Peggy Griffith: 0:09

Hello and welcome to Next Door Gospel. I'm Peggy Griffith, and thank you for tuning in today. Friends, as I reflect on this idea of Next Door Gospel and what it's becoming, curating stories of God's presence among us, I can't think of any better analogy today than of God's entrance into a broken world, Through the life of Jesus and throughout the Gospels, we read of Jesus entering into places with those who are broken the hurting the sick rejected and Jesus referred to them as the least of these. And a quick Google search led me to the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, and according to their most recent report from 2022, there were approximately 370, 000 children in foster care in the United States. Everyday there are people who enter into those broken places to offer hope, some semblance of stability and support and most importantly, unconditional love to the most vulnerable among us. So, today we are sitting down with Carrie Sgarlata. Carrie will be sharing her story as a mother who has experienced both being a foster parent as well as adoption. So Carrie, thank you for being here today.

Carrie Sgarlata: 1:39

Thank you so much for having me. I'm honored to be here with you to talk about something that I hold most dear.

Peggy Griffith: 1:45

Well, let's start at the beginning. What first led you and your family to consider fostering?

Carrie Sgarlata: 1:53

Yeah, well, the story goes back to when I was about 19 years old and I was a college student at Valparaiso University in Indiana. I am a teacher. And so at that time I was getting my education degree and I had a field placement in Michigan City, Indiana, which was kind of like an inner city setting at that time. So the school I was placed at had many children there that were struggling. And I was to spend a week in a first grade classroom, and when I entered the classroom, I noticed one little boy's desk was pushed far away into the corner away from his peers. And the teacher said to me, you can spend the week with Adam. And, I did. And, if you were to see behind me right here, there's still a picture of Adam and me from that week, together. And, I could tell that Adam was a child who was full of potential, was struggling and coming from hard places, probably wasn't really seen for who he was, and it just really hit me, if I could have, I think I would have wanted to take him home with me on Friday afternoon when my placement was over. But at that time, my husband, we were dating at the time he went to Purdue and that's about an hour and 20 minutes south of Valparaiso. And I went to see him for the weekend. And when I got there, I said, you know, and I knew we were going to get married. I said, I think someday once we're married, we need to do something like help kids that are coming from hard places. Or maybe, you know, we did want a family of our own, but maybe adopt a child at some point. And Nick thought, well. I'm not so sure about that. Well, we'll see how that goes. And, fast forward, we got married when we were 23, we're blessed with three beautiful children. And then I would say kind of in our mid thirties, late thirties, we decided we were actually ready to do this work and, we pursued the idea of becoming a foster family. Um, our big three, as we call the three biological Children were very much on board. Haley, our oldest was in high school. Maddie was in middle school and gunner was in 1st 2nd grade when we start talking about it. And so they all were old enough to understand what we were doing. And we had agreed that we would just take one child at a time, and we were only going to do boys because the way that rooms and sharing and all that works out with foster care, we could only do that and Gunnar would be the one that would share. And we said ages three to seven. We didn't need any babies. Um, and so that started our journey. And, we ended up fostering for nearly 10 years, helping about 15 children and ended up adopting two who were actually babies when they came to us. And so now, our family now includes, our son, Raphael, who is seven, who came to us and he was six months old and Joseph, who was four and came to us at four months old. So we've got ages four to now Haley's 26. So, that's how we got started. It's all because of Adam. And ironically, when we were pursuing this, I searched Adam because I do know his last name. I searched him and I didn't find very good results. I found that he had spent some time in jail, but I also located, that his stepfather was a city official. and I reached out to him and I emailed him and I told him what we were doing. I sent him the picture of Adam and me, and I told him that Adam was the inspiration for this work, and he wrote me back. And he was very appreciative of that, and he said Adam was doing much better. And he was going to share that, Story with Adam. So, it was kind of a full circle moment for me, for sure.

Peggy Griffith: 5:29

Oh, wow. I, and I love that. There was an initial calling that kind of stayed with you and it never went away. You felt the need to carry that forward and have family discussions with your Children. How did they initially react when you sat them down and talked about this?

Carrie Sgarlata: 5:51

super on board. Very excited. All in. Couldn't wait to help. Once we were licensed and we got that first phone call, they were all standing around the kitchen counter saying say yes, say yes, say yes. And we actually couldn't say yes to that first placement due to, his school placement was really too far away from our home. And so it was going to be just logistically difficult to get that child to school. But, we could not have done this work over the last. 9 to 10 years as well without them. So they have been huge, supporters, contributors, selfless. This is not easy work. the Children that came into our home and the Children that go into other foster homes, most have trauma and it causes can it does and it can cause great disruption into a family structure that's fairly stable and our household was pretty structured. our kids knew our expectations. We ran a tight ship and then you have a child come that hasn't been raised the same way that our Children have. And, maybe as a child that had came from a difficult pregnancy or the mom use drugs during the pregnancy or the mom didn't have prenatal care. We know that generational trauma does pass down from body to body through the womb. A baby can feel that generational trauma in their system and in their DNA. And so that comes with that child and that's part of who they are. And so you're dealing with a lot of, nature that I always thought I can change that and realized actually I can't, and then sadly to say for many of the kids that came into our home, a lack of nurture. Oftentimes the biggest reason children come into foster care is because of neglect. Many people think it's abuse, but it's actually neglect. So they haven't had those deep connections. They haven't been held and loved and given that positive reinforcement and encouragement that really shapes our brain to believe good about ourselves. And so, You're you're fighting against a lot of things when they come into your home and trying to love them like they're your own child and oftentimes they don't respond to a time out the same way that, neurotypical child would respond. It's a big learning curve, big learning curve for sure.

Peggy Griffith: 8:12

Sure. That's fascinating. Can you walk us through your 1st fostering experience when the phone rang and you were able to say yes.

Carrie Sgarlata: 8:21

Yes. I remember it. Well, actually this was pre COVID. So, when you are licensed as a foster parent, you have an initial intake process where they ask you every single question, every single financial record, your background as a child, all of those things. So it's anywhere from a three to six month process to get licensed. And then, your first two years, you need to complete 30 hours of training. In addition to a couple other courses. And so, this was fall. I remember it was October 14th, the exact date. And we were actually at the Children's Community Center because we were licensed through Children's Hospital in Milwaukee, and we were there for a partnership parenting class. And the idea behind this is that, you would really try to work well with the biological parent and partner parent during that time that their child was in care to build good relationships and to make that child understand that you are simply there to serve. You are not there to take this child away or make the child choose between you or the parent. And so it's this class. I actually teach it now, ironically, but it's how can we work together? And so my husband Nick and I were sitting there and, a call had already come in prior to us getting there for a family of eight Children. That needed to be placed and no one can take eight children. It's very hard to place even two or three children from a sibling set, let alone eight. And, we had learned that the children were actually in the office there. It was a pretty, serious removal that involved the, police department. They basically came to us and said, we've got a four year old, a five year old, a six year old, a seven year old. Who do you want? And so we said, we'll take the four year old. And so, we sat through the rest of the class and then we walked down the hall and we met this little guy who clearly was probably scared, from what I had heard, the removal was very, very scary and, dad fought it. And so we took him to McDonald's and got some drive thru and then brought him home, and that was our first placement. He stayed with us from October to July. Ironically, in foster care, when a child is placed into care, the parent knows where they are. They get a court document that has your address on it. They know the location of their child as they should. However, in very extreme situations, a judge may decide to make a case undisclosed, which means the parent or something about that family is not safe, that they don't want the parent to know where their child is. Here we are partnership parenting class on how to get along. And then we find out this is an undisclosed case. So we did not get to partner parent with this set of parents at all because dad was not a very safe man. I'm very proud to say in that 10 months of time, and we knew he would go home because even though it was a very dysfunctional family, this child very much knew that that was his family. Um, they had a connection, they had a bond, in that time. Our placement, our child was the only child that remained in our home the entire 10 months. Every other child from that family moved due to various situations. And so I know that this child's parents recognized that we were, a safe and loving option for their child. And in May, mom asked to meet me. That was the first time I ever saw or met a parent. And so mom and I met at the courthouse and it was lovely and she was so grateful. she gave me a huge hug. We laughed, we cried. She told me some things about this little guy that I didn't know. and she had always said, I will never keep him from you. And when he ended up going home, there was some legal things going on. It was in July and we knew that there was a court case. The court hearing started on Monday was going to be done on Friday. And the case management team said, be prepared. He's probably going to go home on Friday. He's probably just going to go. Well, on Tuesday, they called us at three o'clock and said, the judge just threw the case out. You better get him here to the office in 45 minutes, pack up all his stuff. He's going home. And that was it. And it was over. And we said goodbye with lots of tears. We knew it was coming, but we didn't know it was coming that fast. Mom tried to let me see him, and it just it ended up not being very safe for her to facilitate that relationship with me. And we've never seen him since. We look back on him now on that little guy, and he was so easy compared to some of the other kids we've had. He was so easy. And when my husband and Haley went to pick him up from daycare on that Tuesday, and they got in the car and Nick said to him, you're going home today. And he goes, Thank God. That was his first reaction. He couldn't wait to get home. So, that's the thing you have to appreciate as a foster parent that while that child might do well in your home and might I think you're great and love you, you're not home. And so you have to remember what your role is as a foster parent.

Peggy Griffith: 13:28

And it sounds amazing that this young boy of age four was wise enough to understand the difference in your role and his biological family. What support systems helped you through this? through this situation,

Carrie Sgarlata: 13:52

Yeah. It was a very difficult goodbye. I found myself keeping my sunglasses on when I'd go into stores because the music would be on and then it would make me all sad but first and foremost, our faith, absolutely our faith. Like. All of this is driven from that place because fostering is incredibly difficult and most people can't do this work and it is work. I believe it is total service of what God expects us to do to take care of others. Because at the end of the day, it is so selfless. And so, we rely on God. We rely on our church community for sure. Our church has been so supportive of every child we have brought through those doors. Our community of fellow foster and adoptive parents that we've gotten to know over the last, you know, 10 years. And really just like our nuclear family, we only can fully understand what we've been through and it's really hard to explain to people. you grieve a child in a way that like they're still alive, they're gone. And so our charge as foster parents is to love a child like your own, like they're your own child, but be ready to say goodbye to them at a moment's notice and then figure out how you feel about that. Deal with your feelings and just buck up and be brave. And so a lot of foster parents will say, you know, we shed a lot of tears for these kids and those kids deserve those tears and they're worthy of that and they are. and our longest placement, is one that we've adopted that was Raphael and our shortest placement was nine hours. Nine hours he was with us and then was they found his parents and he was lost in a park and then he was taken back to his family. So you have to be prepared to be ready for anything. I could tell you stories Peggy that you wouldn't even believe, like, I can't even make them up some of the things that have happened. So it's just, your eyes are opened. to a lot and a lot of pain that these families are suffering. When I teach that partner parenting class now, I talk a lot about how our family has really lowered our judgment levels of others, how the ability to show grace and compassion, which is what God asks us to do. I changed my opinions about a lot of things like. I know these people love their Children. They don't know how to care for them in a healthy way. Many of the parents that we have worked with over the last 10 years were foster Children themselves. So again, the cycle continues.

Peggy Griffith: 16:32

the generational aspect of coming up through this system.

Carrie Sgarlata: 16:37

Yep. Yep.

Peggy Griffith: 16:39

as you look back, because I hear you saying like, oh, there's some stories that I could tell. Um, as you look back, is there a specific story that just hits your heart and maybe even a specific story where you knew God's presence was at play?

Carrie Sgarlata: 16:57

There's a couple. I think about Joseph first. There's two that come to mind immediately. Joseph, came to us in a really unique way. It was during COVID. He was born March 6, 2020. And I had a family that we knew in foster land, and they're In their late 60s, 70s, they had adopted two from care and the woman had said, we're done, we're done, we're getting too old for this. And, I'd heard through Maddie, my daughter, who was doing some work in an elementary school. Hey, did you know that so and so, they just took placement of a baby. And so I reached out to this friend and I said, what are you doing? And Maddie said, you took a baby. You said you weren't. doing this anymore. You're done. And she said, well, no one would take him. He needed to come home from the hospital. And we said we'd help for six weeks because with babies, you can't, take newborns to daycare until they're seven weeks old. So that's hard for foster parents because they can't just quit their jobs for that. So you need to kind of have some resources in place. So this friend had said, we said we'd keep them for six weeks. And she said, and guess what, Carrie, he needs to be adopted. And I'm like, Oh, okay, I'm not, we're not doing this. I'm 48 years old. I'm too old. We're done. We're done. And then she sent me some pictures and then she said, his name is Joseph. And, that is my grandfather's name. And that is what I was supposed to be named if I was a little boy. And so I was like, okay, God, what are you doing here? And we met Joseph and we talked a lot about the role of that child in our family, and especially like for Rafi with Haley, Maddie and Gunnar, our oldest. They understand their place in the family. They know they're not going anywhere. They know that that's not a vulnerable relationship. With Rafi, we started to worry about can we keep fostering and we don't want to foster bigger kids that could influence him. So should Rafi be the big brother? And so we thought, I don't know, God's presenting this opportunity and we thought about it. And obviously we made the decision to do it. Um, another one comes to mind and he's always the one that I say kind of got away. I was very good in the beginning about keeping my head and my heart balanced. Like I really knew our role. Like I never crossed the line of like, Is this child like if we had an opportunity to adopt, we would, but we weren't going to force it. And this little guy came to us in January. He was our third or fourth placement. We got a call in the middle of the night. Most of our calls were in the middle of the night call about 1 a. m. And the placement worker from Children's said, Carrie, just wake up a minute. And I said, Okay. And she said, I have a four year old boy here who needs placement. His two year old brother just died today of an opiate overdose. And I said, Okay, bring him over. And that was a Thursday into a Friday. And, when a child is in care or comes into care, a judge has to decide within 48 hours if the removal was legitimate. And since it was the weekend, that was going to have to take place on Monday. And they said, we've tried to call family. We've tried to call his biological dad. No one's answering. Mom is in jail. Plan on having him for a while. And we also knew that his other older siblings had already been adopted and mom was trying to start over with the second family and obviously was struggling. And so I thought, Oh my gosh, this is the one like mom's incarcerated. They can't find dad. Like this might be the one we adopt. And on Monday. You go to court and I had taken him to the doctor because you have to do that. And then I found out from the case manager that they found biological dad and he showed up and he wanted his son and he should, he should want his son, but yet he wasn't involved in this child's life. So he was going to have to work towards it. So for about six months, we helped that transition, but mom wrote to me often from jail and she asked us to be his legal guardian and we wanted nothing more to be. But the court said we have a biological parent that is stepping up and should step up there. There's no way you don't have a chance at all. So that was a really tough one. And yet I knew for that child and for the long haul of his life for him to be with a biological parent, given all that he's going to have to process as a child who witnessed a very traumatic event, being surrounded by his family. how often his mom reached out to me and asked me to be there for him, just, I really felt was very moving. And, I remember telling her, your little guy's telling me he really likes deviled eggs. And I said, I can't stand deviled eggs. I've never made a deviled egg in my life. And so I said, can you share your recipe and she wrote back to me and she said, all right, here's the recipe, but don't tell anyone it's a secret magic recipe. And so I made deviled eggs for him and I can't stand it, but I still have those letters in, a file from her. And, those moments stick with you for sure. And I've never seen him since, never seen him since. And, the reunifications when they feel good are. Rewarding and, we had a little guy for a month one time and I knew he was in the process of reunifying for dad and we met with dad and we met at the office at children's and I went to give him a handshake when he was picking up his son and he just came in and gave me the biggest hug. He's like, no handshake here and just, huge bear hug and thank you for everything you did for my child. And, so, you know, you've done what you're supposed to do.

Peggy Griffith: 22:37

Tell me about, sometimes the situation where the story doesn't end the way in which you'd hoped,

Carrie Sgarlata: 22:44

Right. So we have a situation, with a special friend that has been with us three separate times over the last six years. And we've done our best to help him and have him here and give him all the support he needs. And it just hasn't worked for various reasons. And, It's been really tough. It's been probably my biggest, faith challenge with God. I struggle because some people in the foster world, there are some people I follow on Facebook that are foster parents that are, their faith is, um, it's very much like I will do whatever you need Lord. And yet I see families crumbling. from some of the children they have adopted because the mental health needs are so great and people are getting divorced because of children they've adopted families are living in separate places to keep other family members safe. And I don't believe that's what God would want, really, honestly, and yet what do we do to help these children that have no one or are in such despair. And so we've had to make some really tough decisions that I know that we've done the right thing for certain people that we love, and then sometimes it feels all wrong for other people that we love, and I question God from the standpoint that these are children. And I don't think any child should have to experience the hurt and loneliness that some of these kids in foster care have experienced. I know that many adults experience that. But for me, with my teacher heart, it's just different when it's a child. It's just not how it's supposed to go. It's not, it's just not fair and, children aren't quite old enough to understand how they can try to, you know, pull up their bootstraps and get out of this really difficult situation. Can I have it, you know, make me who I am, or can I have it drag me down? And they don't have the wherewithal to do that. A lot of adults don't have the wherewithal

Peggy Griffith: 24:53

right? Or even the means.

Carrie Sgarlata: 24:55

Exactly. Yeah. And what are my resources and who do I talk to and how do I have self control so I don't hurt people that I know are trying to help me and children's brains are still developing and then you put trauma on top of it and it's just a, recipe for an explosion. And so I still struggle. I have a little plaque on my kitchen counter that says pray, wait, trust, or pray, trust, wait, and I pray for that child every day. I know that there's purpose in our life for him. I know that we are meant to be connected in some capacity. I don't believe that God puts people in your world by accident. but I am having a hard time waiting to see where that goes. And, we have the support of our family to be able to carry us through that grief. And yet that little boy that we love so desperately is facing so much of this alone. And that's what just is, it's painful. It's painful. And it's a lot of people will describe this as a really impossible situation that we've been in the last several years with this kid. And then people say these comments like, well, if the Sgarlatas can't do it, who can? And it's like, you know, it's a compliment and yet you feel this awesome responsibility for these little people. And then you still think about the people and the children that we do have in our home that we have to care about and we have to love. And our two little ones come from hard places and they need lots of attention. And so you have to make sure you recognize your capacity. And I think that's really hard for some foster parents. They keep saying yes, yes, yes. And then all of a sudden the balance of the family is really, off. And so most foster parents don't make this more than a year. They don't stay licensed more than a year.

Peggy Griffith: 26:44

That is astounding to hear that. And I think it people who are in tough situations, whether it's a situation like what you're speaking of a medical situation, or you lose a job waiting for this to come full circle where you understand how it's all fitting together is. Excruciating and your pain, I think, is what represents that alignment with Jesus heart for love and justice and protection of Children, and it doesn't make it any better, but it doesn't make it suck any less

Carrie Sgarlata: 27:31

Yeah. You're right.

Peggy Griffith: 27:32

for lack of a better way to say it. It still

Carrie Sgarlata: 27:34

Yeah. It does. It does.

Peggy Griffith: 27:37

but. That understanding and waiting for that full picture to come into view, is a tough one. And man, we pray for you for that to come into fruition, you talked a little bit about the transition from fostering to adoption. Did you know going into this or think going into this that you would end up. Adopting two Children

Carrie Sgarlata: 28:01

No, it's just going to be one only one. If we adopted is going to be one. and we were only going to foster one at a time. And then after Rafi came to us at 6 months old in March. And again, that was through a friend that we knew who asked us if we would take him because she only had him for a short time and then in that fall of 2018, we thought, hey, it's kind of quiet around here. Like, could we foster another 1? I mean, like, we could probably get on the list again. And then that's when this little special guy came to us that I was telling you about that's been with us for. on and off for six years. and, and then he had left us and then Joseph came to us in July of 2020. And then, we kept, we had to keep our license open because we had them. but then, Rafi was adopted the following May of 2021, and then Joseph was June of 2021, and they're not biologically related. and we kept our license open. For that one specific child I've been talking about, but not to take anybody else. we have always said to the agency, we'll take a kid for a night if you can't find placement, but we knew that we had our hands full and needed to give our attention to Joseph and Rafi. but no, we were only going to adopt one. We were only going to foster one. And remember what I said at the beginning, we were never going to take babies. That was not in the plan. And that obviously isn't God's plan.

Peggy Griffith: 29:24

What advice would you give to families considering fostering or adoption right now?

Carrie Sgarlata: 29:31

first of all, I would say thank you for considering it. There is a desperate need. You had shared some of those statistics in the beginning. I do know just because of what my husband does as the executive director to a nonprofit that's helping kids aging out, the number is closer to 400, 000 now nationwide of kids in care. Um, there's about 7, 000 in the state of Wisconsin, about 2, 000 in the, in Milwaukee County alone. So, as I had mentioned to you, Many people will get a license and then they'll close it within a year because they just can't do it. many people will get a license and they'll, take placement and then that will turn into an adoption. And then they close their license because they adopted and they don't want to do it anymore. So if you're making it that far that you're going to an informational meeting and you're considering it, I want to say thank you. Um, a couple things, make sure that whoever you're doing that with, if it's you alone. Make sure you have a support system. And if you have a partner with you, make sure you're on the same page because it is the hardest thing we've ever done. And you really have to be aligned as a couple that you both wanted to do this because you can't pit it against the other person when the child is really struggling. Well, you wanted to do this and I didn't, that's not okay. That doesn't help the child at all. So make sure that you're really grounded in your relationship and that this is something you agree upon and what are your non negotiables in terms of what child would you accept? What behaviors are you willing to deal with? And then also remembering that you've got to keep your head and your heart in balance. You've got to keep that boundary there. This is an act of service. It is not an act of saving. So many children will come into your home and need you for a short period of time until their family can heal. And you might not like the standard of the healing, but if it's good enough, they're going home. And so you can't be judgmental. You control nothing in this situation. Nothing. You have no rights as a foster parent. Really. you can't hire a lawyer to try to adopt this child. So if your goal is to go into it to adopt, you will adopt at some point, but it may not be the child that you think it was going to be. And, you have to be patient, flexible, compassionate. Lower your judgment, lower your expectations, and there's a lot of joy in this too. There's a lot of beauty. I describe it as beautiful and broken at the same time. And you know, no child should be taken from his or her family. Especially their mommy, it's just, that's just not how it should be. But unfortunately there's brokenness in our world. And then there's people that are willing to step in and provide a service. And we need more, we need way more foster parents there. There's just not enough. There's a lot of kids sleeping in the office waiting for, for placements. It's very difficult.

Peggy Griffith: 32:20

Thank you. And I don't think there is a better way to sum it up than what you just said. Beautiful and broken.

Carrie Sgarlata: 32:27

Yes.

Peggy Griffith: 32:29

Thank you so much, Carrie, for sharing your story with us.

Carrie Sgarlata: 32:33

My pleasure.

Peggy Griffith: 32:34

And to our listeners, I'll be posting some links in the show notes for more information on the statistics I shared. and also maybe reference some, links and information to learn a little bit more about foster care and adoption. And. Thank you for tuning in today. and if you haven't done so already click that subscribe button, wherever you listen to your podcasts, so you won't miss next week's gospel story. And you can also follow next door gospel on Facebook and Instagram. And if you or someone, you know, would like to share your story on the show, please send me an email at next door gospel at gmail. com and until then. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn his face towards you and give you peace forever and always. Amen.