Our Story - Part One: Becoming Foster Parents

It all started at the end of 2008.  I was sitting in church on a Sunday morning and had a sudden thought pop into my head.  It said…”you should be a foster parent”.  Totally not related to the service and not something that I thought about doing at all!  I quickly pushed that thought right out of my head!  You see, we had temporary custody of my nephews a few years before that and it was an awful experience.  Without going into details, just know that it put a tremendous strain on my family, especially our marriage.  So much so that I wasn’t sure we would pull out of it.  However, God is good and we got through it with HIS help and I really thought I would never go through that again!  Little did I know we needed to go through that so we would be prepared for the future that God had in store for us.

For about a month after that day in church, the thought just kept coming back.  It didn’t help that it was the month that a local radio station advertises an auction that they do for Foster kids in our county.  I decided I would tell someone and realize how crazy it was and block it out for good.   I started talking to a friend and during the conversation I said I don’t know any foster parents to even talk to about all my questions.  THAT DAY I met a foster parent.   It was someone I already knew, I just didn’t know that she was a foster parent and had adopted her daughter through foster care.  The amazing thing is that I only found this out because I overheard a conversation she was having with someone else.  Now I start thinking that this is more than just a coincidence.  I decided to mention it to Darrell, thinking he would say absolutely not, and knowing that God would never put us in a situation that would hurt our marriage I could finally get rid of this now overwhelming feeling.

I get home from work that day and had to run right back out for something.  Before I lost my nerve, I told Darrell to remind me when I get home to tell him something.  He kept asking what it was so quickly I said I really feel like we should look into foster parenting.  He looked at me and said, “if it’s something you feel strongly about, we’ll talk about and look into it”.  WHAT??  This is not at all what I expected to come out of his mouth!   At that moment I thought, OK God, I get it.  I’ll look into it.

January of 2009 we signed up and started pre-service classes to become foster parents.  We were the only couple out of about 11 that were not signed up to adopt.  We were in it strictly to do foster care.  The classes were awesome.  At times I found myself wishing we would have taken them before we had our bio kids.  After the classes, the home study process started.  So much paper work was involved.  I started to doubt our decision and drug my feet on a few things.  The final item we needed was our life insurance information.  I needed to call our finance guy to see what the details of our policies were.  I just kept forgetting or running out of time to actually call him.  One day, I get home from work and there was a message on my machine from him.  Another God moment!!  I never called him!  I hadn’t talked to him in probably over a year.  He was just calling to see how we were and if we needed anything.  OK God, I get it….I’ll get moving!  We finished up everything and got our license in May 2009.

What first sparked our interest in Caleb

I first saw Caleb's picture a few years ago and immediately thought he looked so much like our then foster son, Alex. I have always had a soft spot in my heart for kids with Down Syndrome because of watching our neighbor's little girl with Down Syndrome grow up across the street from us. I remember thinking how I wished we would have been able to afford to adopt him then. At that time, we had just moved into a brand new home and were in the process of adopting our two foster sons that we have had since 2007. Here is the picture! You'll have to excuse the lotion on Alex's head. He was supposed to be napping. You can tell by the look on his face that he knew he made a bad choice. hahaha!

Welcome Back

Wow! I haven't blogged since 2011. I look at my last post and see that it was about how our life had changed and we had 7 kids and how we couldn't believe it. Ha! We now have 9 and are in the process of adding one more. I just love God's sense of humor. Stay tuned for the rest of the story!

Never in my life have I ever believed that I would have a house full of kids. As a matter of fact, there was a time when I said I would never have ANY!! I was the oldest and spent more time than I wanted watching my 3 siblings. Now we have seven. It's been trying at times, but then someone smiles or does something funny and I'm reminded that they are such blessings to me. They have been given to me, even if for a short time, to allow me to bless them, which in return blesses me.

So much emotion and change has gone through our home in the last year. We built a house, decided to adopt, take on 3 more kids! I have a feeling this is not the end of the changes. I definitely have a stronger faith in my GOD! I am depending on HIM to get me through each day and guide me through all the decisions that I need to make!!

JESUS BRING THE RAIN

This song keeps running through my mind!! I picked up 3 little precious ones last week. That brings the total children in our house to 7!! We have two of our own (ages 11 and 9), two we are in the process of adopting (5 and 3) and now 3 more foster kids (2, 1, & 1). The situation with our new additions is very personal. They are my nieces and nephew. I’m asking for prayers for them, their two older brothers who are staying w/ my dad and pray their mom (my sister). She really needs to be able to clear her mind and focus on helping herself so she can finish raising her children to be the adults they are meant to be.

I also found out that my aunt passed away last night. Please pray her husband and children to find peace with this!

I can count a million times
People asking me how I
Can praise You with all that I've gone through
The question just amazes me
Can circumstances possibly
Change who I forever am in You
Maybe since my life was changed
Long before these rainy days
It's never really ever crossed my mind
To turn my back on you, oh Lord
My only shelter from the storm
But instead I draw closer through these times
So I pray

Bring me joy, bring me peace
Bring the chance to be free
Bring me anything that brings You glory
And I know there'll be days
When this life brings me pain
But if that's what it takes to praise You
Jesus, bring the rain

I am Yours regardless of
The dark clouds that may loom above
Because You are much greater than my pain
You who made a way for me
By suffering Your destiny
So tell me what's a little rain
So I pray

Holy, holy, holy
Is the Lord God Almighty

I can't believe I have been away from this blog for soooo long. I can't even begin to update everyone on the many changes our family has been through. I'm just going to post a copy of our Christmas letter and hopefully that covers everything!

I hope that everyone has had a blessed 2010. This year has brought so much to our family. I’m not even sure where to begin. I always go back to read the last couple Christmas letters to see how far we’ve come. It’s funny to me how some things turned out just as we imagined they would. However, I really love to see how some things are so different than we had planned, but exactly how God had it planned.

It’s amazing to me how God planted an idea in my head and my first interpretation of what He was asking has turned into so much more. Little by little we have received clear direction on what decisions we needed to make. Most of you know that a little over a year ago we had two little boys placed with us through foster care. In last year’s letter we told everyone that it was planned to reunite them with one of their biological parents. We honestly believed that would happen. Well, they are staying with us. We get to adopt them! It should be final some time in 2011.

I struggled so much with this decision. Not because we don’t love these boys, but because I wasn’t sure what we could handle. Keeping a foster child for a year or so is difficult, but parenting them for the rest of our lives scared me. I just wasn’t sure we were up for that kind of commitment. After all, it was not part of OUR plan. I had a hard time trying to figure out what God was placing before us. I was talking to my brother in law on the phone one day about the situation (Darren, you didn’t know you played a part in this, did you?). I said that I wanted God to send a stranger to me to tell me what to do so I would know the answer was coming from him and not me. After our conversation, I was encouraged to stop trying to figure out what God wanted and ask Him to clearily show me in a big way!

With in a few days, I received a phone call from someone at church I hadn’t heard from in almost a year. She invited me to a bible study and said that she felt I would be blessed from it. The first day of the study the speaker made a comment that changed our life. She talked about making decisions based on what God can do, not what you can do. My whole fear with deciding to adopt was all about me and what my family could handle. I think this was God telling me that all would be OK and we needed to do this. So, this time next year, we will legally have four kids instead of just two. What a blessing we have received!

More blessings this year: We built a house and moved in November. We love it. We have a ton more space! We have been waiting to build this house for 12 years. We bought this lot right before we got pregnant with Mason and have just been waiting for the right time. Mason and Madisyn started their new school right after Thanksgiving and seem to like it.

Mason played baseball again, but that was his last year. He decided against playing in 2011. He started playing the clarinet and his band teacher said he’s a natural. We are in the beginning of basketball season. Mason was able to play for Newark even though we moved out of the district. Darrell is not coaching this year because he has so much going on around home. Mason is now a green belt in karate, but is taking a break until after the first of the year.

Madisyn is still playing soccer and is great at it. She has so much energy! This is definitely her thing! She is such a help with the boys. Madisyn loves to help take care of little ones. She’s helped me a few times in the nursery at church too.

Austin and Alex fit right in our family. They are great with our busy schedule. They love to be on the go, which is good, because that’s usually how it is around here. Both are doing well at preschool and are taking swimming and gymnastics at the YMCA.

Darrell and I are both still working at the same places. Darrell spent all of the summer and most of the fall at our new house while it was being built. I spent most of the summer running kids around and taking care of things at home! We are really looking forward to a little down time. We are on the list to take another foster child, so who knows how much down time we will get! It all depends on what God has in store for us! We are excited to see where he takes us in 2011.

Everyone, please, have a Blessed Christmas and a Happy, Healthy New Year!

Love and Blessings,
The Maas Family,
Darrell, Angel, Mason,
Madisyn, Austin and Alex

So much has been happening here!! We finally have a scheduled ground breaking to begin construction on our house!! We should be starting this Thursday. We are praying for the weather to cooperate. There have been lots of storms and rain here over the last week. A temporary construction driveway has to be installed before we dig and if the rain doesn't let up, we may miss our date.

Bigger news: we are asking for anyone who reads this blog to pray that God will guide us in a very important decision we are facing. We have had two foster sons for almost a year now. "Our" plan was not to adopt, but to be a safe place for kids to stay until they were able to go back home with their parents. Nothing about this placement (which is our first) has been the textbook example. We brought the boys home, there was really not an adjustment period. Except for the fact that they didn't sleep much, they are very "normal" boys. No emotional, physical or academic issues. They are super smart kids.

Anyway, we really had high hopes for their parents. They both were doing so well at first and I thought for sure that the boys would end up back home. Unfortunately, the state has filed for permanent custody. We have some time to figure out what to do, but we have to start thinking about a decision. I can think of very logical reasons that are for and against adopting. I just want to make sure we are following God's plan, not ours. Please, please, please, pray for God to make His decision so clear to us that we cannot deny that it's His decision, not ours.

Thanks and many blessings to all,

Angel