children up to 8 years old and they currently have a 1-year old girl placed in their home. Ben and Anna love to spend time enjoying the simple, everyday moments as a family – movie nights, going for walks, and playing in the yard.

Beginnings
Anna: Becoming a foster parent has always been on my heart. I was in foster care myself as a little girl and, unfortunately, my experience wasn’t a good one. I remember wishing for the things every child deserves and even as I got older, I never forgot what it felt like to want those things so badly. I knew that someday I wanted to be able to give that to another child. When Ben and I started talking about fostering, we both felt like God was giving us the opportunity to open our home. It took a lot of conversations, learning, and stepping outside our comfort zone to get here. Our journey has been filled with love, challenges, and a lot of emotions, but we’re grateful we said yes.

Likes
One of the most rewarding experiences we’ve had was with our first placement. When he came to us, he was so fragile and had been through so much. Watching him slowly become comfortable in our home and seeing his personality come out was incredibly special. Something we didn’t expect was seeing how much that first placement impacted our son. He was able to see firsthand what foster care really means. He saw how much his foster brother needed love and patience, and we watched him become more compassionate and understanding because of it. Saying goodbye to our foster son was incredibly hard for all of us and it still is. But when we look at the impact he had on our family, we realize that he didn’t just leave an impact on us – we were changed by knowing him too. We’re so grateful we got to be a part of his story, and we hope he knows how much he will always mean to our family.

Challenges
One of the hardest parts of foster care is knowing that you may have to say goodbye. Even when you know that reunification is the goal and that it may be what is best for the child, it doesn’t make saying goodbye hurt any less. Learning how to love a child fully while also knowing you may have to let them go is one of the hardest parts of fostering. There are so many things in foster care that are completely out of our control, and that’s also really hard. We have to remind ourselves that God is in control even when we don’t understand what’s happening. When things feel overwhelming, we try to take it one day at a time and trust that God has a plan, even when we can’t see what it is yet. 

Advice
Being a foster parent takes patience, flexibility, and a willingness to be uncomfortable. You have to be able to handle a lot of unknowns and be open to things not always going the way you hoped. Most importantly, you have to be willing to love a child for exactly who they are and meet them where they are, even when it isn’t easy. We need foster parents because there simply aren’t enough homes for the number of children who need them. We play an important role in giving children an opportunity to keep growing, learning, and experiencing a sense of normalcy while their family situation is being worked through. If you are considering becoming a foster parent, don’t let the fear of how hard it might be stop you from looking into it. You don’t have to know exactly what you’re doing before you start. You just have to be willing to learn, ask for help, and love a child who really needs you.