The Forgotten Podcast

Over 12 seasons, 165 stories have been shared on this podcast. How cool is that!? We just closed out Season 12 of The Forgotten Podcast, and it was once again our most listened-to season of the podcast ever! This season alone had over 100,000 downloads. So incredible! In today’s bonus episode, I am joined again by Mitch Nelson, our Creative Director here at TFI, to reflect on some of our favorite moments and takeaways from Season 12. Creating and sharing this podcast is such a privilege and honor to us, and we hope revisiting some of these conversations and highlights is as encouraging for you as it is for us. We can’t thank you enough for listening, sharing, and supporting this podcast, and we look forward to the conversations to come in Season 13!

Today I’m talking with Josh Ballard, who has a passion for foster care and building a community to support other foster dads. As a result of this passion, Josh started Flexible Fatherhood, a group (and a podcast!) that provides foster dads with educational resources and community to give them confidence in raising the next generation of children. In our conversation, Josh and I talk about his family’s journey to becoming aware of the need in foster care, how their perspective has expanded since taking this step, myths about fostering teenagers that need to be debunked, encouragement for other foster parents, and so much more.

Today, I am joined by renowned author, speaker, pastor, marriage counselor, and adoptive parent, Paul Tripp. You may be familiar with Paul from any number of his 30+ books such as New Morning Mercies, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family, and Marriage: 6 Gospel Commitments Every Couple Needs to Make. He truly is an incredible voice we have the opportunity to learn from today! In this episode, Paul shares his personal calling to provide a place for those that need it and how that led to opening their home to their adoptive daughter. We also dig into the Gospel need for place each of us have, how we are called to be tools of God’s generosity, why our lives should lead to transformation in ourselves and others, and so much more. This was a meaningful conversation that I hope is an encouragement to you!

Hasn’t this month been incredible? It is so important to learn from others and expand our perspective. If you missed it, for National Foster Care Awareness Month, we have highlighted stories every week from each perspective of the foster care community—agency workers, foster parents, vulnerable adults, and children—because every member of the foster care community matters and has a story to tell. I remember when my eyes were first opened to foster care, and I remember the feeling deep in my gut that I had to do something. I’ve grown and learned so much since that day, and my perspective has continued to grow from hearing the stories this last month. I hope you have found these conversations encouraging and challenging as well. In today’s shorter episode, I’m closing out our series for National Foster Care Awareness Month and sharing the unique way that our work here at The Forgotten Initiative fits into the foster care community. Thank you so much for joining me this month! More than anything, I want you to know that you are not alone. Will you join us on this mission to see people everywhere supporting the foster care community and experiencing Jesus together? Join Team 3:10 today.

https://theforgotteninitiative.org/team310/ Did you know that May is National Foster Care Awareness Month? To help raise awareness of this community that we love so dearly, things are looking a little different this month on the podcast. Every week this month, we are highlighting stories from each perspective of the foster care community—agency workers, foster parents, vulnerable adults, and children—because every member of the foster care community matters and has a story to tell. In this episode, I am joined by Kristen Lucero, a former foster child who is now a licensed foster parent. By the time she was adopted at age 5, she had already lived in three different homes. Although Kristen remembers feeling grateful to be adopted, she found herself struggling with abandonment, self-worth, belonging, and identity until she was 22 years old. Today, Kristen shares with us the importance of recognizing that God is expressing His love for us through the people He has placed in our lives and the importance for parents to hold fast to their calling even when a child makes it difficult.

Support our podcast and listen with a purpose! - https://theforgotteninitiative.org/team310/ Did you know that May is National Foster Care Awareness Month? To help raise awareness of this community that we love so dearly, things are looking a little different this month on the podcast. Every week this month, we are highlighting stories from each perspective of the foster care community—agency workers, foster parents, vulnerable adults, and children—because every member of the foster care community matters and has a story to tell. In this episode, I am joined by Tiffany Shaw. Tiffany is a biological parent whose three children entered foster care after she was reported to the Department of Children and Family Services as a result of drug addiction. Today, she graciously shares with us the difficult circumstances that led to her relapse and homelessness, as well as the significant relationship that led to her recovery from drugs and reunification with her children. Tiffany’s story is full of redemption, and I am so grateful for her willingness to join me for this conversation.

https://theforgotteninitiative.org/team310 Did you know that May is National Foster Care Awareness Month? To help raise awareness of this community that we love so dearly, things are looking a little different this month on the podcast. Every week this month, we are highlighting stories from each perspective of the foster care community—agency workers, foster parents, vulnerable adults, and children—because every member of the foster care community matters and has a story to tell. In this episode, I’m talking with Jessica Mathisen. In addition to being a foster parent, she is an author and the Executive Director of Restoration Women, an organization that equips women in Athens, GA with life and job skills to empower them to walk in freedom and bring restoration to their homes and community. Today, Jessica openly shares about her fostering journey, how she’s learned to navigate fear and insecurity, how she finds the strength to face each day as a foster parent, the immeasurable value she has found in community, and more. I loved this episode and hope it’s an encouragement to you!

Today, I’m talking with Delaney Burns, who is an agency worker. Delaney grew up in a home where her parents fostered, which solidified her interest in becoming a foster care caseworker. In this episode, she shares openly about the hardest parts of her job, what a day in her life looks like, what she’s been learning through navigating hard situations, and the hope she holds on to through it all. https://theforgotteninitiative.org/team310/ 

For so many in the foster care community, the passion for foster care or adoption started through awareness at an early age. This is the story for Jessie Barnes. While other teenagers were searching for music videos, she was searching for adoption stories and begging her parents to consider adoption, leading her mom to suggest she take licensing classes (as a high schooler!) to learn about foster care as well. When Jessie grew up and had a family of her own, she became a foster parent herself, and is now a TFI Advocate launching a foster care ministry in Dubuque, Iowa.   In today’s episode, Jessie shares how God placed the passion for foster care in her heart, how her involvement has shifted with each season of life, her journey of battling feelings of inadequacy, what her experience has been like in partnering with TFI, and how she is learning to live with God-confidence. Jessie has such a beautiful heart for this work, and you don’t want to miss this one!   (P.S. Applications to become a TFI Advocate are officially OPEN in the month of April! Apply today!)

Foster care is hard, and it can often feel confusing. It can be even more confusing when you’re rooting for reunification, and alternative outcomes you weren’t prepared for are pursued.   Dorothy Mendoza and her husband, Chris, began fostering because they wanted to see children reunified with their biological parents. In their first 3 years as foster parents, they fostered 9 children, and only one of those cases ended in reunification, while the others ended in an alternative outcome (not reunification or adoption by the foster parents). This was a surprise to them that brought its own challenging emotions and difficult choices. In today’s episode, Dorothy and I talk about what some alternative outcomes are, how to navigate hard transitions and goodbyes in foster care, why we should run towards brokenness, and much more. I hope this episode is an encouragement to you!