Sometime in the next few weeks, we are expecting a call from our social worker telling us that we have finally been approved as foster parents... something like seven months later. It has actually been a great process filled with a lot of learning and training, but it has also been quite a long time. You can check out all of our foster care updates on our family blog.

Before this whole process started, Mary and I shared the same longing to help kids. We didn't really know how, but we knew it was something we really wanted to do. I remember in those days I would often get overwhelmed by the incredible amount of kids in need all over the world. I've always dreamed of sponsoring hundreds of kids through World Vision or opening an orphanage or something amazing like that, but it's just not realistic. Unfortunately, when you dream so big and get overwhelmed like that, it is easy to simply not do anything. You think, "Well because I can't do everything, I just won't do anything. Because I can't help everyone, I won't help anyone." Then came the idea of foster care.

Through foster care, I feel we are given the unique opportunity of really helping one kid at a time. I don't have the time or the money to help all the kids out there in need, but I can do my best to help one kid at a time, for however long God allows us to take care of them.

Just a few hours ago, I would not have been able to articulate that feeling so well. Fortunately, I often listen to sermon podcasts while I drive to and from work, and today I listened to a recent one by Andy Stanley called "One, Not Everyone". He wasn't talking about foster care, but I think he described the heart of it perfectly (or at least he described why I love the idea of it). He hopes that everyone would commit to helping one person or one family or one class of students, instead of being overwhelmed by the "everyone" and not doing anything.

Can you imagine how much better the world would be if instead of spreading ourselves thin trying to help everyone and do everything, we focused on "one" and went all out trying to help them? Think about it. Would you rather know that everybody kind of likes you or that one person absolutely loves you?

I can't wait until God gives us the first "one".