By Tia Lyons and Janice McIntyre
Editor’s note: This is the second in a weekly series about foster care and The CALL in Union County. The series will run through Dec. 24 as part of our Community Christmas Card campaign, where we ask readers to help a local nonprofit through donations collected by the News-Times. Everyone who donates at least $2 through Dec. 21 will have their name listed in the Community Christmas Card that runs in our Christmas Eve edition.
When College Avenue Church of Christ was approached to partner with The CALL in Union County, the decision to get involved was a no-brainer.
Not only is the county coordinator of The CALL a member of the church and a passionate advocate for children and spreading the church’s ministry, the missions of College Avenue and The CALL are closely aligned, said Kent Jobe, preaching minister of College Avenue.
The CALL is a faith-based nonprofit that serves foster children and foster families within the Christian community in Union County. The organization works alongside the Department of Human Services and serves as a bridge between church and state programs that focus on foster care.
Karen Langston, county coordinator for The CALL, is a member of College Avenue, and she recruited her church family in 2014 to help connect children in the foster care system to loving supportive families that rely on Christian values as a way of life.
Through Langston’s powers of persuasion, Jobe said, College Avenue wasted no time in jumping aboard.
He explained that the partnership serves an ideal opportunity to carry out the church’s mission to “Love God. Love Others. Share the Good News.”
“Karen Langston had that passion on her heart, and she was led to the ministry of partnering with The CALL,” Jobe said. “With her leadership, Karen was already doing an excellent job, and we’re proud of her, so we got involved.”
And they weren’t the only ones.
Another local congregation that’s eager to support The CALL are the numerous families attending Wyatt Baptist Church of El Dorado, who support the organization by fostering and adopting children and also through monetary donations, prayers and emotional and spiritual support.
“I am proud of our people and thankful to God for steering parents in our church to be foster families,” Josh Bullock, one of three co-pastors at Wyatt Baptist said, explaining he feels parents and families “have to be called to be foster families.”
Langston said The CALL recruits individual foster families from within the congregations, working alongside the Department of Human Services to train them and provide a supportive community, working as a “bridge organization” between the churches and the state.
“The CALL is mobilizing the churches to serve these families and the children in their home. We encourage our community to pray, encourage and take care of the modern day orphan. We strongly believe that the Christian community is commanded to love and welcome these children into their home and we are seeing that happen all over our county,” she said. “Currently in Union County, we are seeing record numbers of children brought into foster care, but we are also witnessing the church step up and say ‘we can do this.’ How? We are seeing families open their doors and ‘comfort levels’ to bring these waiting children into their homes. This is the gospel lived out.”
‘An expression of faith through
sacrifice’
Jobe said College Avenue supports The CALL in a variety of ways.
“We support them financially through our budget. We allow them to use our facilities for meetings, training and support groups,” he said.
Church members also provide child care services and other resources to assist foster families, allowing those families time to meet with and lean on each other.
Some members also serve as foster families to the more than 100 children who are in
foster care in Union County.
“I would say between 35 and 40 members have been involved at one time or another on different levels,” Jobe said.
Following morning worship on Sunday, the church’s youth group will “Rake and Bake,” a project in which the youth will rake leaves at the homes of foster families and bake holiday treats.
“It’s been extremely helpful. It’s an expression of faith through sacrifice,” Jobe said of College Avenue’s experience with The CALL.
Bullock said The CALL ministry at Wyatt Baptist is a “people-led ministry” and the church supports the vision of its members to support foster children and The CALL.
“It goes with our mission as Christians,” he said.
Because of The CALL, “God is opening up other areas of ministry, such as mentoring to school children, which is one area of influence for the church, in addition to an emphasis on discipleship,” Bullock said.
“Our goal is to make Christ known, to know Him and to show the love of Jesus. There is no deeper way to show God’s love than to take foster children into our homes. Our goal is to love and disciple these kids – just love on these kids,” he said.
Bullock has been serving as a co-pastor at Wyatt for eight years and said when he and his family (wife and four children) began attending Wyatt, the church was just getting involved with The CALL.
Kristel Thomas, wife of one of the other co-pastors, and Elizabeth Glass, Wyatt member, attended training sessions to be foster parents and train other people for the fostering ministry. The CALL and individuals certified to train others to be foster parents, is a smoother process than going through government channels, Bullock said.
When the Department of Human Services needs foster parents, they will often contact The CALL and church trainers to help find temporary homes for children who have been removed from their homes due to abuse or neglect.
For years, Wyatt has had several families that serve as foster families and at any given time, there are usually three or four foster children who attend Wyatt with their foster families.
“We’ve always had foster families and their kids,” Bullock said, explaining that at times, there are as many as 10 foster children with families attending the church. He also said that several families with three or four biological children, foster and adopt other children.
To further support The CALL, members at Wyatt promote The CALL’s effort to provide foster homes. “We preach about it,” make announcements of meetings and trainings and provide facility space for meetings, Bullock said, adding that in addition to fostering children, many Wyatt families adopt children in need of a home. They also set up a budget for The CALL, take up donations for the ministry and several church members serve on the organization’s board of directors.
He said one family at Wyatt has adopted four children – two brothers and then twins – brother and sister. Another family adopted a teenager and several families have adopted siblings, in an effort to try to keep brothers and sisters in the same home.
“For the size of our church, lots of our members are involved” with The CALL, Bullock said.
One Wyatt husband and wife were unable to have children for several years after marriage, so they started fostering children – sometimes three or more at a time. It wasn’t long after they started fostering that they heard the good news – the mother was pregnant. Now, they provide a home for their biological and adopted children.
Breaking down barriers
Participating in The CALL has helped bring attention to a particular need in Union County, Jobe said.
“It’s exposed us to things we would have not otherwise seen. It’s a need that, in all honesty, many of us don’t realize is so close to home, so there’s an awareness there as well,” he said.
Jobe said College Avenue will continue to look for other ways to help The CALL and by extension, DHS, provide the best possible services for children in the foster care system in Union County.
“We want to help those families in practical ways, and our goal this Sunday is just to minister to those families,” he said.
Jobe also said College Avenue will also continue to help find more loving foster homes in Union County.
“We hope to increase that number in the future. Karen is always following up on those families who are interested and who have questions,” he said. “It’s good to see Christians taking their passions and using them to do amazing things.”
According to The CALL website, there are 180 churches in Union County; 71 children spend time in Union County foster care each day due to abuse or neglect and on average, there are only 27 families to care for these people.
Isaac and Rachelle Wardell, who attend Wyatt Baptist Church, have opened their hearts and home to over 25 children in state custody since 2012. U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton selected the Wardells as Angels in Adoption in 2015 and an awards ceremony was held in Washington, D.C. that year to honor the Wardells.
Bullock said the most rewarding ceremonies he has ever witnessed are when, in a court of law, a judge legally declares a child as a member of a new family – complete with parents and siblings – and the adoption process is completed.
Since 2007, The CALL has gone into churches to challenge people to do one of two things: Foster or support those who are able to foster.
“Little by little, The CALL breaks down the barriers that have kept people from fostering for so long. Over the past 10 years, The CALL has answered the hard questions for numerous families. Once those questions were answered, many families were ready to start the foster care/adoption process,” Langston said.
Bullock said Wyatt Baptist and The CALL, try to minister according to the Bible and he quoted James 1:27 that reads, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress.”