Once upon a time
Every fairy tale story starts out with Once upon a time and ends with happily ever after. Those phrases indicate a beginning and an end to a story, but my story with topic of foster care and adoption isn’t as cut and dry as a fairy story. My story and interest with this topic is more like a spider-web; one thread leads to another but each thread is branched off to a couple of others. The beginning is not visible and I have no idea where the end is. I am right now right in the middle exploring this topic and wanting to learn from the ones who are also on this journey. This may take many different forms; from connecting with people who are fostering and/or adopted kids, sharing different blogs and books about other people’s stories and along the way share my bits and pieces of my story regarding this topic.
“Families don’t have to match. You don’t have to look like someone else to love them.” -Leigh Anne Tuohy”
This past November, I had the privilege of helping out a summit, which was held in Winnipeg, on the topic of fostering and adoption. The main speakers where Irene and Domingo Garcia and they shared their story about having 32 children in their home; whether they were foster kids or their own because of adoption or biological. They shared about their joys and struggles about having a not so conventional family. They could testify that family member don’t always have to look like each other in order to apart of a family.
Where are you in regards to fostering and/or adoption? Are you just in the beginning and wondering why people should be engaged in this topic? Are you in the midst of fostering a child or have already adopted a kid? Or are you like me who has some idea of why this topic needs to be explored but not quite sure what your role is in regards to this topic?
Additional info:
· You can read about Irene and Domingo’s story in Rich in Love. A must read or a book to give to someone who is exploring this topic.
· The summit that took place this past November was Belong Summit 2016 – which was facilitated by Forever Families of Canada – foreverfamilies.ca.