A Miracle Meeting With the “Random Lady at the Park”

Foster care and adoption are hot topics in today’s Christian church, for good reason. God calls us in the Bible to care for the “orphans and widows” and today’s orphans are the thousands of American kids in foster care who, in many cases, have living parents who cannot care for them. Often, relatives of these children step in to care for them, but sometimes that doesn’t work out either. In a recent story on Love What Matters, an aunt who calls herself “TW” to protect her family’s identity, told a touching, miraculous foster care story involving her niece and nephew.

She begins by talking about the day they came into her home:

Three years ago, our niece and nephew were removed from their home. I remember getting the call from their bio mom. She was panicked. ‘They’re taking the kids. Can you take them?’ We knew it was coming. Things hadn’t been right for a long time.

‘Yes, I’ll take them,’ I said. Immediately wondering, ‘Where will they sleep? How long will they be here? Can I handle this?’

I called friends and family. Some supported our decision, some strongly suggested we let someone more qualified step in.

They came with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Our bible study group gave us money to buy them diapers, clothes, toys, toiletries.

Though she wanted to care for them, TW says that within a “week of sleepless nights,” she felt that God was calling her to let them go into foster care. So, she called their caseworker who found them a placement.

“My voice was shaking,” she says, “I felt like I was failing them. At the same time, I felt the Holy Spirit telling me to trust him.” TW continues,

The case worker came a few days later to take them to their new placement. The things my friends had bought for them were packed up in plastic containers. I made a small photo album of all the pictures I could find of my niece and nephew with family and gave it to my niece. I hugged my niece and told her, ‘I love you, I will never give up on you, I will always be in your life, God has a plan, we have to trust him.’

I had no idea what would happen to them. She was 6. A 6-year-old shouldn’t have to think so deeply.

Though TW worried about her niece and nephew, just two and six years old, she was so right to trust God, and she soon saw his plan for them unfolding beautifully. She goes on:

I asked the social worker to please tell the foster parents that I’d like to have contact with the kids… I had no idea how anything worked. I prayed and begged God to protect them.

I got the call from their foster mom a few weeks later. She was going to let me see the kids. I was ecstatic.

The foster family was incredible. Their kids were all grown and starting families of their own. They treated the kids like they were their own family since day one. Eventually we were getting to see them more and more frequently — Sleep overs. Trips to the zoo. It was wonderful. But the truth was haunting us. Their incredible foster family wasn’t able to adopt them. Their kids were grown, and they didn’t think adopting a 3 and 7-year-old in their 50’s was feasible.

TW was elated that her niece and nephew were with such a caring family, and that she was able to maintain contact with them and do all the things an aunt should do.

But still, she prayed that they would be able to find a “forever” adoptive home and not linger in foster care.

Then, the miracle happened. TW describes a life-changing “accidental” meeting at a local park:

Then, on a seemingly random day, their foster mom took them to the park. While they were at the park, a woman asked my niece and nephew’s foster mom to hold her baby while she used the restroom. That lady happened to mention she had just finished classes to foster to adopt. They exchanged numbers.

Later that day, my nephew got ahold of his foster mom’s phone and accidentally dialed the lady from the park. This accidental call got the two talking and they eventually arranged to get together again.

First…a “random” meeting and then an “accidental” phone call by a three-year-old? I am so thankful for a faithful God who allowed these providential “accidents”!! The story just gets better from here:

The lady from the park and her husband knew right away they wanted to adopt my niece and nephew. They already had two sons of their own. The kids got along great. When the time was right, my niece and nephew moved in with them.

Photo: TW/Love What Matters

That lady from the park is now my niece and nephew’s MOM! She grew up in foster care and knew exactly what it was like to grow up without biological family. God knew SHE was exactly the mom they needed. He put them at the park that day! It was his plan!

Just when you think this tale couldn’t get any more wonderful, it does. Remember the foster mom who felt two old in her 50s to adopt such young kids? Well, TW says, “She became the family’s grandma.”

foster care
Photo: TW/Love What Matters

She does everything a grandma would do for their own family. Christmas and Easter dinner, trips, even takes all 4 kids for days at a time so the parents can have a break. God knew their family needed a grandma.

Ok, friends, it is at this point in the story that I shed a few tears. This two precious children were not able to be with their birth parents, and that will always be tragic. But look how God took something broken and made it so beautiful! These two now have loving parents and two more siblings. Their aunt and cousins are still in their lives, bringing important biological connections, and their adoptive family has loving surrogate grandparents in the form of the first foster parents, who also remain a steadying force in their lives.

God. Is. GOOD! Broken can be beautiful, and what a privilege to be able to even know about such a miraculous situation as this one. I am so glad TW shared, and I hope you will share this foster care story with someone who needs to hear it today!

 

 


Jenny Rapson
Jenny Rapson
Jenny is a follower of Christ, a wife and mom of three from Ohio and a freelance writer and editor.

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