FACT

FAQs on Region 3E Transition Learn about the Metroplex East (Region 3E) community area. Community-Based Care keeps Texas children in foster care closer to home and connected to families and friends.

Foster/Adoptive families living in Plano…

We are organizing teams of volunteers to assist with your home projects. Please send Laura Ratliff a direct message with your request.

Volunteers would be at your home on Saturday September 5. You will be updated if your family is selected.

Since some of y’all are wondering what the Church should be doing… pull up a chair. I’ve got answers.

The Church should be the first to show up, not the last to notice.
Check in on the foster mama drowning in trauma, tantrums, and court reports.
Drop off meals without being asked.
Pass the plate to help with diapers, car seats, therapy, or whatever else the system forgot to provide.

Hold babies so tired mamas can breathe.
Show up at court to support, not just pray from a distance.
Stand in the gap for the kids who walk into sanctuaries carrying way more than a backpack.

Mow the lawn for the single foster dad who took in his niece and nephew when no one else would.
Mentor a teen who aged out and has no one to call.
Support birth parents trying to rebuild.
Wrap around foster families… not just once… but over and over again.

Ask, “What do you need?” instead of “Bless your heart.”
And stop acting shocked when a child acts like they’ve been through something,
because they have.

Some say I call out the Church too much.
I say I’m just holding up a mirror.

Because I care.
And I believe the Church can do better.
It has to.

And no,
not everyone is called to foster.
But everyone is called to do something.

You don’t get to sit in a pew every Sunday
and then scroll past the child who just wants to know they matter.
You don’t get to look away.

We say we want revival.
Well, maybe it starts by serving the ones Jesus never overlooked.
The widows. The orphans. The broken. The forgotten.

So yeah, I’ll keep calling it out.
Loudly. Boldly. Unapologetically.

Because I still believe the Church can be what it was always meant to be,
Not perfect.
But present.
Not polished.
But powerful.
Not performative.
But real.

Let’s be that Church.

No one tells you how easy it is to lose your marriage in foster care.

You say yes to a child.

Then another.

Suddenly your life revolves around court dates, therapy appointments, home visits, paperwork, trauma, behaviors, and just trying to make it to bedtime.

If you’re not intentional, your marriage becomes whatever is left over.

Donny and I have been together for twelve years. Married for ten. And if we’ve learned anything, it’s this:

If Jesus isn’t at the center of our marriage, foster care will crush it.

We’re not experts.

We still have nights where we’re exhausted. Where we barely have anything left to give each other.

But we protect one thing fiercely.

Bedtime.

Not because we don’t love our kids.

Because we love them enough to know they need parents whose marriage is still intact.

Once everyone is asleep, sometimes we watch a show. Sometimes we sit in complete silence. Sometimes we’re on separate couches, too tired to talk.

It isn’t glamorous.

But we’re together.

We’ve learned to stop keeping score.

To give more grace.

To apologize faster.

To remember that the enemy would love nothing more than to destroy the very foundation of our home.

It isn’t me against him.

It isn’t him against me.

It’s both of us standing shoulder to shoulder against the chaos.

Foster care has a way of exposing every weak spot in your marriage.

It will test your patience.

Your communication.

Your faith.

Your endurance.

If Christ isn’t carrying the weight, eventually one of you will try to.

And neither of you was created to carry that burden.

Some seasons don’t look romantic.

They look like faithfulness.

Like choosing each other when you’re exhausted.

Like praying when you don’t have words.

Like refusing to quit.

Because one day your children will leave.

That was always the goal.

But your spouse is the one you’ll still be sitting beside when the house is quiet again.

So fight for your marriage now.

The children in your home deserve to grow up watching two people who never stopped choosing each other.

By the grace of God, we’re still here.

Still choosing each other.

Still choosing Jesus.

Because the greatest gift we can give the children in our home isn’t a perfect marriage. It’s one that keeps running back to Christ.