Mother of Seven + 2

Day finally dawned, and there was so much to do. Beds had to be prepared, dresser drawers emptied and rearranged, and some easy meals planned to get through our first few days with our new children. Each moment that passed, I became more aware that at any moment the phone would ring and tell us when and where to pick up the children. However, by the time lunch time rolled around, we had heard nothing so we decided to call and check on things. We found out they were waiting on an exception to be granted to us because we were licensed for two children, and we were getting three. Since this was our first foster care placement, they were a little hesitant to grant the exception. All we could do was pray and trust God that if this was to be He would help get the exception granted. Finally about 4:00 in the afternoon the phone rang and asked us to go to Augusta and meet the current foster parents at McDonald's to pick up the children. We quickly took Ryan, Kayt, Alex and Cory o

Now that the time was here to make a decision, fear and excitement gripped my heart. I quickly found Les and shared the details with him. I remember his eyes lighting up and him saying, "This really might be it!" We then prayed together asking God to grant us wisdom. Les and I presented the prospect to our four children, and they were all excited. They all seemed to think that these were to be our children. We called both sets of our parents and asked them to pray and we called a good friend, Mary Jean Browne, and asked her to pray. We then reviewed all the information we had. Our major concern was that parental rights had not yet been severed. It also seemed that in the area of behavior there had been some problems with stealing by the boys. However, these hurdles didn't seem to be insurmountable and so we felt comfortable with taking the placement. We then called each set of parents and Mary Jean to see if they had any thoughts for us after praying. They ex