Photo by Jason de Runa

By Sarah D. Park

If you are 25 years of age or older and pass an application process, you are able to house a stranger’s child for a certain period of time. I was at first astounded at how easy it is to become a foster family, and in Orange and Los Angeles County, there is a growing need for Asian American families and individuals to sign up.

My church is involved with a nonprofit organization called Olive Crest in their Safe Families project. Safe Families is one of the last ways of keeping a family together before child welfare steps in. Say a mother needed to check into rehab for 2 weeks; her child would be matched with a Safe Family in the meantime. As a Safe Family, you are partnered with a case worker who inspects your home for safety and walks you through the process of how to reach out to Olive Crest and your local church for support. You also receive updates on potential children in need of a place to stay and for how long.

Why not? I was a single young professional living in LA and a small group leader at my church. The idea of setting an example as a single individual appealed to me; it would also challenge my group to rise to the occasion of becoming a village for a child. If anything, my time and lifestyle was more flexible than a family’s to accommodate a temporary guest.

As I shared this with my close friend, she asked me, “Do you think you’re capable of loving this child well?” What started out as an excited update turned into a heated discussion on whether or not having a heart willing to love was enough.

At my church, there is an array of people who are considering this call of opening up their homes. Some may sign up out of simple obedience to Jesus’ commandment to love the least of these. Others may sign up out of a gifted passion for children. Still others may sign up because no one else is signing up. In the midst of varying motivations, when two vastly different communities come into contact, could we risk making a few mistakes while loving these children? Does love and its good intentions cover all manner of sins? I wasn’t sure it was enough.

In partnering with community-based organizations, the first and constant lesson I’ve learned is that it is rarely the case that I can go into a community and assume I know what’s best for the people I am serving. True community transformation is cultivated by those in the community; and I am to listen to them first. In a similar vein, there is value to studying the foster care system, understanding the family circumstances insofar as is possible before accepting a child, and becoming educated in possibly triggering situations to be better prepared in loving a foster child.

I can list all the social, economic, cultural, environmental, racial, emotional and institutional divides that separate a middle-class, Asian American family from a foster child. Yet at the same time, I believe in the power of God’s love working through his church and how that love meets people where they’re at in unforeseen ways.

There is always more to learn in loving someone well. But does that mean you do nothing until then?

My church is slowly learning. Our love toward others is never really complete, but God is enough to fill in the gaps. And I have to trust that He will be at work, going before and behind us, as we open our doors to these children. We are partnering with Him, not the other way around.

For myself, as I continue to consider my involvement with Safe Families, I wonder if this tension must be resolved first or if I will find the answer in the act of loving another. In the midst of my growing pains and of my church’s, may God show Himself all the more stronger.

Sarah D. Park is a managing editor at INHERITANCE magazine and a freelance writer. To her delight, most of the time, these positions are conduits for her to press an exposed nerve in the status quo.