This was my office, in Vail. #toughlife

Four days away from Lisa and our four (very young) children.

Did I feel guilty about this? A little. Should I feel guilty? No.

Every person should leave their family behind for these three reasons.

1. Recharge – Young children can be a bit draining on you … okay that is a bit of an understatement. Young children are very draining on you. They can, and will, burn you out. Getting away for a few days helps recharge the your mind and body.
2. Reflect  - Life moves at 1,000 MPH, we all know that. Spending a few days away from the family gives me time to think about all that is/has/is going to be going on. I end up thanking God quite a bit during this time.
3. Return – Coming back after a few days of being away makes returning home so … umm … awesome? Yep, awesome. I long to return home after being away. There is just something about opening the door and having the smiles of your kids and especially that beautiful wife of mine when I return. That, my friends, is priceless.

I get away for a few days every quarter. That works for me and my family. I can say fairly confidently that it’ll work for you as well.

Last week we were told by the social worker to change their names … their first names. That’s probably a good indicator that they may be staying with us forever.

Changing an 18 month old’s name is not the easiest thing, but we’re doing alright with it. They’ll pretty much answer to any name right now. But, working on getting them to learn their names.

I think Lisa and I went from the excitement of “wow, we may have these children forever” to “wow, me may have these children forever”.

It IS exciting, and it IS a little bit terrifying.

Sidenote: We’re also beginning work (again) on our fosterbook.com site. We figure we have a whole lot of experience we can pass on, may as well put that on a website.

People call us crazy.

We are.

I guess.

Last night we had our foster care support group and we found out there are other “crazy” people out there. Other “crazy” foster parents.

It felt good to hear their “crazy” stories. I mean I don’t want their lives to be crazy, but it’s good to know that we are in good company.

Sometimes I wonder what we have gotten ourselves into. A lot of times I wonder what we’ve gotten ourselves into. I know Lisa sometimes wonders the same thing. We’re banking that this will be the hardest part, that things will get easier. They will, they have to.

That’s it. Crazy short post, just like us.

We have a great story, and this is it.

Lisa and I had been certified for about a week when we got the call. “7 month old girl … short term … can you take here?” We immediately said “YES!”. “Ok, we’ll call back with further instructions.”

Huh? Did we just step into some James Bond flick?

They did call back. “Meet a white van behind the Village Inn on Garden of the Gods.”

Really? Is that how our department of human services works? Meet some random person at some random location to pick up a random child? The answer is “yup”.

So, we got Cooper (who was 18 months) loaded into our minivan and headed off. It was about 10PM so things were really dark. We pulled into the Village Inn and waited … for the white van … and then we waited … and waited some more.

Finally around 11PM a white van DID pull up. Was this them? They pulled up next to us and a lady came out. She looked legit.

She asked us if we were the Rumans. We said “yes”. She then proceeded to open the side door and there was this precious little baby, sound asleep.

It’s a humbling feeling when you get passed your first foster child. The government really trusts us enough to put us in charge of a random human life? It truly is an honor.

Well, that’s the story of our first placement. The rest have been rather, well, dull compared to that one. But that’s the fun of foster parenting, you never know what that next call may entail.

I remember the day I got the call. It was a Friday afternoon and I was meeting in my office with a coworker when the phone rang, it was Lisa.

“You are gonna think I’m crazy, but there are twin 5 week olds, what should we do?” she said.

Without thinking I said “Sure, why not.”

Thing is Lisa was about 3 months pregnant at the time and your chances of getting babies in foster care are slim to none, so I figured we had about a 10% chance we would get them. And that may be guessing a little high.

When I got home from work we got the second call saying come to the hospital to pick them up. “WHAT?” Excitement, fear, and about 10 other emotions went through my mind. And then I thought “oh crap, I gotta get a crib put together” (thankfully we could put both babies in the same crib). So Cooper and I went to work and Lisa went to the hospital to meet our new foster babies.

Lisa didn’t get home till late that night with the two little bundles of joy. They were so small. I mean like 4lbs each small. So small I was scared to hold them.

I remember Little Girl looked like she was gonna take her last breath at any minute. So frail. So precious. She was in rough shape. She had spent the first 15 days of her life in the ICU.

Mr.Peepers, well, he was a cutie since day one. Just a cute kid, still is.

We have a TON of stories that have happened between that night and now, so many. One day I will put them all in a book, a book called “What We’re We Thinking?” or something like that. For now this is all I have time to write.

It’s been a long 11 months with the twins, and Cooper, and then Sydney. Not much sleeping at the Ruman house, but God has provided rest, a little, well enough. This Sunday’s sermon was about “Give us today our daily bread.” And God has done that, every single day.

The future of the twins is sitting down at the courthouse now. We are patiently waiting to see what their future holds. If we get the nod we would love to be their forever family, but we also support whatever the legal system decides. I do pray for bio Mom and Dad. I cannot even imagine what their last 11 months have been like. I know what ours has been; tough, rewarding, emotional, draining, joyful, and much more.

Happy Birthday Little Girl and Mr.Peepers. Love Mommy Lisa and Daddy Mike. :)

There was a lot going on in the hospital last night, besides our own child’s problems. I heard a code red issued and many feet went a running. My mind raced with ideas of what the code red was all about. More than likely it was a hurting child.

Spending the night here got me thinking about kids in pain, sick kids, abused kis. It’s hard to accept the fact that bad things do happen to good people, even kids and babies. I figure there are three types of people when it comes to this. Here they are:

1. Pretend Nothing Bad Happens To Children – If we ignore the problem it goes away, right? Nope. I’m also thinking that some people just don’t have the emotional threshold to deal with a child going through this sort of stuff. I know I was regretting coming in and seeing our own foster daughter in the state she was in, it’s rough.
2. Acknowledge That Bad Things Happen and Do Nothing – A quote from Elie Wiesel comes to mind “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.”
   • Someone else will take care of them.
   • It’s not my job.
   • I have enough on my plate as it is.

   Do something. Step up. Make a difference. Even if it’s something small. We all have special gifts and talents that allow us to lend a hand here or there. I promise you once you step up you will not regret it.

3. People that Act and Help Out – I spent the first 26 years of my life as a #2, I knew bad things happened but did nothing.  Why? I don’t know, mostly selfishness. It didn’t benefit me so I wasn’t going to do anything. I kick myself sometimes at the years I wasted, but then I quickly kick myself again and say you’re doing something now, so shut up and keep doing. It’s easy to beat ourselves up about what we do or don’t do to help out.

Bottom line: Which number are you now … and which number will you be this time next year? You have the power to control that, do something about it.

One thing that has been on my mind recently when it comes to foster parenting is the way I’m seeing biological parents being portrayed/treated. We all signed up to do this for the kids, but I think there is a HUGE opportunity to show God’s love, God’s grace, and God’s mercy to the biological parent.

We could go on and on why the biological parents don’t DESERVE love and respect. They’ve done some awful things to these children. BUT what if we showed them compassion? What if we showed them love, God’s love? What if we said “I don’t care what you did, let’s get you better and get you your kids back.”

We don’t know what sort of life the biological parents have gone through. I put myself in their shoes. What if I was beaten all my life? What if I was broke with 4 kids to feed? What if my family disowned me? I’m not saying those are excuses for what they’ve done, I’m just saying step back for a minute and think about that.

These parents are hurting. They’ve had complete strangers come into their home and take away their kids. Kids they DO love.

I’m as guilty as anyone for making biological parents sound like monsters. I need to stop. Will you join me?

I stepped back and looked at my life and thought “what am I an expert in?” Not trying to be cocky, but just wondering what do I know a lot about. I narrowed it down to three things.

PUBLISHING

Seeing as I’ve spent the last 7 years in publishing I figured I know quite a bit about it, specifically Christian publishing. I’ve worked at Zondervan and now David C Cook in multiple roles at each. I’ve spent time in Finance, Sales, and now I’m the Director of Internet Marketing at David C Cook, which brings me to my next area of expertise.

INTERNET MARKETING

I can’t claim to be an expert in this field, but I do know a lot and I’m always learning more about it. I figured this is one area I can focus in on and give back.

FOSTER PARENTING

My wife and I have been foster parents for a little over a year now, which does NOT make us experts, but we did learn a TON. I’m always getting asked about ‘why’ and ‘how’ of fostering so why not make that another level of focus on the blog.

So there you have it, my three areas of expertise. I will however post about random things that happen in my life that may or may not have anything to do with either of those topics. This blog is a good spot for me to vent, so I may will use it to vent. I apologize in advance for those.

This was not what I expected. Eh, not what I wanted. But, it is.

As I sit here writing this blog one of the babies is sleeping next to me. He’s smiling in his sleep. And farting…in his sleep. How do you NOT love a kid that does that?

I can’t keep thinking about the rough life these two babies are headed for.  I don’t know if they’ll get to even hear of their Creator. Their real Father. And my heart is broken.

I look at their innocent faces and weep. I weep for their eternal future and I pray for them. The odds are stacked against them…big time. But I serve a powerful God and I’m not counting these two out for an eternal glory.

What these babies have done for me is renewed my motivation for evangelism. I need to speak with people more about who God is and why I serve Him. And I need to do this with people that are not in my comfort zone. People who have had their children taken away. People who aren’t what most would describe as good parents, good people. People who NEED Jesus.

When I tell people I do foster care many of them say “I’d love to do that, but I couldn’t deal with letting a child go.” I’ll tell ya, me either. It was hard to say goodbye to such a great kid. She had been with us for nearly a year and was part of the family. But, she has her own family, and she’s where she belongs.

One of the coolest moments about saying goodbye was when her Mom gave my wife a hug and said “thank you”. That doesn’t happen a lot in foster care and it was pretty cool to see and was , well, gratifying.

During our foster care support group one of the new foster parents said “how do you let a child go that’s been with you for a long time.” A veteran foster parent (I believe she’s had 65+ kids come and go in her home) said “you grieve…and then you pray that God prepares your heart for the next child.”

So, we’re grieving…and preparing. God has a plan and he knows what’s coming next, and that’s what we’re trusting.