Fostering Tea Session (Audrie Siew)


10 March 2018 - Joint Fostering Tea Session with MCYC

“Fatherless, Orphans, Destitute, Needy"... These were words which God relentlessly showed to Audrie. God struck her with His heart for vulnerable children and the darkness, grief and confusion they felt when they had to leave their own families and their need for a loving and caring family to heal. She had applied to be a foster parent some years back but had pulled out because of fear. With the fresh vision from God, she eventually obeyed and applied again. Now she is finally fostering.

Six months ago, her family took in an 8 year old foster daughter, Ellie. When she went to KKH to pick her up, Audrie was informed to bring some clothes because the child had nothing on her back except her hospital gown! Her family had to adjust to a new member and it was back to basics (or worse) in many ways. For instance, the girl had never been taught to sit and eat at a table and dropped food all over the floor; she wasn’t able to read or spell simple words like C-A-T; she was failing every single academic subject.
Fostering became a family effort with her children helping Ellie to read by tutoring her daily, pointing our road signs, making up stories to teach her basic arithmetic etc. God used their fostering journey to grow each member of the family - they had to deal with issues such as ungraciousness or impatience when their buttons were pushed. These struggles made them pray hard for supernatural grace and wisdom to grow this child that God had placed in their family. Audrie confessed the fostering journey reveals the weaknesses and imperfections in her family but yet that was when they can be humbled and finally allow God to enter and do His work!
Audrie also shared that her family would much prefer older children such as Ellie as she could use logic to explain and parent them. She shared how she would give Ellie choices on whether to go on with her school work or to watch TV but would explain how the choices would affect her future. After hard work from both Audrie’s family and Ellie, Audrie was so encouraged when Ellie managed to pass 3 out of 4 subjects for her recent tests!!!
All in all, Audrie shared that while fostering is not easy, it is also not as difficult as she anticipated. She has seen Ellie bloom over the past 6 months since she started living with them. Her advice to those considering - pray about it as it IS a big commitment. You will be impacting a vulnerable child but you don’t have to be perfect to foster. God is strong in our weaknesses. When you come into this journey, be gracious and a good team player - unlike parenting our own kids, there are many more parties in this child’s life, so we need to willing to work with an imperfect system - child protection officers, foster care officers, natural parents etc. That’s where we need graciousness and humility.

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