Small Gestures Build Relationships with Foster Families
“We wanted to be able to do something to make a difference,” says Thompson, 50. “In foster care, what does that look like? How can we be a change agent? How can we help?” Rockside, with an average Sunday attendance of 100, started its outreach small: “Hoppy Heart” Easter baskets full of goodies, a Bible, and church invitation for foster children and their families within a five-mile radius of the church in a Cleveland suburb.
That’s how Felicia Harris, a single mom caring for an infant and a toddler, connected with Rockside. Shortly after her first visit, she recommitted her life to Christ, dedicated her children to Him, and received water baptism.
Father’s Heart of the AG Ohio Ministry Network is bringing awareness of foster families’ needs to the Body of Christ and helps churches wrap around foster families by providing support and an array of other assistance. Father’s Heart director Paris Yanno notes that half of foster families will quit fostering after a year but with support will stay for a number of years. For seven years, Father’s Heart has provided churches with tools, resources and training to support foster and adoptive families caring for the children.
“Our vision is to see every church doing something,” says Yanno , 59, who adds that each church’s outreach is different. Such ministries typically begin small with Christmas gifts or Easter baskets like those Rockside provided for community foster families— “anything we can do to encourage families to know people are here for them, we love them, we’re supporting them.”
The goal, Yanno notes, is “not just to provide an item but to hopefully build a relationship. Or at least the foster family will know there’s a church that cares, and if they run into a crisis, they can probably reach out to that church.”
That reflects the aim of the AG Foster Care Network.
As AG churches comprise 5% of the nation’s evangelical churches, the Fellowship seeks to care for 5% of the 400,000 children and youth in foster care—20,000.
“A lot of times our churches will get involved with projects, and then people in the church will get a heart for this and say I want to do more,” Yanno says, “whether being a foster parent or supporting foster families.”
She explains that some churches are engaged in areas of providing material things, sometimes to vulnerable biological families, which keeps at-risk families together and averts the need for foster care. To that end, Father’s Heart hosts CarePortal, a website platform that brings needs to the attention of those willing to respond with provision. Churches may recruit and resource foster and adoptive families; others focus on providing care communities with relational support systems, such as respite care. Some churches are working with youth aging out of foster care.
Fostering can be a challenge; families need support. “Kids in foster care have traumas, and many times they have behaviors that are hard to manage. To have some kind of support is huge,” Yanno says.
Rockside’s outreach is “a great example of showing love through giving that can lead to building a relationship and following Jesus,” Yanno says. “We’ve seen it over and over again through delivering an Easter basket, delivering a bed—now that family has come to know the Lord and they’re in church being discipled.
“That relationship led to action—a tangible way of showing the love of Jesus to these families,” she says.
Felicia Harris, 39, a kindergarten teacher and then foster mom of two, had returned to the Lord and was looking for a church home. The Easter basket she received in 2023 moved her to check out Rockside with Matthew, then 8 months, and daughter Eliza, then 2. Harris says that immediately she felt at home with the church’s welcome that included breakfast and a family picture.
“The message was exactly what I needed to hear,” Harris says. A bilingual worship song particularly touched her heart as her children are Hispanic. She even won the church’s raffle. “It was all around just so awesome.” By summer’s end, Eliza began to recognize the freeway exit. “She’d say ‘We’re going to church!’ My daughter is 2 and excited she’s going to church.”
Harris is on the church’s media team. A year later, she joined the church. She chose to get baptized again as a sign of her rededication to Jesus. In March, congregants from Rockside joined Harris in the courtroom for Matthew and Eliza’s adoption.
“This is our church home,” she says. “They’ve embraced us. I love the partnership they do with foster families, that they have a mindset of adoption and foster and helping youth in hard places.”
