We would like to introduce you to some of our community foster parents, Bryce and Kate Murray! Bryce and Kate have been licensed foster parents through Coyote Hill Foster Care Ministries since 2020. They are currently caring for a two-and-a-half-year-old girl and have one biological child, a nine-month-old girl. Kate recently shared with us what foster parenting has been like for her and Bryce.
What made you want to become foster parents?
The topic of foster care came up when we were seriously dating. Our faith is really important to us, and Scripture is clear that as followers of Jesus, we are to defend and care for the fatherless. There are lots of ways Christians can do that, but Bryce and I felt we wanted our role to be fostering. It was always something we knew we wanted to do, but I think we assumed we would do it many years after starting our own family.
However, when we got married in 2018, people weren’t shy about asking us when we’d start having kids. I prayed about it for months and felt strongly that the Lord was telling me to set aside my deep desire to have children. One afternoon, I told Bryce I thought we should put off having biological children and foster first. I truly thought he would tell me I was nuts. He didn’t. He was completely on board. Soon after our first anniversary, we started the licensing process.
Before we started the STARS class, we said we would only do emergency placements, we could not say yes to physical behaviors, and we would never take in more than one child at a time. In June of 2020, we accepted the long-term placement of a beautiful two-year-old boy with a lot of very deep hurts. A few months later, we welcomed a sweet 18-month-old girl. God really does laugh at our plans!
How has your foster parent journey been so far?
Impossibly hard and incredibly life-giving.
It’s impossibly hard because you are pushed to your emotional limits. You are signing up to help a child navigate the unbearable, unspeakable hurts that other people have caused. You’re signing up to watch a group of people (the family support team) make life-altering decisions for a child who might be too young to have a say. You’re signing up to feel helpless, to be rejected, and maybe even to be physically hurt. You must wake up every day and choose to lean into the discomfort.
It’s also incredibly life-giving because you are pushed to your emotional limits! I’m talking about a sweeter joy than you even knew possible. It’s not the big dramatic moments that make all the hard stuff worth it; it’s the little ones. It’s the hug after a meltdown outside of the pizza restaurant. It’s the reaching for your hand while you walk through the store. It’s singing duets from a movie soundtrack for the billionth time in the car. It’s how they show you their artwork they made at school. Fostering is the best decision my husband and I have ever made.
What is the best part about fostering?
For me, the best part has been watching our little boy begin to heal. Foster parents have an incredibly unique opportunity to help a child redraw their relational and emotional blueprints. While I wanted so badly to take away his hurts, I couldn’t. Instead, Bryce and I showed him what a safe adult looks like and what a loving, trusting relationship feels like. And after doing that consistently, he started to learn how to connect in a way that’s healthy and appropriate. That was really rewarding.
For Bryce, the best part has been the community. We’ve found awesome support with other foster families through Coyote Hill Foster Care Ministries. We’ve also been really encouraged by the way people outside of the foster and adoptive community have rallied around our family. There’s something really sweet and special about the way our friends, coworkers, and acquaintances check in with us to see what we need. It makes saying “yes” to a child so much easier.
What is the hardest part about fostering?
Saying goodbye.
Our foster son of almost two years transitioned to his forever family this past weekend. Make no mistake about it—this is grief. It’s devastating and it’s gut-wrenching. It’s a grief you don’t have a category for. There is no category for deeply loving someone else’s child, raising them like they’re your own flesh and blood, and then moving them out of your house. At 2 p.m. last Sunday, I was his mom. At 2:15 p.m., I wasn’t. It’s extremely difficult to come to terms with that.
All that being said, the grief is worth it. Our little boy deserved a family who loves him as deeply as we do. He deserves a mother who is shattered that he’s gone. He deserves every tear my husband and I are shedding. We would do it all again in a heartbeat. And, once we’ve healed a bit, we will say yes to doing it again.
What have you learned by being a foster parent?
Whether you think you have more love to give or you think you don’t, you’re probably right.
If you made the step to say you’re up for fostering or adopting, you’ve in one way or another decided you have some leftover love to shower on a child who needs it. Right now, Bryce and I feel we are at our max capacity, so we’re entering a season where we won’t take another placement for a while. And that’s okay too!
To learn more about becoming a foster parent, visit coyotehill.org/becomeafosterparent.
Related Stories View All
