There is a medical team in our city that partners with orphanages in the surrounding areas to run a Foster program for children with disabilities. Families from the local and international churches in the area make up the foster parents, and they do a wonderful job of displaying the love and value God has for children that the overarching culture says have no value to society.
Right now, my team is working with this medical group on an event for these foster families that will offer support for the parents’ expressed needs, while also giving the children an opportunity for organized play, and for developing motor control and other areas of need.
Last month, we held a pilot event – to give foster parents a chance to voice needs and desires for this group, and to do an activity for the children to express their creativity. Myself and a few others, including some college students we’ve been pouring into, led the kids group, and we had watercolor paints and a colored molding putty available to the kids to play with and work with. The initial idea was to have the children make watercolor designs that could later be cut out and used to make greeting cards – an activity that one foster mom with a history in art education does with one of her foster boys, who has cerebral palsy – to give the children an opportunity to make something beautiful and practical that could be shared with others. For the children that had no interest, we had modeling clay, and a play area for the toddlers. We were really glad for how the pilot group went, and our desire is to see this group meet once every month, if the medical group and parents agree to it.
Please be lifting this group up, that we can be united in vision, and that we can work together well for the benefit of these families and the glory of God.