Help Wanted

Sometimes it’s hard to ask for help. When you’re fostering, sometimes you’re too busy, too overwhelmed, and too tired to itemize the ways you could use help, let alone ASK for help. But rest assured, help is wanted!
As a support person to a family that’s fostering, you can help without being asked. You may know exactly what your family could use help with, if so, by all means, do that! If you’re not so sure or could use some direction, here’s a list of a few things that almost every foster family needs help with:

1) Offer to pick up laundry and bring it back folded and ready to put away. (You can drop it off at a local laundry mat for a reasonable fee or take it home and use your own washer/dryer for a weekend project). 

2) Pay and schedule house cleaning services for your foster family.

3) Make or order dinner to be delivered. Make sure to include paper plates so after dinner cleanup is a nonissue.

4) Prepare or purchase frozen meals that can be kept on hand for busy days (like when a new placement gets dropped off).

5) Purchase meal and grocery gift cards and send them in the mail with an encouraging note.

6) Purchase gas gift cards or offer to drop kids off at visits to give your foster family a little break.

7) Pray for your foster family. 

Prayer: 
Lord, we/I pray in the name of your son Jesus, asking for blessings and favor over the (foster family’s last name) family. We/I ask for your presence to be known to each family member, from the parents to the children in the home now, the children that will come later, and for the biological families that some of these children will return to. Remind each one of how beloved they are. Remind each one of your goodness, your grace, your faithfulness, and your love. Help us/me to discern the ways you call to help and support this family and give us/me the power of your Holy Spirit to respond and act in obedience to your call. Thank you for using us/me in your design to care for children in foster care, by caring for the families that take them into their hearts and homes. We/I pray for more families willing to sign up as foster parents, and for more families willing to support the families signing up.
In Jesus’s name, we/I pray, Amen. 
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“Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.”
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 NIV