Building a Bigger Table

Blair and Jami believe in restoration and reunification. They are confident God loves all His children and believe in the power of grace and forgiveness. Faith and values are central to their family and guide their decisions.

Like Jesika and Courtney, two other foster parents we recently shared about, Jami experienced some serious challenges in her childhood and spent time in foster care. Her circumstances were hard, but she had good experiences with her foster families. The family who made the most significant impact on her life taught her about the Gospel and led her to faith in Christ. They also showed her love and made her feel like part of their family.

Jami hoped to offer children in foster care the same kind of love she experienced, so she began discussing her interests when she and Blair started dating. As their relationship progressed and they eventually married, they talked about becoming foster parents someday. Blair was eager to partner with Jami to give kids a safe, loving, nurturing family when they cannot be with their own.

Over time, they have developed a unified belief about children and how they can help. They believe foster care allows them to become family with more people. Jamie describes foster care as “a short-term stop where children can be loved, and birth families can get the resources they need.” As foster parents with PCHAS, they are intentional about opportunities to interact with birth families. Blair and Jami want to give kids an example of a safe, healthy family through their love for each other, the children, and the children’s birth family. Jami says they see this as a process of “building a bigger table, not a bigger fence.”

They have adopted this as their family motto, and they love sharing how their youngest son responded when they told him their plan to become foster parents. They remember telling him there were over 10,000 children in foster care and describing how each of the children needed a safe place until they could reunify with their parents. He looked around their new house and said, “I’m not sure they will all fit, but we can try.”

Watching their child wholeheartedly embrace their family values and mission must have been incredible. But this wasn’t just a profound thought he had on his own. It resulted from Blair and Jami’s intentionality with their decisions and teaching. For example, when they decided to buy a new home, they told their realtor and worked together to find the best house for their current and future family. Their oldest son was nearing high school graduation and planned to move away to college, and their youngest son was five. This was a family decision, so they all worked together to find the best place for the next phase of their family’s life.

Even when the world shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic, they made the time productive by connecting with foster parents, babysitting children in foster care when they could, and growing their foster and adoptive community.

They knew it was essential to find the right agency for their family. They met with five representatives and asked questions about the organizations and processes. They wanted to choose an agency that advocates for reunification, so they listened carefully to the different responses. After attending a Foster Care & Adoption Online Info Session, Blair and Jami knew PCHAS was the agency they wanted to guide them.

They worked closely with the agency through Orientation, Application and Parent Interviews, Documentation, Pre-Service Training and Home Study. Sixteen days after they completed the process, they welcomed a child in foster care into their family. Fostering is not easy, but that is not why they do it. They realize foster parents encounter hard things, and fostering forces them to learn, grow, and try new things, but they lean into the simple words their son said at the very beginning: “We can try.”

When people ask about fostering, Jami and Blair strive to convey that sentiment because, to them, “if children need homes, there’s a place for families.” They also point out that movies can make it seem more complicated than it is. But they also know foster parents are much more likely to succeed in caring for kids if more people know about foster care and rally the support of their community. Everyone wins when more people choose to build bigger tables.

Do you believe in building a bigger table? Are you ready to add to yours? PCHAS wants to hear from you. Contact a Foster Care & Adoption Guide at 281-324-0544 or fosteradopt@pchas.org to get started today!