Sometimes, stuff matters.

Lisa* had made some unfortunate choices, unfortunate choices that came with unfortunate consequences. These unfortunate consequences included jail time and watching her daughters be placed into the foster care system.

Fortunately, that was not the end of this story. Foster care is meant to be temporary, and Christian foster care, rooted in the Gospel, must include God-sized grace and redemption. God worked in Lisa’s story and the story of her two daughters in a journey not to be mistaken as easy.

Immediately upon being released from jail, there was work to be done. Hard work. Lisa enrolled in an employment program at a women’s shelter, got a job, was able to find housing and worked her plan in what a FaithBridge family consultant described as an “incredibly impressive” short amount of time. It was just before the new school year was about to start. Having spent every hard-earned penny on her new apartment, she had nothing to buy furniture or household supplies. It was a secured space but not {yet} a space deemed safe by the child welfare department for her two daughters to call home.

Wanting to bring her daughters home as soon as possible and to provide them some new-found stability in their new school before it was time for them to start the academic year, the stuff, or lack thereof, was a problem.

However, two determined FaithBridge family consultants weren’t going to let that stop these girls from going home and starting the upcoming school year at what would be their permanent school. Maribeth and Lindsey reached out to their own networks, mostly using social media, and had, within a day, received two twin beds, a full-size bed, a couch, a kitchen table chairs and a whole slew of home goods. The moving truck was donated, and friends joined in the efforts on a Saturday to drive all over Atlanta collecting and finally delivering these treasured items to their new home. They even arrived with some printed and framed pictures of the children for Lisa as a housewarming gift. Stuff mattered, and God used Maribeth, Lindsey, social media and a network of friends to provide the stuff that mattered most for Lisa and the stuff that helped her bring her daughters home.

Thank you, Maribeth and Lauren, for all that you do to not only serve foster children and families but also continually going miles beyond the extra mile for birth parents to help them work their plans and bring families back together!

*Details have been changed to protect the identity of and for the safety of these children and the privacy of the family.