I grew up in a town where there was a large children’s home ministry that housed children and youth from across the state because of neglect or abuse. I was very familiar with stories of families caring for these children. Those children also attended the local school with me, and I befriended many along the way. Each one that I knew seemed very normal, and I had very little understanding of their trauma or personal struggles. I had no idea that their stories were drastically harder than mine. Then, later, I was introduced to individual foster care through a couple in my church who cared for several different children in their own home. Their foster parent stories were eye-opening. Each of these encounters laid a foundation that only the Lord knew was being built.
Key Takeaways
- God often lays the groundwork for foster care long before we realize it, using early experiences and relationships to build compassion and calling.
- Foster care changes not just the children in your home, but your entire family — including your biological children, often in profound and lasting ways.
- The hard seasons — the tears, the goodbyes, the uncertainty — are part of the story, not signs that something has gone wrong.
- Moving toward biological families in faith rather than fear can lead to beautiful, lasting connections that extend well beyond a placement.
- Some foster families don’t set out to adopt, but find themselves doing so. Others find their greatest reward in watching their own children grow in empathy and compassion.
- Daily faithfulness, not dramatic outcomes, is what builds the firm foundation that foster care requires.
Foster Parent Stories Begin With a Firm Foundation
Today, that foundation has faithfully allowed me to complete 30 years of working in foster care, helping families, just like those from my childhood, write their own foster parent stories. I realize today that God was working in me as a boy to develop a compassion for children and families in crisis and that I would eventually serve on staff at that same children’s home for twenty years and then go on to oversee a foster care agency in Georgia.
As the Lord continued building a firm foundation, He took my desire deeper into my personal life. My wife and I felt led to get training to become respite foster parents. We trusted the Lord in that journey for several years and loved on 9 precious children alongside our own. We remember those days fondly. The joys, prayers, trainings, case workers, court visits, supervised visits, struggles, fears, and tears for those little ones that we cared for are part of our story.
Foster Care is Life-Changing
Our foster care story is like many that have gone before us and those we work alongside today. Fostering will change your life forever, and it will especially change your biological children. My wife and I are grateful for our foster care experience and the children we were able to serve. We see the value it gave these precious lives in our care and the way it molded and shaped our own boys’ hearts toward this obedience.
My wife and I had to complete all that a full-time foster family would have to do to become respite parents, but we didn’t think we could take on children in a full-time capacity. We served many of the foster families on weekends and other unplanned family trips when they couldn’t get approval to take their foster child out of state. Then, one day, the call came to keep two little girls for what was to be a few days, but ended up being over 6 months. Those sisters left the strongest imprint on our hearts; it was the most “beautiful-hard” we had ever had to walk together.
We are grateful for how fostering helped shape our family in recognizing the gift of a family, stability, and love—not perfect, but staying together and caring for those who were victims of such unfortunate circumstances. The children who graced our home became a part of the fabric of our boys’ lives. As young adults with their own children, our boys are more aware of the impact fostering has had on them personally. It truly was something we didn’t realize God was using in their lives to shape their hearts.
More Foster Parent Stories
Empathy and Selfless Love
One of the foster families that we know that is currently fostering has a similar foster parent story. Their family began their fostering journey over four years ago. They indicated that the impact has had a remarkable transformation in their children, especially their growth in compassion for others. They also have experienced the struggles and hard times that come with fostering.
The first child they fostered was with them for 24 months. In that time, their children navigated the daily complexities of sharing their home, parents, and lives. They didn’t realize the depth of impact until it was time for the little boy to be reunited with his parents. When the day came for the little boy to leave, their children just cried. The parents realized that it wasn’t just them who had undertaken this fostering journey; their kids did as well. They all had embraced the calling and had endured.
For them to this day, fostering has been a firsthand lesson in empathy and selfless love. Their oldest child is about to go to college and has expressed interest in social work and helping children in need. Their middle child, being a teenager, has shown the ability to shower the kids in care with love, and their youngest son has learned to be a big brother and love his foster brothers as any real brother. The influence their decision to become foster parents has had on their children cannot be measured, and the depth of the positive impact it has had on them is what they are most grateful for.
Creating Connections
Similarly, another foster family we know moved toward the biological parent of the foster child in their home. The family was a little rough around the edges, but moving toward them in faith, not fear, served everyone involved. Now, 3 years later, they have fostered another child and adopted her. Yet, they are still involved in the life of the first child they fostered and his grandmother, who is raising him. She texts them updates, invites them to his birthday parties and holiday events. This foster family’s story also involves their own biological children who are invested in their family’s work of love and care in the lives of these children.
One more family we know said they have seen God move in multiple ways as foster parents. They have had so many hard moments, but thank God for how He has sustained them as a couple. Not having any of their own children, they set out to foster. They began fostering a young boy who later became their son through adoption. This little boy was in their home over 800 days before it became clear he would not be returning to his biological family. Throughout those days, it was up and down. Since the adoption, the couple has given birth to their daughter, and they proudly shared that their adopted son loves on her so much—he’s such a great big brother.
Themes in Foster Parent Stories
Each of these foster parent stories share similar themes – I hope you are hearing joy and gratefulness, along with sacrifice, long suffering, and struggle. Caring for children and their families through the Gospel was the primary reason for each of these families to step out in faith. Their experiences are consistent with most foster parents and their own children.
Why is that important? I believe it is because, as foster parents, we realize that God is with us and He is working out His plan for the children or teens placed in our homes. We are stewards of His trust. Throughout the Bible, we read of God’s love for the fatherless, widow, and oppressed. Caring for the “least of these” in our society has brought troubles into our homes. But it has also brought inexpressible joys!
Two of the families in this article didn’t enter foster care to adopt a child, but they did. The other two stories, which included mine, have resulted in positively impacting our own children to have greater empathy and compassion for others—and so much more! The “end results” are always being formed in the highs and lows of this special service to children and families. It’s the daily faithfulness that builds that firm foundation, but oh, what a heavenly joy it is to see what God can build!
Summary
Every foster parent story is unique, yet every one carries the same unmistakable fingerprints of a God who sees, provides, and redeems. Whether your journey leads to adoption, to lifelong friendships with families you once served, or simply to children of your own who grow up with bigger, more tender hearts — none of it is wasted. The highs and the lows, the beautiful and the hard, are all part of the firm foundation He is faithfully building. Stay the course. Your story is still being written.
©2026 Dr. Riley P. Green. Used with Permission.
About the Author
Riley P. Green III is the senior director of WinShape Homes.
Riley graduated from Troy University with his bachelor’s; his Master of Theological Studies from Beeson Divinity School at Samford University; and his Doctor of Education from Nova Southeastern University.
Dr. Riley began serving the citizens of Pike County, Alabama as Chief Clerk of the Pike County Probate Court in 1988. In 1996, Riley began working at Alabama Baptist Children’s Homes & Family Ministries (ABCH) as a development officer and later became ABCH Vice President of Administration.
In 2016, Riley was named senior director of WinShape Homes, a non-profit organization founded in 1987 by the late founder of Chick-fil-A, S. Truett Cathy. WinShape Homes is one of the five ministries of WinShape Foundation. Under Riley’s leadership, WinShape Homes has grown to not only serve children in its nine group care homes but became a licensed foster care agency in the state of Georgia in 2017. In 2018, WinShape Homes added a clinical care program to provide counseling services to children and parents within the WinShape Homes program. WinShape Homes’ vision is to see children and families experience healing and restoration through the Gospel.
Riley and his wife, Yvonne, currently reside in Jonesboro, Georgia. Together, they are proud parents of three married sons and grandparents to five grandchildren.
