Fostering Voices Podcast

Leadership is something we talk about a lot on the podcast, because we are all leaders! It is your choice if you are going to be a good one, or not. Parenting is some of the hardest kind of leadership, because you are maxed out in your pay grade, because oh yeah - you don't make any money doing it!

We talk about 2 books that we are reading and have read, but that came to our attention via podcasts we listened to.

The first one is called "The Motive" by Patrick Lencioni, and we became aware of it when Lencioni was on The Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast.

You have to ask yourself if you are a Reward of Responsibility-centered leader. A reward-centered leader has worked hard to become a leader, and now that they are one - they feel like this is the end of their journey. They don't do hard or unpleasant work, and have the mindset that others should be serving them, and they have 'arrived'.

A responsibility-centered leader sees their leadership role as the beginning of their journey. Now that they have gotten their new role - they have to work hard to be the best leader for their team and organization.

So again - which leader are you? And again - this kind of thinking applies to parenthood. There are reward-centered parents, and responsibility-centered parents.

The second podcast we listened to is the Storybrand Podcast with Donald Miller, and he interviewed Dan Heath who wrote "Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen." This book was such an inspiration and filled with so many positive victories!

Problems and solutions start on a micro-level, and they can in turn be changed to macro-level results. An example that Heath gave was how one city more or less eradicated homelessness! They started off with recognizing the problem, mobilizing a team of power players (city officials, police, hospitals, mental health providers) and basically writing a list of the homeless people in their area, knowing them each By Name, and providing homes for them. Amazing!

Both episodes are great, and we just started reading 'The Motive' and finished reading 'Upstream' and we recommend them both!

The Good Word of the Day

"He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their praise from God."

- 1 Corinthians 4:5b

That's a good word! Check your heart and make sure you are the kind of leader that your team and family need!

Thanks so much for tuning in this week. Next week we have an amazing interview with Julie Lythcott-Haims!!!!! She is the author of How To Raise an Adult! You do not want to miss this episode!

And we are SO thankful for our amazing sponsors! Thanks to our newest sponsor - The Keller Gibbs Realty Team ! We have used them for every house we have ever bought - which is strangely quite a few! (Arizona has had so many ups and downs in the real estate world in the last 15 years! We have bought 4 different homes with Keller Gibbs team!)

And if you would like to connect, check us out at fosteringvoices.com and feel free to email us at [email protected] , and hit us up on social media!

We are beyond honored to have The Honorable Justice James Beene on our podcast! Justice Beene, aka Jim, has served on the supreme court in Arizona for the last year, and had served in Family and Juvenile court for over 4 years, here in Arizona.

There is just SO much great stuff in this podcast, and we hope you enjoy this fantastic interview with a wise, and kind guest who truly cares for the futures of the young people in foster care, as well as their bio families, and the families who choose to foster.

We had Kim Turner, a GAL, on our podcast on episode 53. If you want to learn more about the court system for foster kids, check out that episode as well.

The Good Word of the Day

"Persistence".

That's a great word that Justice Beene's mother often reminded him of. And it's a great word for all of us to lean into in times of trouble and hardship. There is always great reward on the other side of hard work and persistence!

If you have any questions for Justice Beene, we can pass them along to him. You can email us at [email protected] . We would love to connect with you there, or on social media!

And if you are enjoying our podcast, we would love for you to leave a 5 star review, and a blurb about what you enjoy most about the podcast!

We are so thankful for you, sweet listeners!!! WE hope you have a great week and that you will tune in again next week!

We are beyond honored to have The Honorable Justice James Beene on our podcast! Justice Beene, aka Jim, has served on the supreme court in Arizona for the last year, and had served in Family and Juvenile court for over 4 years, here in Arizona.

There is just SO much great stuff in this podcast, and we hope you enjoy this fantastic interview with a wise, and kind guest who truly cares for the futures of the young people in foster care, as well as their bio families, and the families who choose to foster.

We had Kim Turner, a GAL, on our podcast on episode 53. If you want to learn more about the court system for foster kids, check out that episode as well.

The Good Word of the Day

"Persistence".

That's a great word that Justice Beene's mother often reminded him of. And it's a great word for all of us to lean into in times of trouble and hardship. There is always great reward on the other side of hard work and persistence!

If you have any questions for Justice Beene, we can pass them along to him. You can email us at [email protected] . We would love to connect with you there, or on social media!

And if you are enjoying our podcast, we would love for you to leave a 5 star review, and a blurb about what you enjoy most about the podcast!

We are so thankful for you, sweet listeners!!! WE hope you have a great week and that you will tune in again next week!

Trauma is something that is common to all humans. But trauma and abuse are not a part of everyone's story, but it is for this week's guest. Monica was put into foster care as a baby, and was soon adopted by an abusive family. She was actually put back into foster care a few years later, but then returned to the previous adoptive family. Talk about a traumatic childhood!

But Monica is not defined by her trauma and pain, and she encourages others to get over their pain to fully heal, and fully understand how to receive love and give it away as an adult.

Tune in to hear how she rose above her difficult past, and how she is pressing forward with great love, and great hope and joy for the future.

The Good Word of the Day:

Honestly - we had too many! Monica dropped so many great nuggets of truth and wisdom on us! Our favorites are:

"Jesus replied, "You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand."

- John 13:7

"It's not about perfection, it's progression." Author Unknown. BUT Joyce Meyers did say "Strive for excellence, not perfection, because we don't live in a perfect world." And Meyers is one of Monica's favorite authors.

"Look how far you have come."

- Bob Goff

We are SO thankful for Monica and her heart! She is going through therapy and doing SO MUCH hard work to get herself to a place of healing and peace. We all need help and healing, so we just want to encourage everyone to get the help that they need!

We are especially thankful for Showit - the sponsors of our podcast, and also the place where Monica and I both work! We are a small team of 32, but SO MANY people have been interviewed on our podcast as their lives have been touched by either foster care, adoption, or both!

You can check out Elisa Watson's foster care journey here. And Parker's journey about being adopted, here. Kara Lackey created the Know and Love Quiz to help parents to know and love their kids - especially their foster kids! JT and Ashley Pals share about their journey with adoption. Reggie Sheffield, an Amazing DCS worker for over a decade deserves a medal, but instead just got to be on our podcast. And Shamesha was kind enough to make a video on our YouTube channel about caring for ethnic hair. And just this week, our other coworker, Eddie, adopted his son through the state. And Nathan and Heather Griffy, have been foster and adoptive parents for a few years now, and we need to get these two families on the podcast soon!

But that's 9 out of 32 people who are in this space! How amazing is that?!?!?

If you would like to connect, feel free to email us at [email protected] . We always love to hear from our listeners! We would also really appreciate if you would subscribe to the podcast and leave a review! Thank you!

Go do great things with great love, and we will be back with a brand new episode next week!

Foster care according to our 8 year old bio daughter, who has been a foster sibling for over 6 years, and our 10 year old daughter who we adopted out of foster care.

This week's interview is sweet and short, but still has lots of great nuggets to encourage you and your family on your personal journey.

The Good Word of the Day

"Yet I will rejoice in the Lord,

I will be joyful in God my Savior.

The Sovereign Lord is my strength;

he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,

he enables me to tread on the heights."

- Habakkuk 3:18-19

We hope you have a great week, and tune in again next week for another great interview!

If you would like to connect:

Fostering Voices on Instagram

Jihae on Instagram and Chris on Facebook

You can also email us at [email protected]

AND we would LOVE it if you would SUBSCRIBE and leave us a review on iTunes! This helps others to find our podcast so we can share these voices from the foster care and adoption community with more people!

It's easy to forget why we are fostering, or why it's important to be involved in foster care. And this week, I (Jihae) became a licensed foster care trainer. Which means I will start teaching prospective foster parents to get licensed. And having to go through Foster Parent College as part of my training, helped me to remember the trials and tribulations that come with foster care. But not for the foster parent, but for the foster kids.

So in this episode, we go through an exercise that reminds us of all that our kids are facing. This is an exercise that we invite you to do with us. And this is also a great exercise that you can do as a family as you prepare to have foster children join your family.

Grab 5 post its, or pieces of paper for each person, and then write 5 things you absolutely love and that are a part of your daily life. Don't write 5 individual people's names, you can cluster those into 'family', 'friends', etc. And then, one by one, drop one of those things in order of priority to you. And chances are, you have family as the last thing you are hanging on to - and then drop that too. Foster children are taken away from everything they know - their schools, neighborhoods, friends, possessions, AND family. This exercise should remind us all and create more empathy for what our foster children are dealing with.

We were also reminded to have grace for bio families, and how important it is to be kind and gracious to bio families. When you can have a good relationship with bio families - everyone wins! Especially the kids. How great is it for our foster and adoptive kids to feel like they have two sets of parents who love them and support them, and support each other?

So we just want to continue to encourage you all to keep playing a role in supporting foster children. Whether you are an educator, a foster parent, a neighbor to a foster family, or anything in between, we all can play a role in supporting kids in foster care.

The Good Word of the Day

"We can't let the fear of loving a child that might leave deter us; we must let the fear of a child never knowing our love drive us."

- Jason Johnson 'Reframing Foster Care'.

We have so many fears before, and even during our foster care journey. But none of those fears should trump the fact that we can still get involved in the lives of these at-risk-youth.

Let's Connect!

We are so thankful for you wonderful listeners! If you have any questions or want to email us, please do so at [email protected] .

Have a great week and tune back in next week for a new episode!

This week's episode focuses on building community in your actual neighborhood! We talk about the importance of community all the time. But it's easier to build community at work, or at church, maybe in a foster support group, or sports' team. But how about where you actually live?

Do you know your neighbors' names?

All of us want to help out people in need - like if your neighbor was going through cancer treatments, you would want to help them, right? But how would you know they have cancer if you don't even know their names??

Lindsay Watson, our sister-in-law and next-door neighbor, shares how she started our neighborhood's monthly meetings and Group Me text thread. Our neighborhood is THE best. And maybe yours is too, you just don't know it yet!

First Mondays

This is a thing that Lindsay started where the neighborhood ladies gather on someone's driveway around 8pm. Kids are usually in bed. No one has to clean their house. You bring your own folding chair and beverage of choice (no judgement), and an open heart to meet your neighbors! There's a question of the night so that everyone can get to know one another, and so that no one person dominates all the talking time. It's GREAT! We have gotten to know so much about our neighbors through First Mondays.

Our neighbor, Tia, was on our podcast cause we got to hear about her story at a First Monday. She is incredible, and you should listen to her journey here. She has adopted her 3 nieces, and cares for her husband who has ALS. She is a vision of strength and servant leadership.

The Good Word of the Day

"We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; 7 if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; 8 if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully. "

-Romans 12:6-8

We all have different gifts and talents. Maybe you aren't very extroverted, but you are yearning for community in your neighborhood. You may have to be the brave one who starts a First Monday. But once you get to know your neighbors, you can pass the 'leading' baton off to another neighbor who would enjoy leading it.

Podcasts we are listening to.

Lindsay listens to The Bible Binge, which is a fun podcast about looking at the Bible through a pop culture lens. It's pretty amazing.

Chris listens to The Financial Samurai, cause he loves financial podcasts! This episode talked about how your cars should value 10% of your income. Very interesting!

And Jihae listens to The Storybrand Podcast. This episode with Dan Heath was INCREDIBLE. They talked about looking at problems from an Upstream perspective, and we will definitely be reading, and discussing that book in a future episode!

If you would like to connect:

Fostering Voices on Instagram

Jihae on Instagram and Chris on Facebook

You can also email us at [email protected]

AND we would LOVE it if you would SUBSCRIBE and leave us a review on iTunes! This helps others to find our podcast so we can share these voices from the foster care and adoption community with more people!

Let's try this again!

We are definitely going to give you some great tips and tricks on how to run a big (or small, or medium!) household efficiently. But, I just need you guys to know that this episode was a real pain to get out into the world! I posted it once - and it just disappeared. So I rewrote the show notes, much shorter than the first time; and then the audio was SO BAD that we had to take that episode down IMMEDIATELY. And so here I am, writing these shownotes for the THIRD TIME! And, we re-recorded the whole episode. So, enjoy! You would think that being on episode 103, we would know what we were doing... **palm to face.

Oraganization

So in this week's episode, we talk about the importance of being organized!

When we were a small family of 4 - we were super disorganized! Our house was a mess, as were our finances! But we have found that with each child we add to our home, the more we NEED order, schedules, routines, and a BUDGET!

We talked about this calendar and chores chart, which is definitely my most recommended Amazon purchase to date. Although I have also recommended these headphones with mic and share port, to quite a few early elementary parents who are doing online school. We even mentioned them in this episode.

The way we like to organize the Chores Chart is to add daily chores - which include emptying the dishwasher, setting the table, and clearing the table. We have 4 kids on rotation for those chores, so that makes sense for our family. If you have 2 kids, you may want to add another daily chore to make sure things are fair. :)

I also add what for lunch and dinner everyday, which helps me to meal plan, and also prevents the kids from asking me what we are eating for every single meal, every single day. And we also add what the monthly chores are, and who is in charge of what. The monthly chores are done every Sunday, but each kid sticks with the same chore for the month, and then we rotate. Those chores include cleaning the toilets, tubs, picking up dog and tortoise poop, cleaning sinks, vacuuming, and tidying up the car. It's pretty great!

We've heard people say that they can't get their kids to do chores. Well guess what? You don't give them a choice. You can get your kids to do chores, you just may not be able to get your kids to WANT to do chores. Those are different things, and also things that don't matter. Doing chores is an integral part of childhood, and launching into successful adulthood!

Another important part of our daily routine is that we do not allow the kids to be on any devices during the week. They can watch a bit of tv in the afternoon if all of their schoolwork is complete, but the kids are encouraged to get off their butts and MOVE AROUND. Especially in this time of online schooling, the kids do not need to keep sitting and staring at screens. And they need to interact with other humans!

Finances

We truly believe that financial freedom leads to freedom in so many more areas of life. Being stressed about finances causes you to be stressed about pretty much everything else in life.

If you don't have a budget yet - YOU NEED ONE! There are so many different budgeting spreadsheets to suit your needs. Whether you use Microsoft or Google Spreadsheets, there is something for everyone!

Chris recommends doing a Zero Budget. You start with all of your income, and you account for everything! The $0.89 you spent at the gas station on your debit card? There's a place in your budget for that! Account for how much you are saving, tithing and giving away, and spending everywhere you go.

And, it's a great idea to let your kids start having control of some of their money as well. This will help your kids to see how much they have in savings, and in checking, and they have their own little debit card too. We use Greenlight which is a handy app for everyone to use.

We love to listen to the Defining Stewardship Podcast because they make financial talk and practices so easy! This was Chris' podcast pick of the week, as he listened to this episode on whether to save or for your kids' college funds, or not.. Mine was this episode of The Storybrand Podcast, with an interview with Nicole Walters.

Darren Hardy talks about the Compound Effect, in his book of the same name. The 'Treat Yo' Self' moments you have now have a cumulative effect for the future. If you always 'deserve' a Starbucks treat, the compound effects are hundreds of dollars wasted, extra calories consumed, and... well, that's a lot of serious repercussions. That doesn't mean you can't enjoy a treat every now and again. But if you do it every day, it's not a treat, it's just a lifestyle. But is it a lifestyle you can afford??

The Good Word of the Day

"Kids develop their identity by getting clues from you about what you think about them, feel about them, and hope for them."

Dr. Meg Meeker, Pediatrician

We have to trust our kids to do chores, to have some control of their finances, and to see that we think that they are smart and capable little humans!

Thanks for listening to another episode of our podcast.

We are so thankful for all of you. We hope that you will do great things with great love.

If you would like to connect:

Fostering Voices on Instagram

Jihae on Instagram and Chris on Facebook

You can also email us at [email protected]

AND we would LOVE it if you would SUBSCRIBE and leave us a review on iTunes! This helps others to find our podcast so we can share these voices from the foster care and adoption community with more people!

Thanks for joining us for another episode of our podcast! This episode is a conversation about RACE, and why we need to check ourselves, and our thoughts on race.

We read this great book called Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria by Beverly Daniel Tatum, PhD. She discusses race in such a way that makes you really try to understand the many issues faced by our Black and Brown brothers and sisters. We highly recommend this book for you to start thinking about your biases in race.

At Showit, we have been talking about race quite a bit. Showit is a sponsor of this podcast, and we are proud users, and supporters, and employees of Showit! Read this blog article that further discusses this book by Tatum. This article is very helpful in educating us about how to talk about race with our children, and having more books with diversity on our shelves.

This is SO IMPORTANT as foster and adoptive families. Not everyone in your family will 'match', and that's a beautiful things! But can your kids find positive representations of themselves in the books and toys in your home? And even if everyone in your home is Caucasian, it is still a good idea to have books written by authors of color, and protagonists of color as well!

We would love for you to check out this YouTube video that we created with our friends Shamesha (her husband, Reggie, was on episode 37) and Shamara. They run us through how to care for hair of different textures. Especially multi-ethnic and ethnic hair. Did you know hair can be classified into 4 types? It's important to know what hair types you and your children have, so that you can get the right products for each hair type!

The brands that Shamara and Shamesha love are Mielle, Aunt Jackie's, and As I Am . The main thing to remember is to keep Type 2-4 hair (curly) very moisturized! We often hear people criticizing pics of little Black children in the care of non-Black parents, saying 'that child's hair is not being taken care of!' But maybe you don't know what Black, or curly, or any hair besides your own, is supposed to look like! That's when it's time to ask questions and seek out resources! (But also, can we stop criticizing so much, and try to start helping and educating??) Thanks SO MUCH to Shamesha and Shamara for their time and expertise in this area!

Can we out-serve one another? Let's just give that a try and see how things go. When we are serving others with a good heart – we aren't looking out for ourselves. We are looking out for others. And if you live your life this way, with boundaries and wisdom, but also faith and love – we promise that others will try to out-serve you! We got this idea from Francis and Lisa Chan's book – You and Me Forever. You can download this book for free!

Don't be color blind. Don't be satisfied with being 'not-racist'. Be anti-racist! Be an ally for our Black and Brown brothers and sisters who need our help and support!

And as adoptive and foster parents, Beverly Tatum challenges us all with this thought: "Do not let your child be your first friend of color." She has a whole section on 'Identity in Adoptive Families Considered' in her book, pages 321-328. She very hopefully says: "Adults willing to do the personal work required to confront racism and stretch their own cultural boundaries increase the possibility that they will have the reward of watching their children emerge into adulthood with a positive sense of their identities intact." (328)

Follow Therepy Redeemed for lots of great information on adoption and transracial adoption. As well as Hey TRA (transracial adoptee). The more we know, the more we can all grow – and support our adoptive and foster children of color.

I talked about how Kevinee Gilmore, of Hashtag Foster Care, and I had a rough beginning to our relationship. But I am very thankful for her, and her heart for foster youth! She has a shop that you can support, and be confident that you are supporting a true champion of foster kids in Ohio!

Chris is a member of the Footclan, because he listens to the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. We are thankful for these 3 friends (they aren't Chris' friends. Chris is their friend, but they don't know that) who have helped Chris will tens of tens of dollars over the years. #hundredaire

Jihae listened to the Michelle Obama Podcast, which is only available on Spotify! The first episode with special guest – Barack Obama, was a real treat! If you care about community, and purpose, and people – you will enjoy this episode!

Michelle Obama, the Footballer guys, and other podcasters are not our competition! We love listening to podcasts, and are always thankful for anyone who listens to ours. Feel free to let us know which podcasts you guys are listening to!

This is from Carlos Whittaker, an author we greatly admire. He wrote Kill The Spider, which we talked about in an episode, but can't remember which one… He also has a new book called Enter Wild, which we are also big fans of. Follow him @loswhite on Instagram to learn more about how to talk about race, and be aware of the slight of our Black and Brown friends, as he himself is a Black and Brown man.

Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Be humble and gentle! And patient! Let us love and care for one another and be unified in the Spirit. I believe in us. I believe in Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit.

We hope you enjoyed this episode, and if you did – please leave us a review on iTunes! And feel free to email us at [email protected] if you want to chat, or if have any questions or suggestions for us. Have a great week, friends!

Fostering Voices on Instagram

Jihae on Instagram and Chris on Facebook

AND we would LOVE it if you would SUBSCRIBE and leave us a review on iTunes! This helps others to find our podcast so we can share these voices from the foster care and adoption community with more people!

Welcome back to our podcast, friends!

We took a few weeks off, and are so excited to be back with you all.

Over the last few weeks, we have:

- Gone to San Diego for 48 hours (we live 6 hours away via car) and jammed 13 people into a 3 bedroom Air BnB.

- Gone golfing 3 times! Two times it was 109 degrees, and therefore much more affordable, but also kind of miserable.

- Did a 36 hour staycation while doing an online Marriage Conference with Don and Renee Worcester. You should call resorts near you to see what they are offering! We stayed here for $99 and with a $25 food and drink credit! When we booked online, it was over $250 with no food or drink credit.

- Helped live stream a mini wedding. And almost got fired, because we aren't very good camera people... But congrats to Nick and Adria! They are one of our couples that we did Premarital Counseling with, this year. Our other couple - Devin and Keenan Murray, also got married during quarantine! Congrats cute couples! Check out this amazing wedding video of the Murrays if you want to see how to do a micro-wedding right!

- Traded off babysitting with our friend, Kara Lackey (from episode 66) so that we could each have some time without our kids! Find a friend who you can trade time with!

- Sent the kids to Nana Camp every Friday! SO THANKFUL for Barb, Chris' mom, for hanging out with the kids every single Friday, and giving us adults a break!

Season 6 news

We made the decision to move from doing 20 episodes a season, to 10. We are still committing to putting out episodes on Sunday mornings at 9am. We just don't think we can do it for 20 weeks in a row, with how crazy quarantine life still is.

We also gave away $100 in honor of our 100th episode! Congrats to Robbi-Anne Strauss for winning that, and leaving such a great review on our podcast. And thanks SO MUCH to Charles and Grace for sponsoring that giveaway! If you would like to be a sponsor of the podcast, or the giveaway. You can learn more on our website!

And this season we are also going to share other podcasts we are listening to every week!

This week, Chris talked about this amazingly heartfelt episode from the Stewardship Podcast. You can learn more about Dan on this website and you can download his book.

Jihae listened to this episode with Nancy Panza, a police pyschologist, on the Joe Rogan Experience. And finally, we also listened to episode 100 of the Brands that Book Podcast. A great listen for anyone running a business from home. Davey, the host of that podcast, was on our podcast for episode 99! Check it out if you want to learn how to start your own podcast!

The Good Word of the Day

"If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan?"

-Jeremiah 12:5

Such an appropriate word for 2020! Let us keep persevering through hard things. We will all come out stronger and more amazingly!

Thanks so much for being with us!

We hope you enjoyed this episode, and if you did - please leave us a review on iTunes! To see more episodes, check out our website! And feel free to email us at [email protected] . Have a great week, friends!

Fostering Voices on Instagram

Jihae on Instagram and Chris on Facebook

AND we would LOVE it if you would SUBSCRIBE and leave us a review on iTunes! This helps others to find our podcast so we can share these voices from the foster care and adoption community with more people!