What Foster Care Does to the Biological Kids in the Home

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[SPEAKER_01]: There was one little boy when I was really young that I didn't feel comfortable around that I pulled my dad aside and asked if he could send it back.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And my dad's response to me was actually no, he's a child of God and the Lord put him here.

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[SPEAKER_01]: He's your brother, too.

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[SPEAKER_01]: They sold everything and they started a foster home of five kids within a year.

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[SPEAKER_01]: We changed into a group home.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And we always had 12 kids at all times, plus my brother and I, so 14 kids, in the 10 years that my parents had this group home, we had 90 children live with us because of the impacts of it has on biological children, having people coming in and out and you are not the focus of anything.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Pact with Purpose, a Care Package inbound podcast, Care Package inbound exists to deliver hope and you being part of this episode, you get to be part of that journey, delivering hope to those in foster care.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Today you guys, we've got a special episode.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We have our one and only Heather Gilmore.

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[SPEAKER_00]: She is the brand new COO of Care Package inbound.

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[SPEAKER_00]: and I couldn't be more excited by this conversation.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Heather has quite the journey and so we're gonna jump into that, but Heather, welcome to the podcast.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm really excited, how are you feeling?

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[SPEAKER_01]: I feel excited.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Excited.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Good, okay, ready to get going so for those who do not know you, which I know is a big part of our audience right now, tell us a little bit about yourself.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, married kids, five babies.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I'm married to Andy Gilmore, my husband.

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[SPEAKER_00]: There we go.

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[SPEAKER_01]: we have four children between the two of us.

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[SPEAKER_01]: We just had a first-granddaughter.

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[SPEAKER_01]: She is now one month and four days old.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we have one little doggy name Buster and let's see.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So I was in operations and transportation for about 25 years in my previous career.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I retired as a director of our operations for a major fiberglass firm and I was looking for a path to serve the Lord and

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[SPEAKER_01]: A couple of times CPI came up at church and was talking about the initiatives that you guys have the ministry that you have with foster children, and I had what are our fewlessly or Jessica calls a Moses moment and I was like, I don't want to do it.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I want to get back into that world.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

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[SPEAKER_01]: No, Lord.

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[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no, no, no.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But I don't even remember now how we segue to into where we're at.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I remember we had set up a lunch, and we just started chatting for a long time.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And initially, it was, if I remember, right, it was just kind of a volunteer role for

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[SPEAKER_00]: I want to stay kind of more like networking things though, something along those lines because you've got to get for networking.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but it was loose and it was, but I remember I left that meeting and I told just right after I was like, I can't help but feel like

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[SPEAKER_00]: There is something bigger here involving you.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And it was kind of one of those, it was definitely a god moment type of a thing where we started off on one thing left feeling like we need to press into this feeling that we're getting of there's something deeper, there's a bigger calling here.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And then I remember if it was just or me that floated at past you was just first.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It was just first, okay.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But she pressed your thoughts and your feelings.

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[SPEAKER_01]: and it actually was something that had been on my mind and on my heart because my extensive career in operations and that, like, you know, I really have a lot of other things to offer that I think it could be of great benefit that fit the fruits that the Lord has blessed me with.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I retired and that also fits into being able to help you guys and have the, yeah, give the time that it needs to try to establish a good strong base for us for growth and development within the Lord's ministry.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, that's just it was a really cool thing.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And so now we're here.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And here we are.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We get a chat a little bit about care package inbound today.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It just kind of your hopes and your dreams and your vision and kind of what drew you to it.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I think that will be a fun conversation.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But before we get there, you grew up in a pretty unique home.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know why you say that.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Would say as like everybody else, you were definitely not that is the first live today, no, but you did, if you don't mind, I actually don't want to spoil it at all.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I'd love to just kind of learn a little bit more about your childhood, how you grew up, your parents, and how that connects into what we do today with CPI.

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[SPEAKER_01]: My parents had a very successful business in Kansas City, Kansas.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Killing bugs, it was a pest control business.

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[SPEAKER_01]: They killed bugs for a living.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And they had purchased a home from a very dear friend of ours who had bought it to make a chicken restaurant out of it in Lidwood, Kansas.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And he asked my dad to go out and inspect that house for bugs because it had been abandoned for my brother.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And I remember that the home had been abandoned for about 10 years.

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[SPEAKER_01]: The house was actually built in 1884.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So at this point, it was not quite 100 years old.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But it had been abandoned for a long time and it was still very antique in its overall structure, so it didn't have air conditioning or heating or things like that.

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[SPEAKER_01]: As we found out later when we were doing remodeling, it actually had corn cobs for insulation.

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[SPEAKER_01]: No corn just corn cobs because they were 100 year old corn cobs in the walls.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Anyhow, so my day got this vision when he went out there to service this house for bugs that there should be children running through the house and not, it should not be a chicken restaurant.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And he got this vision from the Lord and he went home and he told my mom, and there's going to be chunks that don't make sense because I was only four.

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[SPEAKER_01]: All right, it makes sense but they're just going to seem weird.

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[SPEAKER_00]: this was a big house.

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[SPEAKER_01]: This house was 3,000 square feet above ground, 1,000 square feet below ground.

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[SPEAKER_01]: The same floor planned for the basement or the cellar.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It was what actually was.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Then the first two floors had the exact same floor plan, but then the fourth floor, including the basement, was actually had been a ballroom when the house was built by the senator of Kansas.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So it was open and it had porticoats all the way around it and stuff like still does it's not didn't go anywhere So any who you got this vision that he was gonna be full of kids and he took my mom and us out there and she got the vision from the Lord too They prayed and meditated over that.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how long because I was only four But they decided to approach their friend who had purchased this home and you know and asked them the only inspected for bugs not to try to steal it

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[SPEAKER_01]: And they got this vision from the Lord and they talked to their friend and they said the Lord really wants this house to be a foster home for children and they had this brief pause and their friends like, so that's what the Lord wants, huh?

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it is and I don't know how long it took but they did convince him and he sold them the house and he never made it into a chicken restaurant.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So my parents bought the house and they sold everything, they sold their home, they sold their

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[SPEAKER_01]: and they moved us out into this abandoned home and we had to start out as a foster home so we only had five kids initially because that's all that could be licensed for their intention at that point was still to be a group home.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But we had to start out with something and they were still again like remodeling this house and fixing it up and stuff like that because nobody had lived in it for ten years who had busted out windows and had bugs in it mice and all that kind of stuff.

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[SPEAKER_01]: had to be fixed up.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So we had five kids to start out with.

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[SPEAKER_01]: That was for the span of probably right around a year before they got licensed as a group owner.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I can't speak to the SRS system today or it's not even SRS anymore, which ages me as you can see.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But in the 70s and 80s, there was level 1 through 5.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Level 1 through 4 was foster children air in a home.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And level 1 was like you'd come out of the home for maybe two or three months.

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[SPEAKER_01]: There were some minor situations, but it could be brought back into their own home once those things were fixed.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Then it went up through four.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Level four was a step below being institutionalized.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Meaning that you had to have somebody there awake at all.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Now you were in an institution, right?

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[SPEAKER_01]: You had assigned beds.

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[SPEAKER_01]: That well, nothing shouldn't have been anyway.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But so we were forced.

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[SPEAKER_01]: These were kids who had serious issues going on in their homes.

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[SPEAKER_01]: They'd been in the system oftentimes for a very long time.

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[SPEAKER_01]: We didn't have any restrictions on the age that we took.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, hi.

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[SPEAKER_01]: As I got older, they didn't take kids who were a whole lot younger than me.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So that kind of shifted as I got older through the 10 years of my parents did this, but yeah, they sold everything and they started a foster home with five kids within a year.

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[SPEAKER_01]: We changed into a group home and we always had 12 kids at all times plus my brother and I so 14 kids.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So we always had enough kids to play any sports with both teams.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, any sport we wished.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But then we were also working farm.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So mostly we grew at we ate.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So my mom went to the store and we bought stuff like milk and cheese and stuff like that.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But for the most part, our meat and our vegetables all came from the backyard.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So it was a real interesting life.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And then we were out in the country and this little bit of town that had like four other people that lived in it besides us.

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[SPEAKER_01]: One A town in the Kingcans is like super, super small.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I think there was like 10 kids in my class when I was growing up.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So it was really small.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So, all in all, in the 10 years that my parents had this group home, we had 90 children live with us.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Some of those lived with us for five years.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Some of them were with us two or three days, and then there was a whole myriad of timeframes that, you know, in between that.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, 90 kids total lived in our home.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And my parents stop that in mid-80s and moved on with their life and other directions.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's what happens.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Story normal.

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[SPEAKER_00]: That, I mean, yeah, I think it is so cool.

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[SPEAKER_00]: One, just the answer to, you know, moving from, I've got a vision to the reality of it and then actually living that out for those 10 years.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Something, everything.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Selling everything.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I can't imagine now.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they've both passed now, so I can't go back and ask them.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But I can't imagine doing that now at my age.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

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[SPEAKER_01]: selling everything.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm moving into something of that type of endeavor.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's really, really different, but also just an incredible testimony at the same time of some differences that it can make.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, you've got stories for days.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure of those 10 years from what you can remember.

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[SPEAKER_00]: of the different things that you experienced and that you saw, you know, thinking back on all of the kids that came through, are there, you know, certain stories, certain individuals that really kind of stuck out with you, some things that were just incredibly encouraging and, and life-changing, baby, and maybe some some hardships as well.

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[SPEAKER_01]: We could talk about that for a long time, because there were 90 kids who lived here.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I was going to say there's 90 stories right there.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, you know, if we want to start off with some kids, with a couple of kids, I can think of a particular that came to live with us early in our life as a group of people.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, um, they were probably mid-level teenagers, like 13, 14 when they came to live with us.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And they lived with us early on in our life as a group of them.

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[SPEAKER_01]: They actually aged out of our house.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So they were both with us for about four or five years each until they graduated from high school and then the state has their law that at 18 They have to go out on their own.

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[SPEAKER_01]: They both developed good careers.

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[SPEAKER_01]: They had neither one of the ones to college But they went to trade schools.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm one of boy one a girl.

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[SPEAKER_01]: They went to trade schools.

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[SPEAKER_01]: They developed careers They got married.

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[SPEAKER_01]: They had children and they came back multiple times Just to see my parents to see us.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So you know to tell us how we were doing see how we were doing you know Spent a couple of holidays with them.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I think the last time I

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[SPEAKER_01]: that I remember seeing the girl, which was then a woman, was a good 15 years later, was the last time she had come back to see us and broader kids and had a long, actually, I had the whole day with them.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So that was really great.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So there were success stories and kids coming out of that.

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[SPEAKER_01]: We had twins, actually.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And one of the twins had never brushed his teeth.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And he,

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[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't know what to do.

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[SPEAKER_01]: They had been raised by their grandfather through all of their children.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And they were probably 10 when they came to maybe 10 or 11 when they came to live with us.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And I remember him asking my mom, when kids would come, my mom would give them full toiletries and clothes and stuff like that because they came in with nothing, which we'll get to, right?

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[SPEAKER_01]: And one day at breakfast, he was telling my mom how,

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[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't like the taste of the toothpaste, he and he was gross, he didn't want to use it, he didn't know all these things.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And she was like, what are you doing with it?

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[SPEAKER_01]: And he was swallowing it as what was happening.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But he'd never brushed his teeth before.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And he was probably 10 or 11 by that point.

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[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't even know what toothpaste was.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So she had to train him on how to brush his teeth.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But by the time they left, they had the normalized social skills that could help them move through life and step into other situations where they didn't know how to handle things that were normalized portion of society, right?

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[SPEAKER_01]: that how embarrassing that would be if you were like at a camp or at school only me by the school trip and you didn't know how to brush your teeth and the kids are like what's wrong with you yeah things that put their mind in a really in really bad situations where they're demoralized because they just don't know and haven't had any experiences that have helped them develop into normal people.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, there was that with those two boys.

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[SPEAKER_01]: We had a girl that came to live with us in her teens.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And there were multiple times that we actually had to take her to the hospital because she had tried to OD on different medications that were not things like Tylenol and my doll.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But it was just constant calls for attention.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And her story did not end up well.

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[SPEAKER_01]: She actually wound up in prison.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But there were lots of times that the kids with another one, another girl that I'm thinking of who was earlier on in the lifespan of our home, who did come through and really developed a strong sense of self and built her character back up and was able to have a lot of self-respect and pride.

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[SPEAKER_01]: She aged out, I do believe, she aged out, she turned 18 and had to go and she came back multiple times.

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[SPEAKER_01]: This is another little besides the first one.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And she also had a family and became a mom which has always, it had always been one of her dreams that was to have children of her own.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And provide for kids of her own and not have them go through the type of circumstances that she had done.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, different stuff like that.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's a lot.

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[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of hard stories in there.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a lot of trauma and things we've talked about on this before where how to deal with trauma, how to look at trauma.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And you guys were doing that on a daily basis.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you were living in a place

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[SPEAKER_00]: invited in trauma and then tried to speak to that and just provide something that was safe, something that they could be involved in too.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So you're not just coming in and just living there.

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[SPEAKER_00]: They like actually worked on the form.

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[SPEAKER_00]: They were a part of a community, right?

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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I've actually a family is what I say because they'll get they told the kids all the kids called my mom and dad mom and dad from the day they arrived.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I don't I don't even know if they told

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[SPEAKER_01]: They might have, but they're all the kids called the mom and dad and we were providing for ourselves.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So it was really part of being a family.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Even though we had kids who only stayed with us for three days, mentally they were never separated in my mind.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how to speak from my brother because he was, he's seven years older than me, so he had a much different experience.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But to me it was just another brother or another sister.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So it actually was really hard

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[SPEAKER_01]: And there were kids that we got really, really attached to.

14:42.539 --> 14:48.745
[SPEAKER_01]: There were three children that my parents actually were going to adopt, but because of different things that happened within their biological families, that didn't transpire.

14:48.765 --> 14:55.030
[SPEAKER_01]: And one of them in particular had lived with us for five or six years, and we were in an adoption process, and his dad stole him from school.

14:55.751 --> 15:04.058
[SPEAKER_01]: He actually, his dad had lived in New York and came and took him, the state found him, brought him back, and he ran away after that, and went back and I don't even know what happened to him after that.

15:04.098 --> 15:06.960
[SPEAKER_01]: But I remember how painful it was when he came back.

15:07.320 --> 15:12.765
[SPEAKER_01]: And I personally felt like, you know, it was almost like abandonment for me because I considered this boy my brother.

15:13.305 --> 15:15.667
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought he was going to be with us for the rest of our lives.

15:15.687 --> 15:16.808
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he disappeared.

15:17.188 --> 15:17.888
[SPEAKER_01]: I never saw him again.

15:18.249 --> 15:19.310
[SPEAKER_01]: So there was a lot of that too.

15:19.430 --> 15:20.290
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.

15:20.350 --> 15:25.314
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was really more part of being a family for us, at least in our environment that my parents wanted to create.

15:25.334 --> 15:30.238
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

15:30.758 --> 15:34.641
[SPEAKER_00]: bringing in foster kids is it's not about you.

15:35.061 --> 15:36.262
[SPEAKER_00]: It's about them.

15:36.702 --> 15:38.003
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you guys lived that out.

15:38.103 --> 15:40.224
[SPEAKER_00]: It was it was all about them.

15:40.304 --> 15:45.888
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't about your parents and something that they were trying to do for them.

15:45.948 --> 15:50.851
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just loving on whoever came in 90 different kids in 10 years.

15:50.951 --> 15:51.631
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a lot.

15:51.911 --> 15:53.272
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a lot of turnover.

15:53.292 --> 15:54.173
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a lot of

15:54.813 --> 16:04.157
[SPEAKER_00]: wins and in some heart breaks, like you were just describing as well, but what an incredible Christlike sacrifice to be able to say we're just going to love on these kids and make it about them.

16:04.438 --> 16:13.682
[SPEAKER_01]: And it really, truly was, I remember there was one little boy when I was really young that I for its various reasons didn't feel comfortable around that I pulled my data side and asked if he could send it back.

16:14.422 --> 16:19.204
[SPEAKER_01]: And my dad's response to me was actually no, he's a child of God, and the Lord put him here.

16:19.244 --> 16:29.368
[SPEAKER_01]: He's your brother too, so you're going to have to understand how to help you, but you're going to have to understand how to love him, like you love these other gen we named other children who were in our home at the time.

16:30.028 --> 16:42.113
[SPEAKER_01]: So it really truly was all about them, and actually, I mean, that has a really good point was we were, so our home was incorporated, and our board of directors was built through our church.

16:43.153 --> 16:55.260
[SPEAKER_01]: And my parents actually asked for counseling for Steve and I as we got older my brother and I because of the impacts of biological it has on biological children having people coming in and out and you're not the focus of anything.

16:56.581 --> 17:08.908
[SPEAKER_01]: You're expected to be okay because you got all these kids who need so much and so many different ways that yeah they wound up that are our pastor or assistant pastor at the time said you know they really need some attention to.

17:09.688 --> 17:12.031
[SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, it has all kinds of different impacts on them.

17:12.051 --> 17:12.552
[SPEAKER_01]: That's good.

17:12.592 --> 17:25.630
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's work on that for a second, talking to talk through the impact, if you don't mind, kind of of what was that like for you personally moving away from, you know, the overall group on which we can come back to, but you specifically in the impact that had on,

17:26.110 --> 17:29.873
[SPEAKER_00]: growing up, your relationship with your parents, how you may be saw the world.

17:30.154 --> 17:32.316
[SPEAKER_01]: Having the home close was devastating to me.

17:33.176 --> 17:37.320
[SPEAKER_01]: At the time we had four children who had been with us again five or six years.

17:37.680 --> 17:42.344
[SPEAKER_01]: In particular, two other kids who were a year older than me in a year younger than me.

17:43.065 --> 17:44.026
[SPEAKER_01]: They were my best friends.

17:44.406 --> 17:45.747
[SPEAKER_01]: I spent all of my time with them.

17:45.767 --> 17:47.088
[SPEAKER_01]: We were extremely close.

17:47.589 --> 17:48.410
[SPEAKER_01]: And then to be told,

17:48.990 --> 17:51.232
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, they're leaving in a week and like, where are they going?

17:51.292 --> 17:53.074
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it was, where are they going to go?

17:53.114 --> 17:55.896
[SPEAKER_01]: They actually went to live with my aunt, know, a girl who had started a foster home.

17:56.416 --> 17:57.397
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, they had been meant to die.

17:57.417 --> 18:00.059
[SPEAKER_01]: My parents, so they lived with them for several years.

18:00.079 --> 18:01.100
[SPEAKER_01]: So they didn't leave leave.

18:01.120 --> 18:02.221
[SPEAKER_01]: But they weren't my home anymore.

18:02.241 --> 18:03.322
[SPEAKER_01]: And they were my brother and sister.

18:03.342 --> 18:05.924
[SPEAKER_01]: So for to me, it was like ripping my heart out, you know?

18:06.125 --> 18:07.926
[SPEAKER_01]: It was very difficult for me to assimilate.

18:08.246 --> 18:09.888
[SPEAKER_01]: We were considered I was making jokes about it.

18:09.908 --> 18:11.369
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, we didn't fit in.

18:11.449 --> 18:14.392
[SPEAKER_01]: My brother and I didn't fit in our family didn't fit in with anybody.

18:15.072 --> 18:15.432
[SPEAKER_01]: anywhere.

18:16.012 --> 18:17.933
[SPEAKER_01]: There was nothing about us that was normal.

18:18.173 --> 18:18.313
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

18:18.453 --> 18:19.794
[SPEAKER_01]: It was always here comes those kids.

18:19.814 --> 18:30.659
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, they did you feel that at that time or was that so we knew that we were very, very different in multiple ways, not only because of the group home, the working farm wasn't weird in the country where we lived.

18:30.719 --> 18:32.039
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody had working farms.

18:32.059 --> 18:33.640
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a little small farming community.

18:34.280 --> 18:36.362
[SPEAKER_01]: but the group home truly had them.

18:36.482 --> 18:37.944
[SPEAKER_01]: We had a monocryphual.

18:38.484 --> 18:46.412
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, my dad was always down at the school picking up children to take him to things for the state on a daily basis, sometimes a couple of times a day.

18:46.492 --> 18:52.798
[SPEAKER_01]: So there was a much different perspective from the school district, because they were dealing with the a lot of the impact of these kids being in their classes.

18:52.818 --> 18:58.104
[SPEAKER_01]: We had one little boy, he joined us when he was in third grade and he had to wear diapers all the time.

18:58.784 --> 19:00.925
[SPEAKER_01]: And my dad was constantly down there.

19:00.985 --> 19:08.309
[SPEAKER_01]: We tried to, my dad, not I, but he had tried to work him through being able to have, um, to be continent.

19:08.769 --> 19:10.470
[SPEAKER_01]: And it just, it never happened.

19:10.490 --> 19:17.213
[SPEAKER_01]: So he wound up, we have, he, he was trying to work him into diet and working in the regular underwear and being able to function normally as a normal person.

19:18.233 --> 19:21.574
[SPEAKER_01]: and the school actually insisted that they put them back in diapers in the third grade.

19:22.194 --> 19:24.255
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's really hard for me.

19:24.395 --> 19:26.075
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, really, really hard, right?

19:26.095 --> 19:26.976
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

19:27.076 --> 19:34.678
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, we had this tagline who was those kids in a very tiny community that we lived in.

19:35.658 --> 19:38.080
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, because it was so small as a big impact.

19:38.341 --> 19:38.621
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

19:38.701 --> 19:39.842
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a big impact.

19:40.382 --> 19:46.127
[SPEAKER_00]: We were like half the school just going to say you're graduating class with 10, you know.

19:46.448 --> 19:48.629
[SPEAKER_01]: We were like three of the times.

19:48.649 --> 19:49.410
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

19:49.550 --> 19:53.674
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, it had a huge impact on me personally when the home closed.

19:54.514 --> 19:59.138
[SPEAKER_01]: It was very, very difficult for those particular children that I referenced that we had lived at us for all that time.

19:59.479 --> 20:00.440
[SPEAKER_01]: They felt lost too.

20:01.781 --> 20:07.745
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really hard, you establish these connections and these bonds that are really difficult to break.

20:08.225 --> 20:17.892
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they're gone and oftentimes when you're at the level that we were at, you have children who have just had so much hurt and so much pain in a life that trusting anyone is still very, very difficult.

20:18.312 --> 20:22.815
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you're in this environment that can help and can start to change things.

20:22.876 --> 20:28.399
[SPEAKER_01]: But if they're older and they get aged out, the state doesn't give you the opportunity or at least at the time to leave them in your home.

20:28.439 --> 20:29.060
[SPEAKER_01]: They had to go.

20:29.360 --> 20:33.466
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, it all respects, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was awful.

20:33.526 --> 20:35.049
[SPEAKER_01]: It was, it was, it was awful.

20:35.169 --> 20:36.531
[SPEAKER_01]: It was, it was, it was, it was awful.

20:36.551 --> 20:38.073
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

20:38.093 --> 20:38.874
[SPEAKER_01]: Very traumatic for me.

20:39.155 --> 20:39.355
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

20:39.495 --> 20:43.781
[SPEAKER_00]: But I wasn't, I wasn't the focus, but I think that that's actually,

20:44.262 --> 20:57.446
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's a good point to bring up because maybe taking a second to talk to just our audience and the biological kids that are either in a group home, which I think is less come in today.

20:57.506 --> 20:59.007
[SPEAKER_00]: It's more just like foster homes.

21:00.187 --> 21:00.928
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even know who she was.

21:00.948 --> 21:01.829
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even know who she was.

21:01.849 --> 21:02.610
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even know who she was.

21:02.630 --> 21:03.370
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even know who she was.

21:03.390 --> 21:04.111
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even know who she was.

21:04.131 --> 21:04.872
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even know who she was.

21:04.892 --> 21:05.573
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even know who she was.

21:05.593 --> 21:06.273
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even know who she was.

21:06.293 --> 21:06.994
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even know who she was.

21:07.014 --> 21:07.895
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even know who she was.

21:07.915 --> 21:09.016
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even know who she was.

21:09.036 --> 21:10.057
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even know who she was.

21:10.077 --> 21:11.319
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even know who she was.

21:11.379 --> 21:12.460
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even know who she was.

21:12.480 --> 21:13.481
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even know who she was.

21:13.561 --> 21:14.802
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even know who she was.

21:14.822 --> 21:16.404
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even know who she was.

21:16.424 --> 21:17.165
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even know who she was.

21:17.185 --> 21:18.065
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even know who she was.

21:18.086 --> 21:18.946
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even know who she was.

21:18.966 --> 21:19.407
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't

21:19.587 --> 21:29.712
[SPEAKER_00]: you really had to use some counseling, like lean on maybe the church to be able to process through what that felt like and some of the abandonment feelings.

21:30.032 --> 21:31.213
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you want talking through that?

21:31.273 --> 21:31.853
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think so.

21:31.893 --> 21:34.355
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I would say first and foremost was Christ.

21:34.615 --> 21:35.375
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

21:35.495 --> 21:38.677
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, I grew up in a very, very faith-based,

21:39.317 --> 21:40.998
[SPEAKER_01]: Christ sent her at home.

21:41.038 --> 21:44.200
[SPEAKER_01]: The primary activity in our life was going to church.

21:44.220 --> 21:48.703
[SPEAKER_01]: We lived way out in the country and we didn't do much as far as activities or social things go because we always had 14 kids.

21:48.763 --> 21:54.126
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a lot of people to tot around and it's a lot of money if you're going to go do anything but we always went to church and church activities.

21:54.527 --> 22:01.631
[SPEAKER_01]: I knew that we were weird and in the context of normalized society at least in that little tiny town in Kansas but for me that was normal.

22:01.891 --> 22:03.652
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know it was wonderful when we got a new

22:04.693 --> 22:06.314
[SPEAKER_01]: It was really, really difficult when they left.

22:06.634 --> 22:07.075
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

22:07.095 --> 22:26.446
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if I got used to it, or what have you, but I would say that really, I think that the Lord gave my brother and I, the parents that we had in the base of Christ that that existed in our family, and to be able to try to help these children, and then to have both of us not come out a little insane.

22:29.528 --> 22:54.116
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that is definitely the Lord right there because that's that's a lot to put any child through Wow, thank you for so much for sharing that I think that a lot of times we do talk about Foster kids that that is our heart as an organization is to Be an organization that supplies something that brings dignity that brings hope that says you matter To a child entering foster care because that is such

22:54.876 --> 23:13.937
[SPEAKER_00]: a traumatic, hard thing, no matter if you are a level one to a level five, like no matter where you are at, just that separation can be really tough, but we don't spend a ton of time talking about the biological kids that might be at a foster home, and so you've been able to share some of that perspective of

23:14.658 --> 23:16.179
[SPEAKER_00]: They weren't partnering together.

23:16.239 --> 23:18.501
[SPEAKER_00]: You took that, this is us together.

23:18.541 --> 23:27.128
[SPEAKER_00]: My parents and I together, and I think that invitation is really important is inviting your kids into anything that you were doing.

23:27.368 --> 23:33.733
[SPEAKER_00]: I love doing that with my boy specifically is, if I'm going to do anything of, I'm building something, whatever it might be.

23:33.773 --> 23:38.898
[SPEAKER_00]: If I can invite them into that experience and allow them to be part of it,

23:39.698 --> 23:42.000
[SPEAKER_00]: uh, I just think that that really adds some value.

23:42.341 --> 23:51.569
[SPEAKER_00]: And so when we're talking about foster care is that invite from the parents of, hey, we're going to do this together, uh, I think that can be really important.

23:51.929 --> 23:52.810
[SPEAKER_01]: And for me, it was,

23:54.320 --> 23:56.282
[SPEAKER_01]: It was always just this assumption, and we got a new kid.

23:56.603 --> 24:02.289
[SPEAKER_01]: I've got a new brother, this assumption that that person too wanted us as much as we wanted them.

24:02.730 --> 24:04.031
[SPEAKER_01]: But that wasn't always the case.

24:04.572 --> 24:11.820
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was always very difficult for me when we had kids who were not receptive to my parents, to us, to being there, to anything, because they had, you know,

24:12.461 --> 24:31.322
[SPEAKER_01]: when you know I was little so I would never ever had the thought process about where they came from and how how damage they came to us for for me was always very confusing and and hurtful like why don't they want they're a part of our family now they walked in the door poof here my brother you know um that made total sense to me yeah but for some of the

24:31.602 --> 24:33.323
[SPEAKER_01]: a lot of kids out of 90, obviously.

24:33.343 --> 24:42.966
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of kids didn't want to be there and they didn't want anything to do with having to go outside and feed the chickens and they didn't want anything to do with living in this little tiny town in Kansas.

24:42.986 --> 24:44.746
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, they were from the city or what have you.

24:44.786 --> 24:46.167
[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't want any part of...

24:47.187 --> 24:49.789
[SPEAKER_01]: 13 other kids who are all like, why's wrong with you?

24:49.829 --> 24:50.649
[SPEAKER_01]: You're a brother now.

24:50.689 --> 24:50.989
[SPEAKER_01]: We're okay.

24:51.009 --> 24:52.170
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to go outside and play.

24:52.190 --> 24:57.313
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the inclusiveness that was immediate for me and the, no, you're mine now.

24:57.353 --> 24:58.974
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, they thought, no, I'm not.

24:59.054 --> 24:59.374
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

24:59.434 --> 25:06.939
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was really, really hard for me to understand why that they, that they weren't so happy to be there when I was so happy for them to be there.

25:07.299 --> 25:07.479
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

25:07.739 --> 25:23.767
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, through this experience was that something that as you got a little bit older, do you ever have the thought of maybe I want to build this myself or or bring in foster kids or where do that kind of take you in your just your relationship with the foster care system.

25:23.947 --> 25:29.449
[SPEAKER_01]: I had big pushback like I was just saying for after I got into college, I just didn't want anything to do with it.

25:30.950 --> 25:32.212
[SPEAKER_01]: So I guess maybe I was tired.

25:32.572 --> 25:40.301
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know and it our church had brought up CPI a couple of times and I had my Moses moments where I was like, no, I don't want to.

25:40.321 --> 25:42.343
[SPEAKER_01]: No, don't make me.

25:44.205 --> 25:44.846
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to.

25:44.866 --> 25:46.047
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to go back into that.

25:46.087 --> 25:47.329
[SPEAKER_01]: It's to, yeah, I don't know.

25:47.349 --> 25:49.832
[SPEAKER_01]: I know, I actually had pushed back for a long time.

25:49.852 --> 25:51.754
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I had lots of people, lots of people, always

25:52.214 --> 25:54.116
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, did you ever want to open your own foster home?

25:54.216 --> 25:54.496
[SPEAKER_01]: No.

25:55.397 --> 25:56.878
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, do you ever reach out to those kids?

25:57.258 --> 25:57.839
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I don't.

25:57.879 --> 25:59.981
[SPEAKER_01]: I've had some of them reach out to me, but I don't even need you.

26:00.081 --> 26:02.022
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, it would be easier to find people social media.

26:02.283 --> 26:02.783
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

26:02.843 --> 26:06.206
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, when the 90s and stuff like that, it was like, no, I don't know how to find them.

26:06.226 --> 26:07.747
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not going to try it.

26:07.767 --> 26:10.009
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I had a lot of pushback for a long time.

26:10.209 --> 26:10.930
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

26:11.010 --> 26:15.073
[SPEAKER_01]: It was very difficult for me personally when my parents decided to end the home.

26:15.133 --> 26:15.314
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

26:15.334 --> 26:16.635
[SPEAKER_01]: Because that was all I had known.

26:17.546 --> 26:18.686
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, what was that transition?

26:18.706 --> 26:19.826
[SPEAKER_00]: What did you guys do afterwards?

26:19.927 --> 26:28.948
[SPEAKER_01]: We moved to Overland Park and lived in a condominium for a while while they built a dream home in a very, very rural area of Kansas.

26:29.609 --> 26:37.670
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a choice of going to three different school districts that was so far out, which living out there in the country was again my norm, you know, that I was in my comfort space and stuff like that.

26:37.710 --> 26:43.131
[SPEAKER_01]: But those first couple years of transition while we were living in the city for me was just jarring and it was awful.

26:43.272 --> 26:45.052
[SPEAKER_01]: I never felt like I didn't anywhere.

26:45.072 --> 26:45.432
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

26:45.612 --> 26:47.492
[SPEAKER_01]: because I didn't fit any of my friends.

26:47.512 --> 26:51.093
[SPEAKER_01]: Because when you say having 12 brothers and sisters and then my brother is, yeah.

26:52.093 --> 27:01.035
[SPEAKER_00]: So fast forwarding today, then, and you touched base on that just a little bit with your connection and kind of your Moses moment that we're just talking through with CPI.

27:01.635 --> 27:11.097
[SPEAKER_00]: Leaders kind of talk through what led you to jumping back into something that you had some resistance towards and kind of,

27:12.257 --> 27:28.238
[SPEAKER_00]: I bet coming back into CPI maybe you can answer this a little bit kind of brought up a lot of those experiences that maybe you had to kind of like rework through a little bit to get to a space that says I'm going to jump into this again, walk us through that.

27:28.438 --> 27:31.421
[SPEAKER_01]: So the Lord really worked on my heart over time.

27:32.262 --> 27:39.991
[SPEAKER_01]: Probably like a year, I think, was probably the span from the first time I heard about CPI Church versus however, Jess and I were connecting about this, which I don't remember.

27:40.211 --> 27:41.232
[SPEAKER_01]: He really worked on my heart.

27:41.953 --> 27:46.878
[SPEAKER_01]: And the times that I heard about this really made me remember that out of those 90 kids, again,

27:47.519 --> 27:51.924
[SPEAKER_01]: given the point that the bullet point, if you will, that I was small.

27:52.444 --> 27:54.587
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't remember a single kid coming in our house with anything.

27:54.887 --> 27:59.592
[SPEAKER_01]: Now my brother was seven years older, and he does remember some kids having a trash bag of things.

28:00.313 --> 28:06.119
[SPEAKER_01]: But no kid came in with a suitcase or things organized or nicely put together.

28:06.600 --> 28:08.181
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't remember a kid coming back with a single...

28:08.922 --> 28:11.345
[SPEAKER_01]: one thing on them, just themselves.

28:11.465 --> 28:24.880
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's kids like you remember, we had this huge back wrap around back porch, a wrap around porch on our back of the back of our house standing there in the old country door with a sunlight shining through it and it was just the kid and we're like, oh, new kid, you know, but they never had stuff with them.

28:26.520 --> 28:37.544
[SPEAKER_01]: And the thought of being able to help provide the things that give a kid dignity when they're ripped out of their home, they're not allowed to take anything or what they are allowed to take with them goes in a trash bag.

28:38.204 --> 28:46.667
[SPEAKER_01]: Really started the Lord had to really work on me because I had retired, you know, I was done with my cry, I was done with operations, done and I just find some other things to do.

28:46.967 --> 28:47.407
[SPEAKER_01]: And this was it.

28:48.047 --> 28:50.328
[SPEAKER_01]: I really think it took the Lord some time to really work through that.

28:55.114 --> 28:56.755
[SPEAKER_01]: We had some violence in the house.

28:57.155 --> 29:08.080
[SPEAKER_01]: We had a girl that was probably looking back now 15 or 16 doing the dishes was one of the girl's chores after dinner because you're feeding 16 people.

29:08.120 --> 29:09.441
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was always a lot of dishes.

29:09.461 --> 29:10.641
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a lot of the dishes.

29:10.781 --> 29:11.602
[SPEAKER_00]: And we didn't have a dish wash.

29:11.642 --> 29:14.203
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't have a dish wash. No, there was no dishwasher.

29:14.923 --> 29:36.788
[SPEAKER_01]: Those were luxury and that you know in that day and age they're a luxury and I Or she didn't want to do the dishes and all the girls were just doing their thing We were all chatting in there's probably six or seven us in the room and Chat chatting and just doing dishes right you know nobody was really the facing each other We're all doing our different chores that did getting the dishes done and remember my mom screaming and I turned around and this girl had it my mother from behind and had a knife to her throat

29:37.448 --> 29:38.889
[SPEAKER_01]: And she was like, I'm not doing the dishes.

29:39.269 --> 29:45.252
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not doing the dishes and holding my mom with a knife, my head shatter her arm around her waist and the knife to her throat.

29:45.272 --> 29:46.952
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm not going to do the dishes and you can't make me.

29:47.593 --> 29:53.435
[SPEAKER_01]: And my oddly enough, all my mom started doing was screaming my dad's name and all of us just stood there.

29:53.455 --> 29:57.317
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, going through the process of trying to, that was that girl,

29:58.730 --> 30:03.491
[SPEAKER_01]: In my mind, I developed this, I guess, maybe sense of my ability to process was they went away.

30:04.091 --> 30:07.652
[SPEAKER_01]: So that girl went away the next day, and I never ever saw her again.

30:08.632 --> 30:13.473
[SPEAKER_01]: And I remember, so there's a lot of processing with that, the, you know, I was afraid she was going to kill my mom.

30:14.933 --> 30:22.014
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't even remember now what happened the next day and maybe that's part of it too was it just blacked out, you know, I don't remember anything she went away, that was over with.

30:22.534 --> 30:23.695
[SPEAKER_00]: Just disassociated.

30:23.735 --> 30:23.875
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

30:23.975 --> 30:24.275
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

30:24.615 --> 30:26.215
[SPEAKER_01]: We had another girl that, um,

30:28.140 --> 30:32.503
[SPEAKER_01]: that claimed that one of the boys at the house raped her, it didn't turn out to be true.

30:32.583 --> 30:35.925
[SPEAKER_01]: But they both went away, and it was really difficult for me to lose both of them.

30:35.945 --> 30:37.346
[SPEAKER_01]: I was very close to both of them.

30:38.346 --> 30:45.631
[SPEAKER_01]: So working through a lot of that, and figuring out what the winner way really meant to me in the last year or so, yeah, year or so.

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[SPEAKER_01]: What did that mean to me when they went away?

30:47.752 --> 30:49.213
[SPEAKER_01]: Was I closing them out in my mind?

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[SPEAKER_01]: How was I processing that as a child that these people went away?

30:53.235 --> 31:08.782
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I'm doing this but literally in air quotes like it was a thing they went away and I just had this little bubble around it That's what they were gone, and so I just had to move on with the next kid and be happy that the next kid was there And try not to worry or wonder about what happened to them.

31:09.282 --> 31:10.843
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't know if that answers your question

31:11.123 --> 31:25.384
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think it's definitely a start to it because that's it you're saying that that's a lot of the processing that even jumping into care package and bound right now has kind of prompted you to process through what did what did that mean right that they went away and how to how do I.

31:26.285 --> 31:31.994
[SPEAKER_00]: look at life and relationships and inviting new people in even like right now.

31:32.094 --> 31:33.156
[SPEAKER_00]: What does that look like?

31:33.216 --> 31:35.680
[SPEAKER_00]: And if somebody just goes away, am I fine with that?

31:35.700 --> 31:37.342
[SPEAKER_01]: Do I fight for it a little bit more?

31:37.482 --> 31:40.627
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a good point because I am very, very talented at being done.

31:41.308 --> 31:42.528
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

31:43.429 --> 31:47.449
[SPEAKER_01]: Very talented at being done with whatever it is that I need to be done with.

31:48.470 --> 31:55.171
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's definitely an advent of, you know, that it's a segue from children going away in my life.

31:55.371 --> 31:55.911
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was done.

31:55.931 --> 31:56.432
[SPEAKER_01]: They were gone.

31:56.532 --> 31:57.412
[SPEAKER_01]: I never heard about them.

31:57.452 --> 31:58.792
[SPEAKER_01]: I never got to find out what happened to them.

31:58.812 --> 31:59.672
[SPEAKER_01]: I never saw them again.

31:59.692 --> 32:09.895
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, the day before they'd been in my life and we were all outside playing or feeding cows or crawling chickens so we could collect eggs and whatever it was we were doing, getting the horses back in because they had escaped out of the horse pasture.

32:11.555 --> 32:15.017
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, there was a very hard line and I'm very good with hard lines now.

32:15.277 --> 32:16.778
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very easy for me to be like, okay, done.

32:17.338 --> 32:18.999
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, put that in to box and walk off.

32:19.339 --> 32:25.042
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, so you're you're good at being able to close the chapter and let that not be a hard thing for you.

32:25.222 --> 32:27.943
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, which I think can be fantastic.

32:27.983 --> 32:33.686
[SPEAKER_00]: In other times, it's it probably can be received rather like awkwardly for somebody else.

32:33.706 --> 32:33.886
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Callous callous.

32:35.147 --> 32:35.907
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, exactly.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but not intentional, but not kind of part of just your upbringing and the experiences that you have as a child and kind of going through this group home, you know, when we use the word foster care or foster kid, I would say, I think that everybody has their own feeling of what that means, their own definition of what a foster kid means.

32:59.365 --> 33:01.387
[SPEAKER_00]: How would you define that with your experience?

33:02.475 --> 33:25.863
[SPEAKER_01]: to me it's it's very sad it's someone who has who has lost the sense of a new killer family we did again my parents didn't really limit the age group of children that came into our home as I got older that edged up you know they didn't have babies or a little bit of kids when I was eight they kind of kept it you know six or seven maybe even five maybe but usually around you and a couple years younger than me okay

33:26.123 --> 33:42.645
[SPEAKER_01]: But these children, for me, when I think of a foster child as someone who's just consistently trying to replace that sense of nuclear family and the older they get, the harder and the harder that becomes because trust just becomes such a difficult thing for them to utilize or to employ in their lifetime, it's a very sad moniker.

33:43.846 --> 33:45.667
[SPEAKER_01]: because I don't think it ever, ever leaves them.

33:46.188 --> 33:58.337
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that they carry that with them for the rest of their life, because if they're in the system long enough, it just becomes ingrained in who they are, that they never gain back that sense of stability, that sense of identity in their nuclear family that they lost.

33:59.097 --> 34:06.243
[SPEAKER_01]: They might reconnect with their family, they might move back with their family, but they're still a level of trust that is gone, and that's been damaged.

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[SPEAKER_00]: What would you give a foster parent or a biological kid that is welcoming in a foster kid into their home?

34:15.795 --> 34:18.939
[SPEAKER_00]: What advice would you give them in that moment?

34:19.560 --> 34:20.041
[SPEAKER_01]: Patience.

34:22.557 --> 34:25.540
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't always get to understand where they came from or what happened to them.

34:25.560 --> 34:34.507
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the state does give you information and you have access in those regards, but truly patients in trying to understand how much pain they've probably been through.

34:34.887 --> 34:37.449
[SPEAKER_01]: And just the pure shock of being in your house one day.

34:38.270 --> 34:41.493
[SPEAKER_01]: taking out in a distribution center for up to a week, a processing place.

34:42.034 --> 34:51.923
[SPEAKER_01]: And then in a home that you didn't ask for, you don't know anybody and a new school, a new environment, no idea what you stepped into and no control over the situation at all.

34:52.063 --> 34:52.244
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

34:52.484 --> 34:53.185
[SPEAKER_01]: No control.

34:53.425 --> 34:54.926
[SPEAKER_01]: And you don't know what happened to your parents.

34:55.066 --> 34:55.247
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.

34:55.787 --> 35:01.870
[SPEAKER_01]: you have no idea what they're going through, you have no idea what's happening in your house and you had to walk away from your dog and you're cat, like what happened to them too.

35:02.590 --> 35:07.633
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's really truly patience and in what they're going through which can be very, very difficult and tasking.

35:07.993 --> 35:12.555
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like any type of care position where you have someone who's caring for elderly parents, or someone who's in

35:13.215 --> 35:14.136
[SPEAKER_01]: It can be exhausting.

35:14.676 --> 35:15.797
[SPEAKER_01]: It can be really exhausting.

35:15.917 --> 35:21.220
[SPEAKER_01]: So in my mind, patients, but I have to take this back to that comes from Christ.

35:21.680 --> 35:25.583
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're truly going to be serving these children, you have to be serving the Lord first.

35:26.683 --> 35:29.585
[SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise, I don't know how you can physically or mentally do that.

35:30.065 --> 35:30.246
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

35:30.486 --> 35:30.826
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't.

35:31.106 --> 35:33.386
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, what are you drawing from at that point, right?

35:33.706 --> 35:37.627
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's nothing from this earth in my mind that you can't draw from that gives you that type of strength.

35:37.787 --> 35:37.967
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

35:38.427 --> 35:39.267
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well said.

35:40.108 --> 35:44.588
[SPEAKER_00]: So coming back to care package in bound, what is in your current role?

35:45.089 --> 35:49.769
[SPEAKER_00]: Would you are at this point two on three monthsish in somewhere around there?

35:50.229 --> 35:54.710
[SPEAKER_00]: What is your hope in your vision bringing everything you just talked about?

35:54.810 --> 35:58.851
[SPEAKER_00]: All of that experience, which are hope for your package in bound in your role?

35:58.991 --> 36:00.791
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a lot of opportunity for structure.

36:01.151 --> 36:01.872
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

36:02.572 --> 36:04.212
[SPEAKER_01]: I see a lot of opportunity there.

36:04.872 --> 36:26.116
[SPEAKER_01]: Established in the structure operationally so that we have the groundwork late in place to develop our networking in the Kansas City area so that we are servicing as many distribution points as makes sense in that not just from care package inbound as an operation, but also like the entities that make sense, that we are not trying to take on things that don't really fit within our ball of wax.

36:26.576 --> 36:29.478
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, you know, when we're at, so we don't need a reinvent the wheel.

36:29.538 --> 36:30.198
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, right.

36:30.318 --> 36:33.620
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we're not trying to do things that don't make sense for us as an organization.

36:34.120 --> 36:44.665
[SPEAKER_01]: And once we've established that, then in my mind, you know, in five years, we're in St. Louis, and we're in Omaha, and we're in Denver, and we're in Oaksity, which is Oklahoma City, and we're in Tulsa.

36:45.526 --> 36:49.728
[SPEAKER_01]: We've spread into a network that supports children in this ministry throughout the Midwest.

36:49.928 --> 36:50.609
[SPEAKER_01]: Five to seven years?

36:51.529 --> 36:52.370
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, are you ready?

36:52.890 --> 36:53.671
[SPEAKER_00]: I cannot.

36:53.691 --> 36:55.912
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we're going to survive.

36:56.433 --> 36:58.554
[SPEAKER_00]: But God willing, we're going to get there.

36:58.674 --> 37:01.116
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that is the hope.

37:01.336 --> 37:03.838
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're just kind of, I feel like we're just alone for the ride.

37:04.158 --> 37:05.359
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you guys, right?

37:05.419 --> 37:07.861
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just kind of like we're ever God takes us.

37:08.681 --> 37:13.584
[SPEAKER_00]: it's kind of our job to be available to say yes and to step into it.

37:14.405 --> 37:18.267
[SPEAKER_00]: And if that is five years, it's that seven years then fantastic.

37:18.408 --> 37:20.509
[SPEAKER_00]: But we're moving towards that direction.

37:20.729 --> 37:29.635
[SPEAKER_00]: A good point that you were just bringing up, though, is we need to establish the base and have a firm foundation to be able to do that.

37:29.715 --> 37:32.537
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that that actually connects with bringing in foster

37:33.197 --> 37:47.440
[SPEAKER_00]: youth as well to our home is having a firm foundation that can support that additional, I guess, in a sense trauma, the additional things that are coming into your home with that.

37:47.500 --> 37:50.461
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's a good encouragement as well.

37:50.501 --> 38:01.383
[SPEAKER_00]: I think for us, if somebody is listening, where would you want to and maybe thinking about getting involved in care package and bound or getting involved in foster care, where should they start?

38:01.603 --> 38:05.064
[SPEAKER_01]: So we have a website and we have ways to connect with us there.

38:05.204 --> 38:10.625
[SPEAKER_01]: We have administrative volunteer roles that we need to fill with all different types of skillsets.

38:10.885 --> 38:13.506
[SPEAKER_01]: That would be what I would say would really help us right now.

38:13.786 --> 38:28.390
[SPEAKER_01]: We're looking for people who have strong skillsets that can help us operationally establish that base and to build the foundation so that we continue to grow in the Kansas City, in the metropolitan area and then, like I said, expand out over time.

38:29.110 --> 38:32.611
[SPEAKER_01]: So, that's really where I think that I would recommend people reach out to you right now.

38:32.711 --> 38:43.754
[SPEAKER_01]: Our website has information where you can contact us if they have done intention-intentional prayer that they feel like this is something that they're led to with the Lord.

38:44.414 --> 38:54.257
[SPEAKER_01]: They reach out and see what kind of skills they have, what kind of fruits that the Lord has blessed them with, that could help us in building our platform and our base here.

38:54.497 --> 38:55.317
[SPEAKER_00]: that's fantastic.

38:55.918 --> 39:06.501
[SPEAKER_00]: Heather, something that we ask every single person that's on the podcast is if this episode were a backpack, what is something that you would want them to walk away carrying?

39:06.782 --> 39:08.682
[SPEAKER_01]: Then we don't want any kid to not have a backpack.

39:08.802 --> 39:11.883
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't want any kid to feel like he's trash when he's taken out of it.

39:12.244 --> 39:13.484
[SPEAKER_01]: She is taken out of her own home.

39:13.764 --> 39:31.978
[SPEAKER_01]: supplying that to those children is really, really, really important in that they know that none other than there's a Lord care about them, but there's also people because of the Lord who care about them out there because I feel like so many kids don't feel like anybody cares about them in this situation and these type of environments when they're in these

39:32.378 --> 39:33.358
[SPEAKER_01]: these dire straits.

39:33.818 --> 39:34.598
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody cares.

39:35.299 --> 39:41.660
[SPEAKER_01]: So what I would want them to take away from is this gives children an opportunity to truly feel like somebody cares about them.

39:41.920 --> 39:43.900
[SPEAKER_01]: Who doesn't know them, who's never going to meet them.

39:44.380 --> 39:51.902
[SPEAKER_01]: The Lord cares about them and then the people made, made the took the time and the money and the, and got the stuff together and got this backpack here for me.

39:52.422 --> 39:55.162
[SPEAKER_01]: We just had the most amazing story from Children's Mercy.

39:55.202 --> 39:56.903
[SPEAKER_01]: So we did a delivery to Children's Mercy.

39:59.563 --> 40:09.047
[SPEAKER_01]: that they had a little boy who it came through in processing because they oftentimes the children will come to the hospital as being processed out of a home and into a group home or foster home.

40:09.367 --> 40:24.633
[SPEAKER_01]: And when they gave him his backpack, he got this huge smile on his face and he was so excited about all of the things inside, you know, t-shirts and joggers and a little stuffy and fidget toys in the, and I'm coloring book and all, you know, toothbrush and toothpaste and Yoda, all these things that he needs to be a person.

40:25.733 --> 40:29.255
[SPEAKER_01]: But the most exciting thing to him was a backpack because he had never had a backpack before.

40:29.475 --> 40:31.076
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, cool is that, right?

40:31.116 --> 40:39.761
[SPEAKER_01]: So if there's a takeaway, it's just for anybody listening is making these children feel like people and feel like someone cares and to know that they matter.

40:40.021 --> 40:48.606
[SPEAKER_01]: That someone really, truly cared enough to either give the funds, to give their time, whatever it is, to be engaged in that one little boy.

40:48.646 --> 40:49.827
[SPEAKER_01]: Just that one little boy.

40:50.967 --> 40:52.287
[SPEAKER_00]: is a miracle within itself.

40:52.748 --> 41:02.950
[SPEAKER_01]: Even though you might just be helping with take out trash at a packing, one of our packing events, or you might be helping with folding blankets at one of our packing events, we can't do that if somebody doesn't help.

41:03.370 --> 41:04.990
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's just the same as serving in your church.

41:05.010 --> 41:08.411
[SPEAKER_01]: If someone isn't taking it, volunteering to take out the trash, there's a bunch of trash in church.

41:08.691 --> 41:09.351
[SPEAKER_01]: So what do you do?

41:09.711 --> 41:11.552
[SPEAKER_01]: You've got people who get overloaded or

41:11.992 --> 41:23.382
[SPEAKER_01]: who work there and you need people helping you need that community to help build this this organization, this vibrant pulsing thing that helps the children and every little bitty piece in part is important.

41:23.482 --> 41:25.063
[SPEAKER_01]: It's absolutely crucial.

41:25.263 --> 41:27.005
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no role that's too small.

41:27.405 --> 41:29.247
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Heather, thank you for joining us today.

41:29.347 --> 41:30.548
[SPEAKER_00]: I really appreciate it.

41:30.628 --> 41:31.569
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been a lot of fun.

41:31.729 --> 41:39.377
[SPEAKER_00]: If you would like to get involved and build a backpack, uh, we actually are right smack dab in the middle of a 500 backpack challenge.

41:39.757 --> 41:42.120
[SPEAKER_00]: You can go to our website, carepackagingmount.com

41:42.480 --> 41:49.022
[SPEAKER_00]: you can go build a backpack look for the 500 backpack challenge and make a difference in a child's life.

41:49.502 --> 41:55.004
[SPEAKER_00]: Additionally, if you would like to sponsor this episode, would love for you to shoot us an email.

41:55.284 --> 41:57.604
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a contact form on our website.

41:57.624 --> 42:02.045
[SPEAKER_00]: We would love for our your business to be able to get involved and make a difference in spreading the word.

42:02.726 --> 42:07.147
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for joining us on packed with purpose where every backpack tells the story.