by Stephanie Byrnes
As I watch my mother carefully dress our family’s newest, 6-pound bundle of joy, I realized it hasn’t been the countless hours of training that has prepared my mother for a foster care ministry.

It hasn’t been the background checks, the home study or the updated shot records and physicals that have equipped her for the sacrifices she’s made. No one could train my mother to doctor the stab wound of a 12-day-old baby without shedding a tear. No one could teach my mother the right lullabies to sing to a 5-year-old girl with night terrors about her daddy coming to get her.

Only a family’s love can treat those wounds, and only God’s grace can heal them.

The frightening reality, however, is that there simply are not enough foster homes to care for the 3,500 children in the custody of the Department of Human Services at any given time in Arkansas.

Several years ago, Little Rock foster mother Mary Carol Pederson recognized this need for more foster and adoptive homes in our state. “When my husband and I became approved as foster parents,” Pederson said, “we started getting phone calls from the DHS caseworkers: ‘I have a 3-year-old and 1-year-old, can you take them in?’ A few days later, ‘I have a 10-year-old, do you have room for her?’  The calls kept coming, and it shocked me that there was this incredible need for a safe place for these children at that very moment.”

Mrs. Pederson felt strongly that the church community should do its part to fill this great need. She realized that even though she attended a compassionate and community-oriented church, few of her friends knew of this crisis in foster care. “Several members in my church had extra bedrooms and were good parents,” she explained. “They had the ability to help if they were called to do so. It sounded an alarm in my mind – we have to get the word out about this tremendous need.”

Almost two years later, Mrs. Pederson, with the support of area churches and leaders at the Arkansas Division of Children and Family Services, founded the organization “Children of Arkansas Loved for a Lifetime” or The CALL as it is now known. The organization’s focus is to recruit and provide Christian families with streamlined training and support in becoming foster and adoptive parents. 

The government agency works together with The Call and volunteers from Christian churches to ensure that no child in Arkansas is waiting for a home, but rather homes are waiting to welcome children.

Mrs. Pederson believes the success of The CALL could essentially mean that the orphaned, abused and neglected in Arkansas will no longer be shuttled from one unfortunate situation to another. Every frightened child who has been taken from his home and all things familiar will be met with the loving, welcoming arms of a Christian foster parent, rather than the temporary and overflowing shelters, group homes and agency offices.

According to Mrs. Pederson, The CALL is recruiting more and more foster and adoptive families through Sunday morning “wake-up” calls. The CALL works with laypeople from congregations to encourage their pastor to carve out five minutes in a Sunday morning worship service to convey God’s passionate calling to the church to care for the orphaned and to expose the need for more foster and adoptive families in Arkansas.

The encouragement families receive once they decide to open their homes to these children sets a foundation for years of caring collaboration. Churches and other families involved in The CALL ministry provide the foster parents with caring support groups, clothing and food donations, and even respite families — temporary caretakers—to allow foster families much needed time for date nights, vacations or simply a break. Families going through The CALL process also have the convenience of receiving training at churches with more flexible schedules and by volunteers who commit to responding quickly to needs and questions.

Currently, only Pulaski and Lonoke counties participate in The CALL ministry, but the response and progress in those counties has been impressive. In the last nine months of recruitment by The CALL, Lonoke County alone has gone from seven adoptive and foster families to over 40. According to Mrs. Pederson, the increase makes Lonoke County one of the few counties with enough homes for every child who comes into care. The CALL hopes for a similar movement to spread throughout all of Arkansas.

Mrs. Pederson passionately insists that The CALL initiative pushes Christian families to no longer depend on the government to take care of the hurting children in Arkansas. After all, she explains, “These are our children, from our neighborhoods, and it is our responsibility as followers of Christ to show His love to them and nurture them through their crisis.”

Her hope is that “The CALL will continue to ‘wake up’ the Christian community to the incredible need for loving families for the children in state custody.” She believes that “this is God’s timing and His plan to have His churches reach out and care for the least of these in our community.”