Leap of Faith

Taking the plunge does not only refer to my fledgling start at writing. Claudio and I have also decided to take another opportunity that has been presented to us and on November 23 began kinship care for a 16 year old from Claudio's youth group. Kinship care is like foster care except we can't take other children and we do all our paperwork/training while Domingo is already here and most importantly, Claudio already has a relationship with him.

Was it scary to invite a 16 year old into our home and family? Absolutely! As I said before, Claudio has already been Domingo's youth leader for a two years and I knew him slightly from youth group but how well can you really know someone from a couple hours a week on Friday nights? Plus we had our two small boys to consider, inviting Domingo to live with us meant they had to share a bedroom, their space, parental attention, tv time, etc.

However, I knew this opportunity came from God and here's why. Last summer, out of nowhere, I had the thought that if I was ever to become a foster parent, I would want to take someone in like Domingo. I didn't say anything to Claudio because I thought by the time we went through the whole process, Domingo would be too old for foster care anyways. I hadn't thought about it again until this September when the very same thought came to me again. This time I mentioned it to Claudio but we both agreed that it would probably take too long to become foster parents to take Domingo into our home. Just on an off chance though, Claudio mentioned to Domingo that we were interested in having him come and live with us and if he was interested too, he should have his social worker call us. We didn't hear anything so we both figured it just wasn't meant to be. Then, in the beginning of November, while praying one day, the thought of taking Domingo into our home came to me again so I told God, "okay God, if this is from you and you want Domingo here, then you have to make it happen because I don't want to force this."

Not a week later, Claudio got a phone call from Domingo's social worker saying that she wanted to take him out of his current foster home and would we be willing to take him? One week later he was moved in. The transition from 4 to 5 family members has gone very smoothly. So smoothly in fact, that it almost makes me nervous, I mean, can it really be this easy? Domingo fits into our family really well. Lemon Boy absolutely adores him and has decided that Domingo is just the coolest person around. Both Claudio and Domingo are really into sports so that makes their evening tv watching quite simple.

I have to admit, when Claudio phoned me to tell me that Domingo's social worker was asking if he could come live with us, I had a moment of panic. Did I really want to do this? Could I really parent a 16 year old boy? What if he didn't like us? There were so many ways this could go wrong and my mind thought of all of them. Yet God calmed my fears and I made the conscious decision to put my trust in Him. I know that there may be bumps in the road ahead but God has been so gracious Not only has Domingo come into our home but he has become a part of our family too.