This podcast is for people who believe disciples of Jesus should be leading in the foster care crisis, not standing on the sidelines.
Running Toward is a movement podcast that makes the foster care crisis real through the stories of ordinary people who stepped closer when staying comfortable would have been easier.
These are real people with lived experience. People whose proximity to the crisis changed them. Each story offers a window into what happens when faith moves toward brokenness.
When presence not programs, relationship not transactions, and long term commitment (or staying) not one and done (box checking) meets a child and family with complex trauma.
Start with the latest episode, then keep exploring the stories, questions, and conversations that have shaped this work from the beginning.
Five was the Number | Pam
Pam Snook already had triplet sons and two adopted daughters when a phone call from a woman she'd barely met — a virtual stranger who'd been told Pam was "next on the kinship list" — pulled her into the hardest case of her fostering journey. Within days, Pam and her husband said yes to a baby girl in an emergency shelter with no training and no medical history, welcoming into holidays, ballet recitals, and dental appointments a man caseworkers were adamant was her father — for six months, until a simple paternity test revealed he wasn't biologically related to her at all. What followed broke Pam's heart in ways she's still working through in counseling: a little girl moved through a string of losses the system could have prevented, and a grief Pam now calls "ambiguous loss" — loving someone you no longer have any way to reach. It's a raw, honest conversation about kinship care, broken promises, and what it means to hand a child you can't protect anymore into God's hands.
0:00 Meet Pam — Homeschool Mom, Air Force Wife, Five Kids and Counting
1:23 A Normal Day in the Snook Household
2:38 Her First Exposure to Foster Care: "Almost Like a Charity Case"
3:17 Landing at a Church Full of Foster Families
4:15 Realizing Foster Families Just Need Practical Help
5:37 What Shocked Her About the System's Chaos
6:48 The Going-Away Party for a Placement That Never Left
7:14 Vivian: Embryo Adopted in 2021
8:14 Couldn't Sell the House — Until They Met Their Next Daughter's Birth Mom
9:26 Adopting Lucy Right Before Thanksgiving
11:14 Choosing an Open Relationship With Lucy's Birth Family
12:09 "We're Done at Five" — But God Wasn't
13:31 The Call From a Woman She'd Never Met
14:10 "How Did I Make the List? I Don't Even Know Her."
15:05 Days to Decide, or the Baby Moves Out of County
16:27 Buying Bunk Beds the Same Day
17:54 Signing Paperwork With No Training and No Medical History
19:12 The Father Allowed Full Access From Day One
20:31 The Boundary Pam Set Before Saying Yes
21:35 The Caseworker Was Adamant: Reunification Was Coming
22:13 Halloween, Thanksgiving, Ballet, Dental Visits — Treating Him Like Family
23:37 The Paternity Test Came Back After Christmas — "Why Wasn't That Step One?"
24:14 The New Caseworker: "You're It. Tonight."
25:29 He'd Decorated Her Room — Six Months of Promises, Cut Off in a Single Call
27:03 Pam Starts Advocating for a Permanent Home
27:57 "Like It Was an Amazon Package" — Moved With No Transition
29:35 Transferring Her Herself, to Soften the Trauma
30:22 The New Placement Didn't Work Out — Pam Is Still Grieving
31:11 Naming Every Layer of Trauma the System Added
33:26 The Season of Questioning Her Faith
34:48 "God, I Can't Carry This Anymore — You Have To"
35:55 A Pile of Letters, and What "Ambiguous Loss" Really Means
37:12 Her Fix: Minimal Visitation Until Parentage Is Confirmed
38:15 "Take the Paternity Test Immediately"
40:09 What She'd Write in a Letter to Her: "You Are Chosen"
Thanks for watching!
Follow South Texas Alliance for Orphans:
📲 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/southtxalliance4orphans/
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SouthTexasAllianceForOrphans
🎙️ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5OW7JlcWOlbs9Ms4BQcdeI?si=0416b37dd53540c8
🌐 Learn more about fostering & adoption: https://www.southtxalliance4orphans.org
If today's story moved you — share it with someone who needs to hear it. And if you've ever thought about fostering, even just once, let that thought be the start of something. 🤍
—
Running Toward Podcast is brought to you by the South Texas Alliance for Orphans — real stories from real families walking the road ahead of you.
Be sure to like, subscribe! We'll see you next week. 🤍
Every Time I Said I Was Done | Jessica
Jessica thought her husband was describing summer camp when he mentioned his "dorm parents" — it took years before she understood he and his two brothers had actually grown up in a residential children's home in West Texas, from fifth grade through high school graduation. Jessica and her husband set firm guardrails before ever saying yes to foster care: only sibling groups, only school-age kids, no babies, no adoption, one placement at a time. Years and several placements later, they've broken every single rule — including a transracial adoption of two brothers that Jessica was certain wasn't meant for their family, until her husband called her three times in one morning insisting God had told him otherwise. It's an honest look at what happens when a Six Sigma-certified, process-driven professional collides with the chaos of the foster system, and has to learn the hardest lesson of all: these were never her children to control.
0:00 Meet Jessica — The Clemens Family Today
1:21 A Family of Seven, and a 5-Month-Old in the House
2:36 "This Was Not the Plan for This Season of Life"
3:29 Meeting Her Husband Was Her First Real Exposure to Foster Care
4:02 She Thought "Dorm Parents at Boys Ranch" Meant Summer Camp
4:43 He and His Two Brothers Grew Up There — 5th Grade Through High School
6:15 "It's an Orphanage — We Just Call It Something Else Now"
7:19 "Our Plates Are Too Full" — Why They Said No for Years
8:57 The Job That Was Actually God's Bait-and-Switch
9:27 Isolating: Starting Over in a Community With Deep Roots
10:20 The Sunday at Church When Both Hearts Finally Aligned
12:23 The Deal They Made With God: No Babies, No Adoption, One at a Time
16:19 Six Sigma Certified — and Told to "Stay in Your Lane"
17:00 "This Was Never Mine to Fix — Mine to Love and Serve"
18:22 "You're Just a Very Poorly Paid Babysitter"
18:45 "None of Them Are Your Children"
20:43 Peeling Back the Shame of Other People's Choices
23:35 "I Would've Told You I Wasn't Trauma" — Until She Looked Closer
26:54 Fighting for 504 Plans When Schools Say "They're Only Temporary"
29:11 How Isolating the First Year in Texas Really Was
30:26 The Foster Community That Became Real Family
32:08 "Not in the Cards" — Why They Said No to Adoption at First
34:35 "Stop Checking the Door. There's Nobody There."
35:16 Praying for a Black Family to Adopt Their Sons
36:01 Three Missed Calls — "The Lord Said We're Supposed to Do This"
37:03 The Caseworker Who Wasn't a Believer, Crying on the Phone
40:17 Lamenting Like David: "Why Aren't You Fixing This?"
41:19 Why Did Their Kids Have to Say Goodbye to a Sister of 11 Months?
43:01 A Letter From Their Daughter-in-Law Revealed the Fruit of It All
46:32 Fix #1: Accountability for Guardian ad Litem
49:44 Why Are the People Closest to Our Kids Paid the Least?
50:15 The Real Cost: $80,000 a Year, and an Incentive Problem
51:16 Fix #3: Stop Shipping Kids to Shelters During the 90-Day Window
53:10 Four Placements, Four Kinship Families Who Never Knew the Child Existed
54:18 The Encouragement: Just Take the Next Step
Thanks for watching!
Follow South Texas Alliance for Orphans:
📲 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/southtxalliance4orphans/
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SouthTexasAllianceForOrphans
🎙️ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5OW7JlcWOlbs9Ms4BQcdeI?si=0416b37dd53540c8
🌐 Learn more about fostering & adoption: https://www.southtxalliance4orphans.org
If today's story moved you — share it with someone who needs to hear it. And if you've ever thought about fostering, even just once, let that thought be the start of something. 🤍
—
Running Toward Podcast is brought to you by the South Texas Alliance for Orphans — real stories from real families walking the road ahead of you.
Be sure to like, subscribe, and share this episode!
Only Hours to Spare | Hans and Lauren
Lauren and Hans never went looking for foster care — foster care found them through their church, first as a two-week favor for friends heading to Hawaii, then as a "just a few days" respite placement for a 14-year-old girl. What started as a short-term favor turned into three weeks of Lauren wrestling with what she calls an unmistakable nudge from the Holy Spirit, one day before the couple's own two-week vacation to Alaska, and a foster certification finished from an iPad with hours to spare before a judge's deadline. Lauren and Hans open up about discipling a teenager into faith over a single summer, the fears of exposing their biological daughters to a harder world, and the long, humbling process of learning that loving a broken teenager takes something books and training can never fully prepare you for — total dependence on God.
0:00 Meet Lauren and Hans — An Accent, and an Even Better Story
1:21 How Foster Care Found Them Through Their Church
1:49 A Favor for Friends Headed to Hawaii
2:48 Their First Placement: "Like Having a Sleepover"
3:30 The Call About a 14-Year-Old — Just a Few Days, They Said
5:56 "Don't Take an Older Kid" — Lauren's First Instinct
6:19 "You're Going to Let Her Stay With You"
7:09 Setting Her Own Safety Parameters With God
8:14 The Lamp That Only Lights the Next Step
9:54 Drawing the Gospel on Paper — And She Said Yes
10:27 Church Every Sunday, Youth Group Every Wednesday
12:47 The Trauma Lens Lauren Didn't Have Until Her 30s
13:10 Her Daughter's Empathy for a Struggling Classmate
15:20 The Fear of Exposing Their Girls to a Harder World
17:04 "I Didn't Want All My Hard Work Undone"
17:49 "I Realized I Never Actually Had Control"
21:01 "It's Not Our Kids — They're His"
21:25 "I'm Writing Her Story" — What God Told Lauren
22:12 The Call: Her Foster Home Was Closing
22:49 The Three-Week Battle With the Holy Spirit
24:51 Telling Hans — His Eyes Lit Up
25:39 The Fleece: "If the Caseworker Says She's Fine, We're Done"
26:04 Finding Out the Placement Had Fallen Through
28:53 One Day Before Flying to Alaska, They Said Yes
29:48 Foster Certification From an iPad, Mid-Flight
31:20 The Judge Signs Off — With Hours to Spare
31:58 24 Days, When It Normally Takes Months
34:51 From Visitor to Family: The Hardest Adjustment
35:32 The "Duck Underwater" Truth About Trauma
36:15 "We Know Your Story — We Chose You Anyway"
38:00 Hans' Childhood Taught Him to Never Feel Safe
39:45 Two Years of God Stripping Away Self-Reliance
42:48 Parenting Without Waiting for the Caseworker's Approval
52:02 "That Was Not a Hill to Die On"
56:01 The "Rocks of Remembrance" That Get You Through
Thanks for watching!
Follow South Texas Alliance for Orphans:
📲 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/southtxalliance4orphans/
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SouthTexasAllianceForOrphans
🎙️ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5OW7JlcWOlbs9Ms4BQcdeI?si=0416b37dd53540c8
🌐 Learn more about fostering & adoption: https://www.southtxalliance4orphans.org
If today's story moved you — share it with someone who needs to hear it. And if you've ever thought about fostering, even just once, let that thought be the start of something. 🤍
—
Running Toward Podcast is brought to you by the South Texas Alliance for Orphans — real stories from real families walking the road ahead of you.
Be sure to like, subscribe, and share this episode on. We'll see you next week. 🤍
I Just Wanted To Be A Grandma | Denise
Denise became a relative caregiver the way most grandparents do — with a phone call she never expected. Over the years she took in four grandchildren born into crisis, including a grandson who weighed just 10 pounds at eight months old and was later found to have esophageal atresia — born without an esophagus. She navigated CPS "safety plans" that dragged on for years without legal custody, a case that was quietly closed without her knowledge, and the day she was denied entry to her own grandson's hospital surgery because she still had no legal rights. Now Denise works alongside Texas Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, helping other relative caregivers avoid the same painful gaps she fell through — because, as she puts it, the need doesn't change based on which door a child walks through.
0:00 Intro — Running Toward Podcast
1:00 Meet Denise — A Relative Caregiver's Story
1:25 Four Grandchildren, One Adult Son With Autism
2:16 Her First Exposure to Foster Care — As a Teen Mom at 15
3:42 "Underground Foster Care" — The Woman Who Took Her Under Her Wing
4:42 The Call That Started It All: Domestic Violence and Her First Grandchild
5:32 What Is a "Safety Plan," Really?
6:17 The Revolving Door: 6 Months, Then a Year and a Half, Then Three Years
6:41 Her Grandson Weighed 10 Pounds at 8 Months Old
8:11 Born Without an Esophagus: Esophageal Atresia
8:36 "Robbing Peter to Pay Paul" — Raising Grandkids on No Extra Income
9:02 A 3-Day-Old Infant and a DNA Test Paid for by Her Son
9:48 Trading the Sedan for a Minivan, and a Bed Between Two Cribs
10:30 The Trauma of Being Bounced Back and Forth
11:50 Crying at the Social Security Office
12:17 Denied a Foster License Because No One Covered Childcare
14:05 Finding Out the Case Was Closed — Without Being Told
14:29 "We'll Take Your Kids Too" — A Scare Tactic That Wasn't True
15:00 "You're My Mom — Give Me My Child Back"
15:41 "You Just Want a Paycheck" — Family Strain With Her Son
17:20 The Turning Point: Realizing They Weren't Coming Back
19:02 Her Oldest Granddaughter's Fourth Removal — As a Teenager
19:24 Why She Took Each Grandkid to Appointments One-on-One
21:05 Denied at the Hospital — Even Though CPS Placed Him With Her
21:28 Maxing Out a Credit Card to Hire an Attorney
23:00 Grandma to Some, "Mom" to Others — Navigating Different Rules
26:32 What Families Actually Need: Childcare, Repairs, a Bed
29:19 The Pandemic Decision That Changed Her Career Path
34:07 The Real Numbers: 1 in 22, and Data No One Is Tracking
35:01 What It Actually Costs the State: $80,000 a Year, Minimum
37:19 When a "Permanent Placement" Isn't Built to Last
38:22 The Grandmother Who Couldn't Keep Her Granddaughters Safe
41:04 Denise's Fix #1: Build a Coordinated "Hub" for Families
43:28 Denise's Fix #3: It Takes a Village
43:52 Does God Give You More Than You Can Handle?
Thanks for watching!
Follow South Texas Alliance for Orphans:
📲 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/southtxalliance4orphans/
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SouthTexasAllianceForOrphans
🎙️ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5OW7JlcWOlbs9Ms4BQcdeI?si=0416b37dd53540c8
🌐 Learn more about fostering & adoption: https://www.southtxalliance4orphans.org
If today's story moved you — share it with someone who needs to hear it. And if you've ever thought about fostering, even just once, let that thought be the start of something. 🤍
—
Running Toward Podcast is brought to you by the South Texas Alliance for Orphans — real stories from real families walking the road ahead of you.
Spiritual Warfare in Foster Care | Mike Kraft
Mike Kraft and his wife Ariel have been fostering and adopting for nine years — long enough to learn that when the gavel drops, the story doesn't end, it just gets harder to explain. Mike, a pastor and part of the South Texas Alliance for Orphans, opens up about the day one of his kids went into a full meltdown three hours before their scheduled baptism, hurling a metal truck at his head — and the gut-check that came with baptizing them anyway. He talks candidly about the CPS investigation triggered by an angry birth mom, the night his son coded twice in the hospital while reunification was still on the table, and a barbecue-table conversation where his young son asked point-blank whether his birth mom "made mistakes, or did it on purpose." It's an honest, unfiltered look at nature, nurture, trauma, and the spiritual battle Mike believes every foster and adoptive family is fighting — whether they realize it or not.
0:00 Intro — Running Toward Podcast
1:55 A Week in the Kraft Household: 6 Kids, Violin, Soccer
2:16 The Elevator Story: From Fertility Struggles to a Family of 6
3:08 Adopting Shannon From Uganda
3:28 Entering Foster Care — and 27 Months Without Permanency
4:56 "Rainbows and Unicorns" — The Myth Everyone Believes
6:42 Nature, Nurture, Trauma, or Spiritual? The Four Lenses
7:53 "I Used to Think Nurture Trumped Nature. Not So Fast."
8:15 Suspended 8 Times for Punching Kids
11:00 "My Wife Got Punched in the Throat"
11:19 The Call From CPS: Can You Take Him Back?
12:37 The Day Everything Went Off the Rails
13:17 Baptized 3 Hours Later
15:09 "You're Not My Real Dad"
16:54 His Son Coded Twice in the Hospital
17:13 "If This Baby Weren't With You, He'd Be Dead"
18:24 Finding Comfort in David's Laments
22:38 Three Biological Families, Three Different Stories
23:53 Investigated Over a Diaper and a Scratch
24:35 The Barbecue Question About Their Birth Mom
25:15 "Did She Do It by Mistake — Or on Purpose?"
26:40 Refusing to Demonize or Glamorize the Bio Family
30:46 The Book That Reframed Everything: The Unseen Battle
32:40 Bee Stings, the ER, and a Meltdown All in One Day
33:51 Blasting His Daughter's Head on a Ceiling Fan
34:37 The Knock at the Door: Someone Felt Led to Come Pray
35:39 "Every Foster Family Should Have a Prayer Team"
40:44 Fasting Three Days for a Friend's Child
44:39 The Thing That Still Keeps Him Up: Control
46:38 The Weight of Being "The Pastor's Kids"
49:06 Every Hero of the Faith Had Glaring Weaknesses
51:25 "I Don't Know a Better Vehicle for Depending on Jesus"
53:27 Get Connected With the Alliance
Thanks for watching!
Follow South Texas Alliance for Orphans:
📲 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/southtxalliance4orphans/
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SouthTexasAllianceForOrphans
🎙️ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5OW7JlcWOlbs9Ms4BQcdeI?si=0416b37dd53540c8
🌐 Learn more about fostering & adoption: https://www.southtxalliance4orphans.org
If today's story moved you — share it with someone who needs to hear it. And if you've ever thought about fostering, even just once, let that thought be the start of something. 🤍
—
Running Toward Podcast is brought to you by the South Texas Alliance for Orphans — real stories from real families walking the road ahead of you.
Raising 5 Grandkids in Retirement | Mercedes
Welcome to the Running Toward Podcast! Today we sit down with Mercedes Bristol — founder and Executive Director of Texas Grandparents Raising Grandchildren — a woman who went from planning a vacation to Alaska to raising five grandkids in under a year, with no beds, no benefits, and no roadmap. At 57, she got the first phone call. Three months later she had her grandson back from foster care. Six months after that, four more grandchildren arrived. CPS put them in her lap and left. No one told her about the McKinney-Vento Act, no one mentioned the resources that existed, and when she went to her church for help, they prayed for her — and nobody showed up. So she built something. She went to the Texas Legislature and helped change state law for kinship families. And she did all of it while raising kids who carried wounds she was still learning to name. This week, one of her grandsons held a dying kitten in his lap and said, "Everything I love leaves me." She's still walking through that one. Hope you enjoy.
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro — Running Toward Podcast
1:23 Meet Mercedes — still driving two hours a day as the unpaid Uber
2:59 The phone call — 2011, a three-month-old grandson in foster care
3:35 0 to 5 grandkids in under a year
5:18 Life before: 57, working toward retirement, planning a trip to Alaska
5:40 Five kids, no beds, no benefits — CPS just left them in her lap
6:20 The island — she thought she was the only one in San Antonio doing this
8:01 She went to her church for help. They prayed for her. Nobody showed up.
8:53 "Where are the hands and feet of Christ?" — and why she stopped going
9:17 No mentors, no support — two boys and three girls and only one of her
10:36 Third removal — she hired an attorney and it became a legal case
12:11 Inside a legal case: judges, attorneys, timelines, termination
14:42 The kids processing "I don't have a mom anymore"
15:18 Going from grandma to parent — and what that costs
17:28 The hardest part: her own child is the one who left
18:15 Anger, resentment, and having to say: you're in or you're out
20:06 Her son diagnosed with narcissism — and what that shifted
20:25 "I didn't have to. I chose to." — breaking the victim mindset
21:11 Crying out to God: "They need a mom and a dad. How long am I going to be here?"
21:30 What God said back — and how it changed everything
22:52 The genesis of Texas GRG: one grandmother showed up. Then 20. Then statewide.
24:16 Going to the Texas Legislature — the bill that got kinship families $400/month
30:07 Shadow foster care: grandparents with no legal rights, no way to say no
31:07 What happens at midnight when a parent shows up with police
34:24 The caseworker who deleted 13 voicemails
37:39 The kitten — a four-week-old that died in her grandson's lap
39:16 "Everything I love leaves me." — and what that revealed about his wound
44:09 "Be still and know that I am God" — faith in the hardest season
47:11 Termination is not the finish line — trauma that shows up at 13, 14, and 15
47:51 "We cannot love trauma away" — what grandparents need to understand
54:20 Final word: reach out when you're desperate. You are not alone.
—
Thanks for watching!
Follow South Texas Alliance for Orphans:
📲 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/southtxalliance4orphans/
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SouthTexasAllianceForOrphans
🎙️ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5OW7JlcWOlbs9Ms4BQcdeI?si=0416b37dd53540c8
🌐 Learn more about fostering & adoption: https://www.southtxalliance4orphans.org
Find Texas Grandparents Raising Grandchildren:
🌐 www.texasgrg.com
📲 Facebook & Instagram: @TexasGRG
If today's story moved you — share it with a grandparent who's doing this alone. And if you've ever thought about fostering or kinship, let that thought be the start of something. 🤍
We Said Two Nights | Josh
Welcome to the Running Toward Podcast! Today we sit down with Josh Arrington — nearly 30-year career pastor, STAO board member, and a man who got thrown into kinship care in the last way he ever expected. His oldest son — the prodigal — had been living in a storage shed on a girl's parents' property. Late on a Friday night, Josh gets the call: I've got nowhere to go, can I come? And then: she can't stay either. And then: oh by the way, Dad. She's pregnant. But we already have an abortion scheduled. Josh went upstairs and laid on the floor and wept. By Sunday morning, they were asking if they could keep the baby and stay. He said yes before he even talked to his wife. That "yes" set off a chain that included a girl who said no one had ever had a real conversation with her, a doctor's appointment where she "couldn't find her keys" (they were in her pocket the whole time), a wife's brain tumor surgery with a five-year recovery, COVID, a career shift out of vocational ministry, an accidentally planted church, and a five-year-old grandson named Dylan who calls him Papa. No regrets. But God.
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro — Running Toward Podcast
1:11 Meet Josh — 30-year pastor, STAO board member, kinship care
1:33 Life now: juggling a five-year-old, work travel, and a life they didn't plan for
2:27 Before foster care — advocate from the pulpit, but never directly involved
3:39 The prodigal son — living in a storage shed, a Friday night call, nowhere to go
4:29 "Oh by the way, Dad. She's pregnant. But we already have an abortion scheduled."
5:47 A pro-life pastor laid on the floor and wept — unpacking what he felt in that moment
6:47 What the pro-life movement gets right and what it's missing
8:27 Saturday afternoon: sitting down with a girl he'd never met and asking her questions
9:46 "No one's never no one's ever had a conversation with me like this before."
10:31 Sharing the gospel — and telling her he disagreed with her decision from a place of gentleness
11:35 Sunday morning: they ask if they could keep the baby and stay. He says yes immediately.
12:31 Do I believe what I've preached? — why there was no room for discussion
12:55 Monday: the doctor's appointment. She "couldn't find her keys." They were in her pocket.
13:45 Through the pregnancy — and nine months later, when they tried to make it on their own
14:44 Just after Dylan's first birthday, Josh and Stacy took custody
15:26 COVID. Wife's brain tumor. Career shift. Prodigal son. An accidentally planted church.
17:43 "Where would we go?" — what faith looks like when everything is on fire at once
20:41 The separation between the temporal and the eternal
23:37 No regrets on the decision — but the real grief of the golden years postponed
24:49 Supposed to be empty nesters. Supposed to be rediscovering each other.
26:40 They also inherited an adult child — and why that's complicated
27:52 "You are the closest thing to a real father figure I have."
30:50 What surprised him most: the bond Dylan has with mom and dad that isn't earned by their presence
32:18 The cost of childcare — a mortgage payment he hadn't paid in 15 years
33:22 The kinship care resource gap — and the one that angers him most
34:14 If Dylan had spent one day in the foster system, college would be paid for. He didn't.
35:07 What he's disappointed in: churches that talk about James 1:27 and stop there
36:32 Income-based resources — and what happens when you're on the cusp
37:57 Co-parenting with biological mom and dad — and the grandparent role conversation
39:39 The adoption question: guardianship, not yet adopted. At what point is limbo too long?
42:24 Who he has more compassion for now — including families who didn't step in
45:46 What this has taught his two other sons
47:46 His message to churches: honest, direct, and from the inside
49:21 Obedience over outcome — and what it actually looks like to partner with families
53:25 A year later: she texted asking for a Bible. She's been reading.
54:41 What he'd say to politicians and churches about incentivizing healthy families
57:03 "But God." No regrets.
—
Thanks for watching!
Follow South Texas Alliance for Orphans:
📲 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/southtxalliance4orphans/
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SouthTexasAllianceForOrphans
🎙️ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5OW7JlcWOlbs9Ms4BQcdeI?si=0416b37dd53540c8
🌐 Learn more about fostering & adoption: https://www.southtxalliance4orphans.org
If today's story moved you — share it with someone who needs to hear it. And if you've ever thought about fostering, even just once, let that thought be the start of something. 🤍
—
Running Toward Podcast is brought to you by the South Texas Alliance for Orphans — real stories from real families walking the road ahead of you.
Be sure to like, subscribe, and share this episode on Facebook and TikTok. We'll see you next week. 🤍
Opposite Sides, Same Heart | Jocelyn and Klarissa
Welcome to the Running Toward Podcast! Today we sit down with Jocelyn and Klarissa — two women on opposite ends of the same foster care story, sharing it together for the first time. Jocelyn and her husband took baby Mikey home from the hospital as their very first foster placement. Clarissa was dating Jay, who got a phone call at his job one day telling him he might have a son. What followed was nine months of visits, a wedding invitation slipped into a gift bag, a first birthday party where both grandmothers ended up talking on a park bench, and a reunion day where a seven-year-old in the backseat made it simple: "I'm doing great because we're taking Mikey to his family." They still do Easter together. Hope you enjoy!
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
1:09 Today we hear both sides of foster care in one episode — the family who took him in, and the family who got him back
1:28 Meet Jocelyn and Clarissa — their families today
2:54 Clarissa grew up in and out of the system — mom passed at 8, grandparents stepped in
4:18 Jocelyn's seed: her cousin was adopted into the family when she was in elementary school
6:06 Clarissa's lens going in — she knew what it was like to be on the bio family side
8:42 First placement: Mikey, picked up as a newborn — nine months in, the state starts saying "potential adoption"
9:07 Then comes Jay — a phone call to his job, a CPS case, and "I don't have any children"
11:36 Jay finds out Mikey is his — and something just lit up in him
13:37 Caseworkers pitting both families against each other — misinformation, attorneys that didn't exist, pressure from both sides
14:48 The wedding invitation slipped into the gift bag — "they're not going to check it"
20:23 The wedding: sitting in the back pew, holding Mikey while his parents said their vows
22:40 After the wedding — texting about snacks, soaps, sleep schedules, and baby chicken sausages
27:18 What the system actually asks of bio parents trying to get their kids back
30:12 Nine months of loosening her grip — "if you really love him, you'll do what I say for him" 31:18 First birthday party: both families together, grandmothers talking on a park bench like old friends
39:58 The day of reunification — Jocelyn loads the car and drives him home herself
40:51 Noah in the backseat: "I'm doing great because we're taking Mikey to his family"
43:00 The first playdate after — kisses, hugs, and "we'll see you later"
44:51 Extended family now: Easter, Christmas Eve, birthdays, and still showing up for Mikey at school
47:29 What they'd want every foster family to know — from both sides of the house
—
Thanks for watching!
Follow South Texas Alliance for Orphans:
📲 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/southtxalliance4orphans/
📘 Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/SouthTexasAllianceForOrphans
🎙️ Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/5OW7JlcWOlbs9Ms4BQcdeI?si=0416b37dd53540c8
🌐 Learn more about fostering & adoption: https://www.southtxalliance4orphans.org
If today's story moved you — share it with someone who needs to hear it. And if you've ever thought about fostering, even just once, let that thought be the start of something. 🤍
—
Running Toward Podcast is brought to you by the South Texas Alliance for Orphans — real stories from real families walking the road ahead of you.
Three Car Seats and a Long Yes | Melody
Welcome to the Running Toward Podcast!
Today we sit down with Melody — a board member of the South Texas Alliance for Orphans who has been in the foster care world longer than most, and not by choice. When Melody was 14, her mom asked what she thought about bringing home a baby with serious medical needs — a little girl who had nowhere to go. When she was 21, her mom was killed in a car accident, and Melody moved back home and became mom to her seven-year-old sister. When her stepsister came back to San Antonio struggling, Melody took her and her two-year-old nephew in. Then she went on vacation, came back to an empty house, and found out her sister was in jail and her nephew was at the children's shelter. What followed was a year of kinship care, a safety plan, a farewell party, and a goodbye she didn't fully expect to feel as hard as it did. And after all of that — she still wasn't done. Thirty years of saying yes. Hope you enjoy.
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro — Running Toward Podcast
1:19 Meet Melody — board member, STAO, and a 30-year journey in this space
2:42 How foster care entered her life — before she even knew it had a name
3:11 At 14: mom asks about bringing home a baby sister with serious medical needs
4:46 Becoming a second mom — ileostomy care, hospitalizations, home daycare
5:49 The stepsister story — addiction, foster care, and family stepping up
7:42 At 21: mom is killed in a car accident. Melody moves home and becomes mom.
10:39 Rink mom — her baby sister figure skated competitively, five days a week
11:49 Marriage, biological kids, and a clear calling to foster
12:35 Single mom of a 2 and 4 year old — and what that put on pause
13:59 Stepsister comes back to San Antonio — with a toddler and nowhere safe to go
16:24 She came back from vacation to an empty house. Sister in jail. Nephew at the shelter.
18:32 Sitting at the children's shelter — signing a safety plan to get him out
19:29 What it looks like when you hope the checklist becomes healing — and it doesn't
20:28 Safety plan to kinship placement — and the moment she had to choose the child
21:02 The unique tension of kinship care: loving the bio parent AND protecting the child
23:06 Nephew's father — in the military, single parenting, and making the call
24:26 What the system does to kids in transition — the Amazon package problem
26:14 A farewell party — church, daycare teachers, life group, and a real goodbye
27:50 What her church family made possible — and why community is not optional
31:30 Next chapter: the Alliance — what it is and why she was all in immediately
34:57 Baby sister comes back — 30 years of always having a door open
36:45 Chronological age, emotional age, experiential age — and why they never line up
38:20 What she got to see that most foster parents don't — before removal
42:04 The safety plan bar and what happens when there's nothing on the other side
43:34 How the system sets bio families up to fail — and the 50% recidivism reality
44:18 Transactional vs. relational — and why a checklist can't change a life
47:57 What 30 years of saying yes has cost her — and what it's given her
51:33 Why caregivers are the worst at taking care of themselves
—
Thanks for watching!
Follow South Texas Alliance for Orphans:
📲 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/southtxalliance4orphans/
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SouthTexasAllianceForOrphans
🎙️ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5OW7JlcWOlbs9Ms4BQcdeI?si=0416b37dd53540c8
🌐 Learn more about fostering & adoption: https://www.southtxalliance4orphans.org
If today's story moved you — share it with someone who needs to hear it. And if you've ever thought about fostering, even just once, let that thought be the start of something. 🤍
—
Running Toward Podcast is brought to you by the South Texas Alliance for Orphans — real stories from real families walking the road ahead of you.
Be sure to like, subscribe, and share this episode.
The Yes We Could Actually Carry | Lisette
Welcome to the Running Toward Podcast! Today we sit down with Lisette — a NICU nurse, school employee, wife to Nino, and mom of three. Lisette's story didn't start with a calling to foster care. It started with postpartum depression, a chronic illness diagnosis, and a quiet grief over the big biological family she always imagined. But God kept planting seeds — through a coworker, a single woman fostering alone, a virtual adoption in a school conference room, and eventually a three-day-old baby who became forever theirs. She opens up about the fears she and her husband had going in, the moment she realized NICU trauma was real, why they switched churches before getting licensed, and what she sees now when she looks at a homeless person on a street corner. Hope you enjoy!
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
1:00 Welcome — Lisette's foster and adoption journey
1:28 Typical summer Tuesday — "summer at home mom," three kids, swimming and movies
2:35 Early marriage — adoption was on her radar, but not the plan
3:51 First pregnancy: textbook baby, traumatic delivery, postpartum depression
4:28 The psoriatic arthritis diagnosis — debilitating pain while caring for a newborn
5:20 New wife, new nurse, new mom, new diagnosis — all at once
6:27 "I just don't love this season" — the honest truth
6:48 The medication decision — biological injections not safe during pregnancy
8:04 Second biological child three years later — "I could not do this again"
8:36 Grieving the big biological family she always wanted
9:13 Seeds through work, church, and community — foster care kept showing up
11:57 A single woman fostering alone — "wait, you're single?"
12:35 "If someone just handed me a baby, I think I could do it"
14:34 The goal she set for herself: make a decision by 33
15:03 Working at a maternity home for pregnant teens — the veil came down
16:04 What NICU training never taught her — and what foster parent training did
17:57 "This is a mission field" — the shift from growing their family to being hands and feet
19:00 Empathy for bio families — what postpartum with support still looked like
20:33 Ten-year anniversary in New York — she shares her heart with Nino
21:38 A teacher does a virtual adoption in the school conference room — Lisette cries
22:37 The teacher invites them to an information meeting — they don't have to go alone
23:11 Husband hears it from someone else — his coworker is adopting a foster child
24:27 The fears going in — his and hers
25:52 Her real fear: going back to the hardest season of their marriage
27:06 "There is in some level an out" — what that option meant for them
29:05 "What if I fall in love with this kid and they have to go?" — his biggest fear
31:42 "It was the best decision we ever made"
32:19 How faith changed — "you'll never look in the eyes of someone God doesn't love"
33:26 Daughter's bio parents were homeless — now she looks for them on every corner
34:38 Seeing a misbehaving kid differently — what happened to you, not what's wrong with you
37:42 The gift fostering gives your biological kids
38:26 Changed churches before getting licensed — found one with a foster ministry
39:38 Plugged in before the placement came — meal trains, pediatrician, daycare all ready
41:02 Adopted at 17 months — one year anniversary in March, now taking a break
42:29 The Don't Go Alone program — mentoring a young adult who aged out of foster care
45:21 "You don't know until you try" — her message to hesitant families
46:33 The myth she believed for years: you can't foster if both parents work
47:21 Extended family said don't do it — now they love her and she's forever family
50:57 Closing
Thanks for watching!
Follow South Texas Alliance for Orphans:
📲 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/southtxalliance4orphans/
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SouthTexasAllianceForOrphans
🎙️ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5OW7JlcWOlbs9Ms4BQcdeI?si=0416b37dd53540c8
🌐 Learn more about fostering & adoption: https://www.southtxalliance4orphans.org
If today's story moved you — share it with someone who needs to hear it. And if you've ever thought about fostering, even just once, let that thought be the start of something. 🤍
—
Running Toward Podcast is brought to you by the South Texas Alliance for Orphans — real stories from real families walking the road ahead of you.
My Professional Training Wasn’t Enough | Kendall
Welcome to the Running Toward Podcast! Today we sit down with Kendall Cox — an occupational therapist, business owner, mom of two teenagers, and foster mom to five kids who came through her home over the years. Kendall thought her background in child development would give her a leg up going into foster care. It gave her a little. Then a two-year-old and a three-year-old showed up, the tooth fairy nearly caused a crisis, and she learned pretty quickly that book smarts and street smarts are two very different things — in parenting, in faith, and in dealing with a system that can make your kids feel like a last name on a manila folder. She opens up about respite care as the on-ramp, what the fishbowl of foster care really feels like, the night she walked out of her own house, and what lament in the Psalms taught her that the church never did. Hope you enjoy!
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
1:00 Welcome — Kendall Cox, OT, professionally trained in child development
1:31 The Cox family — a teenager and an almost-teenager
2:10 Her work — occupational therapist turned home modification business owner
2:50 Did her OT background give her any lens for foster care going in?
4:19 Her grad school final project — getting OT screening into the CPS intake process
5:40 Before foster care — what was family planning?
6:36 How foster care entered the picture — through church
8:43 Going to an info meeting and hearing the real hurt in their city
9:13 Gradual calling — conversations over spaghetti, nothing dramatic
10:31 The fears: we're barely handling what we already have
11:00 Started with respite care — fun aunt and uncle for the weekend
12:00 Basically did all the training without the home study — the accidental on-ramp
13:03 The one bathroom problem — and what it finally took to move forward
15:03 Going in with a servant heart — safe place for kids, not specifically to adopt
15:23 Did her OT training make her more prepared? She thought so.
16:32 Trauma informed care wasn't even a phrase yet when they started
17:35 The big shift: one-hour therapist to 24/7 foster mom
19:20 The tooth fairy is horrifying when a stranger coming into your room at night is your history
21:00 The tooth fairy can have a different contract with each family
22:01 Trying to fix and figure it out — and the spiral when you can't
23:37 Kids from trauma don't fit developmental charts
24:42 Always on high alert — never quite knowing what comes next
25:12 Living in the fishbowl — reports for every normal kid injury
27:20 Three investigations — you know you're innocent and it doesn't matter
29:24 The release when a placement ends — putting the guard down
31:14 Caseworkers, checklists, and losing the personal side of it
33:04 Out of five kiddos — she spoke to two of their attorneys. Total.
35:34 Making kids human to the system anyway — sending pictures and updates nobody asked for
36:03 Empathy for caseworkers — working in the worst the system has to show
39:27 Faith: "I am most dependent when I'm at the end of myself"
40:31 Her husband gathers the kids and teaches them every curse word — proactively
42:29 Book smarts vs. street smarts — you have to actually stand on the foundation to know it holds
44:32 Kids who went back to situations she was nervous about — and what she did with that
47:39 Discovering lament through counseling — reading the Psalms all the way through
49:34 Living in the tension — lament isn't doubt, it's relationship
51:36 A secondary blessing she never saw coming: she became the parenting resource for everyone
52:37 Her kids see the world differently — empathy, thankfulness, and the art of redirection
54:22 "Foster parents are just wildly average people who saw the hurt and said why not me"
55:41 The night she walked out of her house — and why that's okay
57:24 Closing
—
Thanks for watching!
Follow South Texas Alliance for Orphans:
📲 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/southtxalliance4orphans/
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SouthTexasAllianceForOrphans
🎙️ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5OW7JlcWOlbs9Ms4BQcdeI?si=0416b37dd53540c8
🌐 Learn more about fostering & adoption: https://www.southtxalliance4orphans.org
If today's story moved you — share it with someone who needs to hear it. And if you've ever thought about fostering, even just once, let that thought be the start of something. 🤍
—
Running Toward Podcast is brought to you by the South Texas Alliance for Orphans — real stories from real families walking the road ahead of you.
Be sure to like, subscribe, and share this episode!
South Texas Alliance For Orphans
@southtxalliance4orphans · 178 subscribers · 275 videos
Produced by Trusted Leaders in Foster Care Engagement
Running Toward is produced by the South Texas Alliance for Orphans, a collaborative movement working to transform the foster care crisis across San Antonio and surrounding communities.
The Alliance partners with churches, individuals, and businesses to build sustained relationships that support children and families impacted by the foster care system.
This work is grounded in one conviction. Every relationship matters.
The stories shared on this podcast come from foster parents, kinship caregivers, mentors, pastors, youth and advocates who stepped into the system and chose to remain present. They have lived in the trenches and not studied it from afar.
Most Christians care about children impacted by the foster care system, but they only encounter from a distance. They rarely see the thread of fractures that happen upstream or the consequences that follow youth downstream. Without relationship, the crisis stays abstract. Easy to judge, easy to forget.
When the crisis stays abstract, responsibility feels unclear.
Running Toward exists to name what is often hidden and to challenge the assumption that responsibility belongs to someone else.
This podcast does not minimize the complexity of the foster care system. It assumes the cost is real.
It asks a different question. What does faithfulness look like when the crisis is close enough to touch?
SEE THE STORY
Each episode centers on one person and one moment of tension that disrupted a normal life. The focus is narrow on purpose. These are not full biographies. They are moments that reveal what most people miss.
SIT WITH THE COST
Listeners are not given solutions or next steps. They are invited into stories that dismantle assumptions, name cost, and allow tension to remain.
RECOGNIZE YOUR PLACE
This journey is not about becoming a hero. It is about realizing that proximity creates responsibility. Certainty is an illusion. Awareness alone doesn’t change a child’s life or end a crisis.
No quick fixes. No emotional resolution. Just honesty that holds. Listeners walk away with:
- A clearer understanding of the foster care crisis as a relational issue
- Language to talk about finding your role without oversimplifying
- Permission to be ordinary, hesitant, and still faithful
- A deeper respect for the role of long-term presence
Trust the Lord, Take the Jump | Robert
Pastor Robert Balfour of Grace Northridge sits down with guest host Mike Kraft for a special Pastor Appreciation Month conversation about saying yes to foster care from the pulpit. Robert and his wife Lauren first felt God open their hearts to adoption as teenagers serving in orphanages in Russia — a calling that, years later, led them through a fragile first placement, a suspicious birth father who was slowly won over and invited to his daughter's first birthday party, and the arrival of a baby girl they'd eventually adopt and name Ezra, the same week Robert preached his very first sermon series... on the book of Ezra. It's an honest conversation about relinquishing control, loving a child's biological family instead of judging them, and the line that's stuck with Robert ever since: "Are you willing to let your heart break so that another heart can heal?
0:00 Welcome Back — Mike Kraft Guest-Hosts for Pastor Appreciation Month
0:17 Introducing Pastor Robert Balfour of Grace Northridge
0:36 A Typical Wednesday Night in the Balfour Home
1:20 Nine Years at Grace Northridge — From a Three-Year Residency to Pastor
2:27 Arriving in San Antonio With an Eight-Week-Old
2:47 How Foster Care First Came on Their Radar
3:09 Meeting Lauren in Russia as Teenagers, Working in Orphanages
3:35 Getting Licensed and Learning It Was "Way Bigger Than Adoption"
4:16 The First Calls Start Coming In
4:54 Their First Placement: A Five-Month-Old, Right as Lauren Was Pregnant
5:49 Waiting for Their Second Son to Walk Before Saying Yes Again
6:07 The Call About Ezra — The Same Week He Preached the Book of Ezra
6:52 Fostering Ezra From October 2020 to Adoption in February 2022
7:13 The Illusion of Control — What Fostering Took From Him
8:07 Relinquishing Control, One Court Hearing at a Time
8:59 How He and Lauren Processed the Journey Differently
11:53 Learning to Care for a Foster Child's Biological Family Without Judgment
14:10 The Suspicious Birth Father, the Eczema Rash, and the Visit He Didn't End
15:21 Inviting the Birth Family to Her First Birthday Party
15:52 "This Is What the Gospel Is Supposed to Be, Right?"
16:30 How Fostering Shapes His Biological Children
18:21 The Tension Between Counting the Cost and Not Being Afraid
19:07 "These Kids Deserve to Have People Whose Hearts Break"
19:38 "Are You Willing to Let Your Heart Break So Another Heart Can Heal?"
20:02 Reframing Foster Care: Giving Your Family to a Child, However Long
21:11 How Foster Care Shaped His Compassion as a Pastor
22:49 "I'm Not Called to That" — Responding to Church Members Who Say No
24:00 Five Foster Families in One Church at the Same Time
25:20 What the Upstream, Midstream, Downstream Model Gets Right
27:01 Mike's Story: The 7:03am Call and the Girl Bused 550 Miles to El Paso
27:40 "What Are We Doing as the Church?"
30:48 Encouragement for Overwhelmed Pastors: "It's Not All or Nothing"
31:50 Old School Makerspace — Turning a Community Center Into a Ministry
33:13 The $5,000 They Didn't Have, Until They Did
34:29 Advice for a Family Considering Foster Care
35:19 How Fostering Has Changed Him as a Husband, Father, and Pastor
36:02 Their First Placement's Last Day — Nine Months, Then Goodbye
36:49 "She Hugged Me and Patted Me on the Back"
39:34 Jumping From Devil's River — Ezra's Leap of Trust
40:39 "Trust the Lord, Take the Jump, Man"
41:19 Closing Thoughts and Thanks
Thanks for watching!
Follow South Texas Alliance for Orphans:
📲 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/southtxalliance4orphans/
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SouthTexasAllianceForOrphans
🎙️ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5OW7JlcWOlbs9Ms4BQcdeI?si=0416b37dd53540c8
🌐 Learn more about fostering & adoption: https://www.southtxalliance4orphans.org
If today's story moved you — share it with someone who needs to hear it. And if you've ever thought about fostering, even just once, let that thought be the start of something. 🤍
—
Running Toward Podcast is brought to you by the South Texas Alliance for Orphans — real stories from real families walking the road ahead of you.
Be sure to like, subscribe, and share this episode on Facebook and TikTok. We'll see you next week. 🤍 ...