This is a special month—It’s National Foster Care Awareness Month and one of the two times this year that we are accepting applications for you to become a TFI Advocate. If you’re thinking, they can’t be talking about me. Think again!
When my husband, Clint, and I first started our foster care journey, the idea of being either a foster parent or an adoptive parent felt like something we could never really do. To be honest with you, it scared us! But God had other plans in mind. Flash forward a few years and we had a total of seven children, five through adoption.
The same is true of The Forgotten Initiative. The idea of starting a ministry to support the foster care community across the nation felt impossible. (It still does sometimes if I’m honest!) Over a decade later, and that first step of trust has led to God showing up more than I could have ever imagined.
Transformations like these don’t happen all at once. They start as a small seed that grow in our hearts. That seed is named awareness.
The Only Prerequisite You Need
If you are reading this sentence, you’ve already met the prerequisite necessary to make a difference: You are aware of the need. What I’ve found in my time working to support the foster care community is that awareness leads to action. We firmly believe that here at The Forgotten Initiative, and have seen it happen over and over again.
Numerous individuals and churches have a deep desire to help those in the foster care community, but they don’t take action because they don’t know how to help.
God is calling people just like you, who are aware of the people in the foster care community that feel forgotten, alone, or uncared for, to stand up and take action.
It’s Not About Numbers. It’s About Meaning.
This is usually the part where you may hear about the vast number of people you could impact (after all, there are over 400,000 children in foster care, not to mention vulnerable adults, foster parents, and agency workers), but what if you live in a small town or have a 9-to-5 that limits the amount of time you can volunteer?
You see, this work isn’t about impacting thousands as an individual—it’s about impacting the few that are right outside your door.
Take for example the work Amy Jo & Ben Jones, our TFI Advocates in Baldwin County, Alabama, are doing. Baldwin County has 189 children in foster care. That is less than 0.0005% of the total number of children in foster care across the nation. But if you were to ask those 189 children and 38 foster families of Baldwin County, the work those TFI Advocates are committed to means the world to them.
It’s about the few. It’s about supporting a community in need. And it’s about bridging the gap between churches and the needs of foster care agencies.
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No matter the size of your community, you can make a difference. Applications are open now for you to become a TFI Advocate in your local community. We only take submissions twice a year and we won’t be accepting any more in this round after May 30th. Will you answer the call?
Check out the details and apply at www.tfiadvocate.org.
