Editorial September 2, 1996 Issue

Fostering moral and spiritual strength in children

William E. Moody

JIMMY was just five years old when I first met him. He had a beautiful face, and eyes that still had a child's sense of wonder and discovery in them. But there was also hurt in those eyes, and some fear. Jimmy had already been in two foster homes. This would be his third.

At that first meeting with Jimmy, I'm sure I was a little uncertain about my own role. I had never been a foster parent before. The social services agency hadn't really provided much background on the child, and when you're going into a foster care situation, you never know how long it might last. It could be a few months, or it could be years. All I knew was that Jimmy's mother was a single parent, and he had been removed from her home because of mental problems she had experienced and some drug abuse. I didn't know if Jimmy himself had been abused or whether it was the neglect of his basic needs that had required foster care. Yet in either case, here he was, wary and at the same time hopeful. He surely needed to be cared for and nurtured. He needed to be loved.

Jimmy would have good food, clean clothes, and a safe place to live. And as a foster parent, I saw that there was much I could do to be a "dad." Jimmy hadn't known his real dad. So we did things together. We played football and went fishing. We bought a secondhand bicycle, gave it a fresh coat of paint, and Jimmy quickly learned to ride it like the wind. Yet I also knew that something more was needed. There was spiritual caring and spiritual education. We could talk about the Bible and all that it had within its pages to help him. We could look at the example Christ Jesus gives us. Jimmy could go to Sunday School. We could pray together. We could talk about God and what it means to be the child of God.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Testimony of Healing

Several years ago our family lived in a high crime area