I’m CSPC Director of Women’s Ministries Stephanie Schneider, and this is how my family and I are living deeply.

This story is about who our local church has been: less about who we have been, though it has changed us. I remember coming home from church on Sunday almost a year ago. Josh & I were standing in the kitchen and we both said, ‘Something happened in me this week.’ CSPC’s yearly mission conference had just wrapped up, and the focus was vulnerable children. There had been a lot of conversation that week about foster care, adoption, & orphans. God really used that to move us to say, ‘It’s time. Yes, we have three kids of our own. It doesn’t feel like it’s time to us, but it’s clearly time to Him.’ So we signed up for foster care classes that week, afraid if we didn’t do it then, we wouldn’t at all. Because there’s never a ‘good time’ where you’re going to feel like you have enough space. It was just time for us to trust God- we both felt this was His timing. Neither of us had fostering or adoption histories in our families, but for whatever reason we’d felt a desire to get involved in foster care for almost a decade. We’d been married two years when we first sensed it- our first child was only four months old at the time. I had a friend helping lead KAFCAM (Knox Area Foster Care & Adoption Ministries), which started to pique our interest in the topic. Josh & I actually went to a KAFCAM conference back then and walked away thinking we were going to foster. Then I ended up getting pregnant, so we were like, ‘Not yet.’ Then I got pregnant again- three kids, back to back to back. So it kind of kept getting pushed off, and I kept asking, ‘Why do we have this desire when it doesn’t really make sense?’ Maybe we needed that much time to process it so we could finally say yes in 2023. Whatever the case, after last year’s mission conference, my conviction & desire were reignited. I worked for the church, my husband was an elder at the church, & we had so much community. If we couldn’t do it, I didn’t know who could. Josh felt the same. As we started thinking about our church community, there was a comfort that we wouldn’t have to engage this journey alone.

One morning a few months later, we got a phone call: Could we foster a two-week-old girl? Yes, absolutely! Not long after, in the afternoon on that same day, another call: We’re coming with her- right now. Off I ran to Target for diapers and formula, and by the time I got back, they were waiting in my driveway with Baby M. She is the most content, happy, joyful baby: easy to soothe, not high maintenance, laid back, not fussy. Just a total joy- has been from the moment we got her. I was very concerned about how our kids would adjust, but I feel like it’s been God’s kindness to us that Baby M has the nature she does. She just allows them to be in her face, all over her, loving on her and she’s not bothered. That’s just endeared her to them. And she’s ended up being so go-with-the-flow; she just rolls with our life so well. But it’s God, at work through the people of CSPC, ultimately enabling us to do this. Our church has been a source of support beyond our wildest dreams- this baby is our church’s baby! Baby M has been lavished by CSPC since the moment she came to our house. I mean, I cannot tell you how many days we’ve come home and there’s stuff on our front porch- every baby thing we could ever need. I don’t even know who it was all from! Meals have shown up at our house. One woman has brought us a meal every week for almost the entire time we’ve had Baby M. Almost every day that I work, if Baby M’s not with my mom or Josh’s mom, she’s with a woman from our church; either a retired grandma or stay-at-home mom. These are just people who said, ‘I’d love to keep her.’ When I walk down the hall at church, so many people are like, ‘Baby M! Baby M!’ There isn’t a need we’ve had that has not been met almost exclusively by someone -a very dear friend, very close member of our community, or even a very random person- at CSPC who just happened to feel led to ask about it. Baby M truly is the church’s baby.

It’s a Christmas morning tradition at our house: We sit on the stairs in our matching PJs and I make the kids take an annoying amount of pictures. Then they get to come down, view the haul, and tear open their presents. It actually can cause a lot of strife in me as a mom to see our kids obsessed with gifts and all that. But this past year, with Baby M in the mix, Christmas was different. It was a very vivid shift in my kids- to see their focus on loving her, singing to her, and doting on her more than on what was sitting out for them. They were more excited about her experiencing Christmas than them experiencing Christmas! What a contrast to what it’s been in the past, and maybe an illustration of what God is slowly working in them through her. They were slowly, slightly shifting their eyes off themselves. That’s something that we’ve tried to teach, but when you bring another child into your home, that gives some life to the lesson. Also, our oldest the other day was talking about becoming an adult: ‘When I get married and I have two kids…’ and I was like, ‘Oh, you’re going to have two kids?’ She responds, ‘Yeah, and then we’ll probably have a couple of foster kids.’ Who knows if they will or not, but just even the idea that would be a thought for when they grow up, I see God doing that work in them, too. And just as He’s using her to shape them, He’s growing Josh & me spiritually. We have a relationship with, love, and pray for her parents, who have been fabulous & gracious. The bond with them has been surprising. It’s a whole new element in our lives wanting them to succeed and have their child back. We’re just standing in the gap until hopefully that can happen. Of course we’ve also seen some messiness, difficulty, and brokenness up close that we hadn’t before. That’s a given. But the blessing Baby M has been to our family far outweighs any cost or sacrifice. We have gained, we have not lost. We have not given up anything, it feels like, to have this baby. God says you have to lose your life to find it, and now I’m like, ‘Oh, you actually meant that! That’s actually true.’

It will not be easy when the time comes for Baby M to leave our home. For that piece of the equation, it feels like we’re trusting God as much, and maybe more, than when she came. He is God over beginning, middle, and end. And we’re trusting He will take care of our kids in their grief, in their mourning. In our mind’s eye, we maintain a relationship with Baby M, with her parents, and she’s not out of our lives forever. That would be our hope and dream. But if it isn’t able to happen… we talk to our kids a lot about that. Every day we talk about when she gets to go back with her mommy and daddy- to prepare them as best we can. I feel like that will be a new level of trusting God for all of us once the moment comes. We’ll probably take some time and grieve appropriately, but I do think we’ll continue to do foster care after Baby M leaves our home. It’s been such a blessing. And the reason I would say yes again is because I know whatever our needs –and they may not be the same needs with a six-year-old or a teenager or whatever we do in the future- I am certain God would provide what we need through our community and mostly through our church. Because that’s what we have watched Him do. The fear is kind of gone because I’ve watched God provide. And to be honest with you, I’m like, ‘Give me more of that!’ Fostering has been the coolest, most humbling, most overwhelming thing I’ve ever been a part of. It has made me more grateful for our church and, honestly, so honored to work for CSPC and to have a job that supports this body. To be a part of CSPC putting our money where our mouth is, caring for orphans & widows in boots-on-the-ground kinds of ways, it’s just been unbelievable. You have all truly been the hands and feet of Jesus to us.