Simple Act With a Big Impact!

In partnership with Lifesong for Orphans, The Forgotten Initiative, seeks to bring joy and purpose to the foster care community.

They have many different avenues of how we can get involved and one is creating "Journey Bags" for your local foster care agency--ultimately reaching foster kids in your community. What is a Journey Bag you ask? Children often come into foster care with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Journey Bags are backpacks filled with personal items for kids to have when they are abruptly taken out of their homes.

I invite you to listen in as Heather, a foster mom, shares the impact these Journey Bags had on her foster kiddos!

Last night at midnight three precious little beauties showed up on my doorstep.  They each had with them a blanket, a stuffed animal, and a book bag....their Journey Bags of course.  I kept waiting for more, anything more, but nothing came.  The investigator told me that yes indeed this was all they had. 

Our 5 year old had come with shoes which were so bad they had to be thrown away, one of our two year olds had no shoes, the other two year old had two left shoes.  When I asked about getting anything out of the home the investigator said it just wasn't going to be possible.  The kids had nothing.  There worldly possessions consisted of Journey Bags. As I stared at those bags I began to cry.  What if no one took the time to fill those bags and deliver them.  What would our children have then.  Absolutely nothing.  Nothing to claim as their own, nothing to protect or cherish.  Thank you for all you do.  Thank you for my kiddos Journey Bags.

--Heather, Foster Mom

Interested in reaching out to your foster care community through journey bags? Check out The Forgotten Initiative's website to find out more!

We'd love to hear form you! What are other ways that YOU are reaching out to your foster care community?

TFI: Foster Care Worker Appreciation

The Forgotten Initiative celebrated National Foster Care Worker Month in June and took it a step further to invite workers in our local community (Bloomington Normal, IL) to an appreciation picnic.  Over 70 workers joined the fun! Check out these pictures!

Thanks TFI for taking the time to honor and appreciate those who work in Foster Care!!

To learn more about The Forgotten Initiative and how YOU can bless your local foster care community, visit the TFI website.

The Forgotten Initiative: Advocate Highlight

My journey to becoming a Forgotten Initiative Advocate has been full of uncertainty, setbacks, and answered prayers.  Every time I look back on the events of my life, I feel as if God has been leading me here all along. 

He opened my eyes to the orphan crisis while I was still in High School.  I knew very early in my Christian life that He was calling me to care for these forgotten children.  Originally, I was bound and determined to move to Africa and work in one of the orphanages there.  After meeting my husband, Ryan, we both felt that God was telling us that Africa was not His plan for our lives.  He had something for us here, in our own backyard, but we had no idea what it was.

We knew that adoption was in our future, but had decided that we would have biological children before adopting any others.  God had other plans.  Shortly after we were married in 2009, we suffered two grueling miscarriages.  In our despair, He gave us a verse that will forever shape our lives, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but one day you will understand.” John 13.7.  After months of prayer, God spoke loud and clear that His plan was for us to adopt and not wait.  He changed our hearts and showed us that adoption is not a plan B, but that our adopted child will be exactly the child that He designed for our family.  Nine months later, we brought home a beautiful baby girl through adoption. 

Since then, God has continued to open my eyes and show me the immense need for foster and adoptive parents in our community.  As my heart grew for these children, I found myself wanting to do something more.  We felt the pull of our hearts towards foster care.  The more I learned about the foster care community and its brokenness, the less I was able to sit still and do nothing.  I wanted desperately to help, but had no idea how just one person could tackle the huge needs of the foster care community. I stumbled across The Forgotten Initiative on a friend’s blog post one day and realized that this was exactly what God had been preparing my heart for all of these years.

Anna Shumpert:  Forgotten Advocate – Columbia, South Carolina

To get involved in Columbia, SC, email Anna at tfi.columbia@gmail.com and “Like” Anna’s Facebook Page at www.facebook.com/tfi.columbia to stay up to date on local needs!

Interested in starting The Forgotten Initiative in your area?  To learn more about becoming a Forgotten Advocate, please email info@theforgotteninitiative.org

Taking Care of the Details - The Forgotten Initiative

Listen in as Jen Young, Forgotten Advocate, shares the impact one 'journey bag' had on a precious foster care child,

A caseworker called to say thank you for the journey bags we delivered. She described one story of a child that came into care with a sibling from a horrible situation that involved a death of a parent. Caseworkers tried to keep the two brothers together, but could not, which was very difficult for the boys.  The caseworker said that when she gave them a journey bag, their eyes lit up. She expressed how excited they were to have their own bag and the joy it brought the kids really touched the caseworker as well.

I couldn't help but tell this caseworker about the 500 bags we received from a church that put each of these bags together.  I told her that while we're glad the bags are appreciated, needed and useful, God cares about this child and took care of the details. His hand was upon this situation and He knew just what this child needed!

The "Journey Bag Project" is just one way The Forgotten Initiative, partnering with Lifesong for Orphans, seeks to bring joy and purpose to the foster care community. 

To see how you can be involved or to learn more, please visit their website.  

Project Sunshine - The Forgotten Initiative

Just had to share with you these AMAZING before & after pictures from a recent Project Sunshine in Peoria, IL. A Project Sunshine is an outreach of The Forgotten Initiative (partnered with Lifesong for Orphans) who seeks to bring joy & purpse to the foster care community.

Project Sunshine gives an 'extreme make-over' to foster care agencies rooms that are used for foster care children to bring a smile not only to children, families, and foster parents, but to the caseworkers as well!

Take a look at some of these!

BEFORE...

AFTER...

(pictures by Kristi Zobrist)

Wow! We are impressed! To learn more about The Forgotten Initiative and how you can be involved visit their website here.