The latter months of 2018 came with big news for the FosterDadAdventures clan–in mid-2019, FosterDad will also be a BioDad. Since announcing that we’re expecting for the first time, the question has come up on more than one occasion: Are you going to continue to foster?

Yes. And we never had the inclination otherwise.

From the time my wife and I were seriously dating and discussing our dreams for our future family, these two realities co-existed within each of us: We wanted to have biological children, but we also wanted to foster and adopt.

Two main reasons drive this:

1. We don’t see fostering as an end to fulfilling a need within us. Yes, I’ve spent the better part of nearly 4-decades of life wanting to be a dad. Chasing a soccer ball around the yard with one of the boys or having bedtime snuggles with the baby girl makes me happy. When we had a gap of a couple of months between placements, the house felt strangely empty at times.

Yet, those things are not our primary motive in foster care. We didn’t get into fostering to serve as a placeholder until we could have children of our own. We did it for the second reason…

2. The need will always exist. In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need other families to spend weeks, months, or even years raising and caring for someone else’s children. The world we live in, however, is far from perfect. Sometimes Children’s Division has no choice but to remove kids from their home for a period of time. When that happens, and no other family is available to take in the children, then the kids need and deserve a good home to feel safe and loved.

Having a biological baby doesn’t change that reality, and it doesn’t change our desire to provide such a temporary home for children in need.

And I want to encourage you, as well, dear reader: If you have never considered fostering, then please think and pray about it, whether or not you have your own biological children in your home. Maybe it’s not right for you or maybe you’ll find that you can help meet this need as well.