By Mike Kraft, Director of Pastoral Engagement

I was raised in a Christian home where my parents lived out their faith with sincerity and sacrifice. My dad pastored our church, and my mom served in quiet but powerful ways. Our home wasn’t just a safe place for us—it was a place of radical hospitality. Strangers became family. Needs were met without hesitation. That kind of Christian support for foster families and others in need wasn’t a program—it was a lifestyle. My parents held everything with open hands, and that posture of surrender left a deep impression on me.

Growing up, foster care wasn’t something I saw often. I knew maybe two families who fostered. It wasn’t talked about in our church circles or highlighted as a calling. Still, I knew I had a heart for children, especially the vulnerable. I knew adopting was in my future.  When my wife, Ariel, and I began dating, we discovered we shared the same heart. It was clear early in our relationship that child advocacy and adoption would be part of our story. We just didn’t know the path we’d take to get there.

What we couldn’t have planned for was our battle with infertility. It broke us in ways we didn’t expect. But through it, God gave us two beautiful daughters and led us to adopt our third child, Shannon, from Uganda in 2015. That same year, we moved to San Antonio to plant a church. We came not just to live in the city but to be for the city—to love it, serve it, and seek its good.

Then we saw it.

San Antonio’s Reality

We learned quickly that San Antonio had one of the highest rates of child abuse and neglect in the country. The number of children impacted by foster care was staggering—and the number of available foster homes was far too small. We had just returned from an international adoption, and yet here we were, surrounded by local children who needed families. It was sobering. It was convicting. We couldn’t look away.

In 2017, we became a licensed foster family. Our first placement was a little boy who stayed with us for six months before being reunified with his dad. That experience shaped me deeply. It was a glimpse of redemption—of what can happen when support, grace, and time come together.

Not long after, we were placed with two baby brothers, just 16 months and 2 days old. They came from deep trauma and brokenness. The complexity of their situation overwhelmed me. Their biological mother didn’t want them placed with a white family or in a home with a man. She filed a complaint, and we went through a CPS investigation. It was exhausting and painful, but after 18 months, we adopted them in 2019.

Fast forward to May 2024—we reopened our home and are now fostering a six-year-old girl. She comes from a family of five siblings and carries more weight than a child ever should. Having her with us has been both a blessing and a challenge. Our older children understand more now. They see that not every child grows up with the security and stability they’ve known, and that awareness is changing them.

A Church Responsibility

Here’s what’s hard to say, but necessary: the foster care crisis in Bexar County doesn’t belong to CPS. It doesn’t belong to the government. It belongs to the Church.

God’s Word is clear. Again and again, Scripture reveals His heart for the vulnerable—for the orphan, the widow, the oppressed. Foster care is not a program or a project. It’s an invitation into God’s heart. It’s a Gospel issue.

And yet, the Church has often been silent. Or passive. Or hesitant. I’ve struggled to reconcile how we, as the people of God, can stand by while children are suffering—right in our own neighborhoods.

Foster care will stretch you. It will expose your idols. It will challenge your comfort. But it will also lead you into deeper dependence on Jesus than you thought possible.

What This Journey Has Taught Me

Over the years, I’ve learned lessons that no sermon, class, or conference could have taught me.

I’ve learned that foster care is not about getting a child for our family—it’s about giving our family to a child, for however long they need it.

It’s also taught me what it means to love someone without expecting anything in return. Unity in marriage has proven to be essential, especially when you’re stepping into Kingdom work that invites spiritual attack.

And perhaps most humbling of all, I’ve come to see that these children don’t belong to me—none of my kids do. They’re God’s, and I’ve just been entrusted with the sacred task of stewarding them.

I’ve also had to confront my own judgment. It’s easy to form opinions from a distance. But once you’re in the story—sitting across from a biological parent, hearing their pain, witnessing their struggle—it changes you.

I’ve seen more brokenness than I ever imagined. And yet, I’ve seen the Spirit of God move in the middle of it. There’s no situation too far gone for the power of the Gospel.

To Anyone Who Follows Jesus

If you’re reading this and you follow Jesus, hear me—this is your issue too.

Not everyone is called to foster, but everyone is called to care. Babysitting, mentoring, bringing meals, praying, giving—there’s a place for you.

Don’t wait for the right moment. Don’t wait until it’s easy. This work isn’t clean. It’s not convenient. But it’s holy.

Jesus shows up in the mess. Every time.