Sunday, November 13th
We attended the Irving Bible Church's (IBC) (http://irvingbible.org/) Tapestry (http://tapestryministry.org/) meeting of Fostering Hope (Foster Care Support) Group.
The primary purpose is to get and give support to other foster and adoptive parents. We all go through similar things and have lots of the same issues. They started the meeting off with a 4-minute timer. Each person (or couple) flips the timer and talks for about 4 minutes on what is going on with our cases and what we have learned or need help with. The other people in the room chime in. When we started getting involved about 19 months ago, we were (of course) the newbies. We reflected after the meeting how much we now know (which is one of the purposes for this blog). Of course, there is plenty to learn and we will likely be going for many years to come.
While we go to this hour and 15 minute long meeting, X and A go to their age group rooms for Sunday school type lessons (this is coincidentally also a regular service time for Irving Bible Church, so they have full daycare).
After the meeting, we get the kids out and they get to play on The Tubes. Imagine the world's largest McDonalds (or Chick-Fil-A or whatever) indoor playground with tubes and slides and related accompaniment. Now double that in size and you probably have something close to the size of The Tubes play area in the center of IBC. It is at least four stories high! We have seen this every time we have come, but have never let the kids play on it. For one, we are a bit afraid that if A gets stuck at the top somewhere that WE will have to mouse our way up to get them and that will NOT be a pretty sight or east to do! Secondly, we often are rushed for time.
We also ate dinner at IBC. For a per-plate price or single per-family price to cover however many kids you might have, you can get whatever meal they provide. This time it was Fajitas, salad, tea and nachos. Given the extremely low cost of the meal, this has to be a break-even venture at best. I am sure it is one of their recruiting tools / ministries as well. Great idea!
We had not eaten dinner yet and were starving anyway (it was 6:30 and we ate a light lunch), so we sat next to a longtime foster parent acquaintance, Lenora and her child and continued some of our conversation from the earlier meeting.
Once the kids finished eating, we let them run The Tubes again.
Group therapy and fun in one location. We have been very impressed with the IBC foster and adoption ministry.
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