Our Story
Interview with the Founders
Pastor Ryan, please tell me a little bit about why you decided to foster?
After two years of considering foster care and learning about the significant need for foster parents, Heather and I decided to say yes to God's call to foster.
What would you say is the hardest part and the easiest part about fostering?
Hardest: The child's adjustment when they are reunified with their family.
Easiest: I don't think anything is easy in the foster journey.
What made you want to start Foster1?
After four years of fostering, Heather and I realized from our experiences that there is a significant need to lessen the trauma children experience when moving homes, often with just a few belongings in a trash bag or with nothing at all. We personally witnessed this with most of the kids we fostered. We prayed and asked God to guide us to do more to help. He led us to start Foster1, enabling us to support these kids during this traumatizing transition.
How many families have you been able to help?
We originally began fostering with the intention of helping the parents of the children we foster because they also need connection and love. From our first foster child, we tried to support the parents who remained involved in their child's life during the time we had their child. While we've done our best in each case, it hasn't always been possible to help the family involved.
How many children have you been able to foster?
We have loved and cared for 48 foster kids since September 2015.
Have you adopted any of the children you have fostered?
We originally did not intend to adopt any, but God had other plans. We adopted the first foster child that came into our home. Since then, we have also adopted twin boys last December, just three days before Christmas.
Please share anything you would like for someone to know if they want to start the foster journey.
It's challenging but worthwhile.
Heather, please tell me a little bit about why you decided to foster?
I worked in the emergency room for over 12 years and often saw children being taken away. The caseworkers would have the child wait in the ER for hours until they could find a foster family. Sometimes, no homes were found, and the children had to sit in the DCS office with a caseworker or go to a facility because no homes were available.
What would you say is the hardest part and the easiest part about fostering?
Easiest: For me, it's easy to say yes.
Hardest: Carrying out that yes, from appointments to visits, to kids crying about visits or parents not showing up.
How many families have you been able to help?
Since 2020, we have helped an average of 30 families a year, and the number is growing.
What made you want to start Foster1?
With every placement, our children would arrive with very few belongings. It was often a struggle to find the immediate needs for new placements. We thought, if this is happening to us, surely other families could benefit from a resource they could call anytime for clothes and luggage.
Have you adopted any of the children you have fostered?
We have adopted three children in total. It wasn't our goal, but God's ways are not our ways. Our first case, we adopted at two and a half years old, and a former foster family at our church had twin boys whose placement was disrupted, so we felt led to adopt them.
How many children have you been able to foster?
Forty-five babies have come through our doors in the past seven years.
Please share anything you would like for someone to know if they want to start the foster journey.
It will be hard, and your heart will hurt when you say goodbye, but for that child to experience the love you have to give is worth it.
