No child should ever say the words, “thank you for brushing my teeth,” or “thank you for feeding me breakfast,” but for many children who are in foster care, these simple things that most take for granted are things that mean the world to them.
And those are precisely the words one foster child said over and over again to Jody and Carol VanDeaver after they took her in.
The VanDeavers have been fostering children for three-years this month, and while welcoming a child into your home knowing more than likely they’ll be leaving may seem hard for many, for the VanDeavers, its what they felt called to do.
“How can I let the fear of my broken heart tell a child I don’t want you or I can’t expose my heart to that or let the fear of my heart getting broken stop me,” said Carol. “Imagine the pain they are feeling. You don’t know what they have been through or what they have seen or heard, so how can I tell a child needing a home that I don’t want them?.”
Although the VanDeavers now have a home full of children, they didn’t always want to adopt. Together they have a daughter, Chloe, but wanted more than anything to have another child.
But God had different plans.
“God knew all along what he was doing. We tried to have more kids, but I had a lot of problems, and after trying several rounds of IVF and going through a lot of pain, both emotionally and physically, we decided that God was leading us to foster.”
After meeting with the local CPS office and finding out more about fostering, Carol said she felt she just couldn’t do it. But, once again, God had different plans, and after attending a concert and hearing the speaker talk on taking care of the least of these, she changed her mind.
“Both Jody and I felt called to foster after that concert, and after hearing of all the children removed from their homes in Lamar County, we started the process of being foster parents.”
Since then, the VanDeavers have fostered 16 children, and through fostering, they have adopted siblings, Ian and Abigail.
“Before we even started fostering, a lady in our church asked us if we could take in two children from a distant relative of hers who couldn’t take care of them anymore. But when we pursued it, we found out they had already been placed in a foster home,” explained Carol. “Even though we knew we couldn’t get them, we continued to pray for them every night, and I prayed that God would protect them.”
After being approved to foster, it wasn’t long before the family got a phone call about two children that needed a home, and within days they welcomed siblings who they had for several months.
“It was very hard to see them go,” said Carol. “They were five and 14 months old, and just before they left, we all got sick. I called their grandmother, who said they caught the stomach virus also and after that, I decided we needed a break.”
But CPS kept calling with placements, and three days later, they accepted a four-month-old baby who was taken out of a drug home after testing positive for drugs. Carol said when they took him out of his carrier, he smelled, and there were bugs in the carrier. But he stole her heart, and they cared for him for 11 months.
“The next month, we went skiing on spring break in Colorado, and while we were there, we got a phone call about the two kids we had continued to pray for from before we started fostering. They needed to be moved, and they asked us if we wanted them,” said Carol. “Of course, we did.”
Upon returning from their trip, the family welcomed the siblings into their home, and they quickly became a family of six with their daughter, a five-month-old boy, Abigail, who was four-months-old, and Ian, who was 14-months.
“Ian and Abigail’s parents ended up signing over their rights,” said Carol. “Ian tested positive for meth when he was 9-months old and was removed from his parents. When their mother was pregnant with Abigail, she kept using drugs, and Abigail was born while her mother was in prison.”
On May 30th, 2018, Ian and Abigail officially became VanDeaver’s, a moment the family described as surreal.
“It’s kinda unbelievable to know they are ours. I can’t believe they are ours, and we can finally call them our children,” said Carol. “No one can take them away.”
Both Jody and Carol said that while Ian and Abigail are too young at this stage to understand that they are adopted, they won’t hide it from them when they are old enough.
“I always say, our biological daughter came from my belly, but Ian and Abigail came from my heart.”
Still wanting to help more children, the family got another phone call earlier this year about a newborn in NICU in the Plano area. She was born two months early, and while she wasn’t going to be discharged for several more weeks, the family traveled to Plano several times to see her.
“She was just three pounds when she was born, and when we brought her home, she was barely five pounds. We are hopeful we will adopt her,” said Carol. “She also has a half-sister who is 12-years-old who gets to visit her, and we would love for them to continue to have a relationship.”
Once again, a family of six, the VanDeaver’s received another phone call in June about a child they had fostered last year. She had gone to live with her great-grandmother, who was elderly, but now she isn’t is the best of health.
Without hesitation, they said they’d take her.
“Jody had fallen in love with her when we had her last year, and her parents were still serving time for drug charges. So, now we have an 11-month-old, a three-year-old, two four-year-olds, and a 14-year-old,” laughed Carol. “We are hoping to adopt both the 11-month old and four-year-old.”
When it comes to fostering children, both Jody and Carol said the “unknown” is the most challenging part of fostering but that you can’t let the possible heartache prevent you from receiving what God has in store for you.
According to CASA for Kids Texas, 20,685 children or 56 children a day were removed from their homes and entered the foster care system in 2018. Of those children, 1,211 children transitioned out (aged out) of the system, and 52,397 children were in legal care of the state.
“If just one family in every church in each community had a foster family willing to open their homes to these children, then all these kids would have a place to go,” said Jody.
“When we couldn’t have any more biological children, we kept asking God why, and we thought, why can these people who can’t take care of their kids have them, and we can’t,” said Carol. “But now we know why. We know God had a plan for us, and if we could have had more children, then we wouldn’t have Abigail and Ian.”
The couple encourages others to consider fostering and said the process isn’t as bad as some people think.
“Imagine the things we take for granted in life are taken away from you, and then you’re put into an environment that you don’t know. That’s what happens to those kids. Everything is taken away from them, and they don’t have a choice, but you have a choice to help them and change a child’s life.”
