SHE WHO MOVES IN A MYSTERIOUS WAY

The older that foster children are, the better their overview of the unfairness of their situation. They can work it out for themselves.

Younger ones are plain emotional but lost about what's happening to them. They sense something is very wrong but it's a mystery. Sometimes they get het up without understanding why.

When I say "unfairness" I mean that foster children go to school and see classmates dropped off by their real mum or dad and who go home after school to the home they've always known. They know that those homes might not be a bed of roses, but it's "home".

They know that they are somehow deprived. No matter how good and loving their foster home is, their life is at fault because of other people. Those other people are their adult family; people they have a strong bond with. People they love and care about.

They are dogged by the fact that their family has been torn apart by an authority which has judged their family to be seriously substandard.

They feel ashamed, sometimes angry.

We fostering folk, armed largely with what we've learned of the world through our own comings and goings,  have to do something about this. And the brain surgeons who get seven years training in medical school think they're the clever clogs…

What happened was this;

Our middle foster child, who I'll call Rachel, can be a trial. She often seems to resent us for not being her real mum and dad. She has a friend who is the daughter of a very religious lady. The lady glows with the joy of those who have a friend in Jesus. She peers at the world through thick spectacles, seeing people but unable to connect, and never without an ear-to-ear grin. These things are a badge of her certainty that she will one day live forever at His side. 

She has a gruelling certainy in the goodness of everything she touches. She believes she can only be a force for good, guided as she is by two things; the blessed bible and the Good Lord himself.

Whereas in all truth she's hopeless.

And her kids are going downhill fast.

Rachel's friend invited Rachel for a two-night camping stay with a gaggle of girls. At a Christian camp. We went through the protocols and the sleepover got the green light. A whole weekend.

Surely in the company of people who fervently pursue righteousmess the child is in good hands? The children of such folk must surely be champion goody-two-shoes.

Not a bit of it.

Rachel came back to us, you could tell she'd been crying.

Practically terrorised she was.

It wasn't so much the eternal prayer sessions or the bible classes - she'd hoped for a petting zoo and pony rides - it was the bullying.

Some religious people happily tell their offspring that they love their Lord even more than they love their own children!

Rachel was picked on from start to finish, for no reason, although she got massive ridicule for being in fostering. None of the adults noticed, or maybe they had more imprtant things on their mind such as worship.

Rachel said to me when she got herself back;

"Made me realise how good you guys are."

I bumped into the woman in the supermarket a few weeks later;

"Rachel had a fantastic time at Christian Camp" she said, glancing over her shoulder to make sure her guardian angel was listening. "She must be bursting to come again?"

"No." I replied, walking on; "She isn't."

I think I heard her call after me "Halleluja!"

But Rachel, old enough to understand things, gave herself a re-think about her foster parents.

So. If there is a God, maybe they really do move in a mysterious way…

ps; note the "they" for God. I'm getting the hang aren't I?