ANADARKO—On the weekend of Aug. 28-30, Oklahoma Baptist Homes for Children (OBHC) hosted approximately 20 foster and adoptive families at a campground near Anadarko for the first Elim Family Retreat. Named after the oasis God led the Israelites to in Exodus 15, Elim Family Retreat had the goal of showing God’s goodness to foster and adoptive families.

“We wanted to bring them to a place where they could rest, where they could refresh and renew their strength for the journey they’re on,” said Gerald Peters, OBHC Director of Foster Care.

Camper activities included zip lines, swimming, bounce houses, game rooms and more. Elim also held training for foster parents, allowing them to earn eight credit hours out of 12 needed for one year of training. Liz Justice, associate professor of education and director for the Center of Teaching Excellence at Oklahoma Baptist University (OBU), prepared the training which had the theme of “Beauty from the Broken.”

The theme used the Japanese art form of Kintsugi as an example to show how something once broken can be repaired even more beautiful than it was before. With Kintsugi, a potter takes broken ceramic dishes or pottery and repairs it with an adhesive that is mixed with gold dust. This results in the cracks creating a golden pattern along the surface of the dish or pottery.

Often, foster children come from hard places and have had a lot of challenges, sometimes making them feel broken. However, in the right Christian family who loves on them and supports them, the children can be uplifted with the love of Christ.

“We thought that there was just a wonderful, strong message because that’s a lot of what can take place in foster care,” Peters said. “They took that theme and turned it into a wonderful training.”

Chris Justice from Moore, Regency Park led worship for the camp. During a typical worship service, the adults may sing louder than the children, but at Elim that was not the case.

“My favorite moment was when we started worship, the kids in the room were singing louder than any adult or, honestly, any church I’ve been to,” said Ricardo “Richie” Martinez, Associate Director of Foster Care at OBHC. “Hearing all the kids sing I realized some of these kids might have never gone to church, might have never experienced or heard the Gospel before they were adopted into
these families.”

One of the largest fears and factors that prevent foster families from attending church is the potential behavior issues of the children, according to Peters. During Elim Family Retreat, those families don’t need to worry about that. It’s a place where kids can have fun and be loud and where foster parents can share their journeys with each other. It also provided parents with times to rest while camp staff took care of the children.

“There was one gentleman there and I watched his countenance change from Friday night, having that break,” said Peters. “I’m sure he was convinced that he was not going to get a break, but I assured him he would. And he did get a break.”

Local churches in the area also assisted by providing meals each night. In return, they were able to talk with families and gain new potential members.

“We had a church feed us on Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday night,” Peters said. “They stepped up big time.”

One church fully paid for five families from their congregation to attend.

Foster care ministry is a massive undertaking, so OBHC also relies on the local churches to reach out to families in their community. Elim helps those churches know who foster families are and what their situation is so they can be better ministers.

“There are a lot of churches that don’t know what’s going on in their immediate community,” Martinez said. “We’re able to bring that to them and usually when they hear what’s going on and see that they can make an impact, one thing we’ve seen is all of them want to help out.”

OBHC invites churches to participate in foster ministry through Elim Family Retreat. The burden of setting up camp does not fall on churches, so all they have to do is reach out to families that attend.

“You, as a church, can come with us and serve in a small, but very meaningful, part to these families,” said Martinez. “I think when the church starts saying yes to caring for the most vulnerable, they’re also being ministers because it’s a beautiful picture of the Gospel where God cared for the most vulnerable by sending Jesus Christ.”

For more information about foster care ministry, visit OBHC.org.

Note: Photos were provided by OBHC staff.