There is a version of church that happens on Sunday morning. Lights, music, a message, a congregation gathered. And it is good and right and worthy. But there is another version of church, one that happens in minivans and grocery store parking lots, in the chaos of a Tuesday afternoon, in the quiet of a kitchen where someone just needed another adult to sit with them for a while. It Looks Like a Meal on the Doorstep It looks like someone who heard a foster family just had a placement at 11pm and showed up the next morning with groceries. No fanfare. No Instagram moment. Just a paper bag full of food and the unspoken message, you are not alone

Our oldest boys, Manny and AJ, arrived at our home late on a Friday night. They came with one small backpack containing ill-fitting pajamas and a single diaper each. Hidden at the bottom of the bag were two worn and tattered children’s books. Amid the uncertainty and fear that accompanied this big transition for the boys, these stories offered an opportunity for connection. After tucking the boys into their new and unfamiliar beds, I sat on the floor between them and read the books aloud.  On that very first day of our foster care journey, we discovered how to share words and connect with our kids through stories. AJ and Manny came to us drowning in a sea of confusing,

“When our son came to us through foster care, he was three years old—and his first language was Spanish. Because there wasn’t a Spanish-speaking family available, he was placed in our home. We have many strengths as a family, but speaking Spanish isn’t one of them! Looking back, I can only imagine how overwhelming it must have been for him—on top of the trauma of being separated from his biological mother, he suddenly found himself in a home with different food, different music, a different rhythm of life, and a language he didn’t understand. I had taken quite a bit of Spanish in college, and I remember praying, “Lord, bring back every word of Spanish I’ve ever learned!” I quickly