The purpose of Up to Date is to give current information regarding events and developments at Greenleaf Friends Church and to tie those activities to intentional steps we are taking to create avenues for us to grow from a church of roughly 175 to a church of 350 to 400 persons.
For several years our church has been reaching out to the Foster Care system through encouraging Foster Care case workers, hosting several foster parent training events and most recently giving building space to The Wardrobe, a clothing source for kids that are taken out of their homes abruptly.
Earlier this year the churches in the Treasure Valley were contacted by Fostering Idaho, the group that works with the State of Idaho to find and train foster parents. We were asked to present the pressing need for more foster parents to our churches. The need for foster families, especially for youth 12 and older is at a crisis level. In Idaho there is an ongoing average of 1,500 kids in foster care all the time. Roughly half of them are here in the Treasure Valley.
This coming Sunday, April 10 we will use our mission moment Sunday to come close to home and listen to a need that surrounds us all the time. As a part of the presentation we will hear a testimony from a young family in our church that became a foster family within the past year.
Fostering Idaho will serve a lunch at the Community Center at noon on Sunday. It is an informational meeting about the foster system and how to be involved. This lunch meeting has been promoted across the Valley. It is not just for our church. Anyone from GFC is welcome to attend. If this is an area of interest for you and you would like to know more. Please contact the church office to let them know you are coming.
Paying attention to the family needs and challenges that come to the surface through the foster system is a way for us to keep a pulse on our culture and keeps us thinking about places and ways we can bring the healing goodness and grace of the gospel to our culture.