“I’m not just teaching anymore about who God is. I have to live it out. I have to be that example. They see you day in and day out… when I’m mad … when I’m sad … when I have to say I’m sorry,” Wong said. “Because I think it’s one thing when I’m up in the classroom and it’s for those three hours, or it’s for an hour. It looks great; it’s shiny, it’s polished. But what is it when it’s 7:30 at night and they don’t want to go to bed? What are you like then?
“I think it’s just such a good reminder, reflection, of you begin real with who you are. So they really help me to stay grounded. If I’m not attached to who God is, it’s really hard.”
Fostering a 14-month-old deepened Wong’s Gospel perspective.
“Being a single person, I’m not sure I ever felt lonely before,” she said. “But when I had her, and she was in the middle of teething and it’s 3 a.m., I was like I really want to be married, God. With that little baby, she taught me something else. I don’t know how to help her. I learned how to be so dependent on the Lord, in a different way. That was a different trust.
“Fostering really propelled me to grow and mature in my walk in such different, new lights. With each child it’s so different.”
Wong fostered a 4-year-old girl for nearly a year.
“She just became this little evangelist everywhere,” Wong said. “I just remember for her, she was a prayer warrior. She would witness to people. She witnessed to her mom. It was so neat to see her grow and love God. … She was a little 3-year-old when she came, and left when she was 4, and turned 5 with her mom.”
Despite the joy Wong finds in mentoring and discipling foster children, their subsequent return to their primary caregivers can be painful.
“It is not easy. Not everyone is called to it,” she said, “because there’s a lot of heartaches too, There’s a lot of heartbreaks too. When they go home, it’s really sad. I cried when the last one left. I think I bawled. He’s crying. I’m crying.
“These kids come so heartbroken,” she said. “And there are so many needs. You get to be a little bit of a reprieve for them, because for some, they’re so used to going in and out of the system. For some, it’s their first time in the system and you hope they never (have to) come back. It was just mom or dad not making good choices.”
Wong advises single women and men to seek to enter fostering prayerfully.
“Pray to see first if God’s called you. It’s kind of like when you’re getting married, because it’s a life situation,” she said. “It affects everyone in your life. For my family, it’s really hard for them because we’re really a close-knit family, even my extended family.”
Her parents are “like gold,” she said, serving as alternate caregivers. And she has “phenomenal neighbors.”
Potential foster parents should consider whether they have a support system, whether the foster children can be exposed to positive two-parent families, whether their extended families and friends harbor any prejudices that would adversely impact the children, and whether their job is flexible enough to allow the proper care of children.
Her current foster child, whom Baptist Press is not allowed to identify by name, expressed appreciation.
“She’s nice,” she said of Wong. “I feel safer than in the other homes. I’m really used to being here.”
This article originally appeared here.
