Episode 14 – The Best Gift Of Christmas John and Lynn McLarty: The Blessings Of Fostering

Kimberly Faith: Welcome to the truth in love podcast with your host Kimberly Faith and my dad, John Mack. We seek to present God’s timeless truth through the lens of his remarkable love. Welcome back to the Truth in Love podcast, and we are, in in the middle of our gifts of Christmas series. And I’m especially excited about today because I have story time with mom and dad today. John and Lynn McLarty are back.

And, of course, you know, dad’s become the cohost, so I don’t know what I’m even saying right now.

John McLarty: It’s It’s great to be here. I’m looking forward to this story time.

Kimberly Faith: Mom, are you looking forward to telling us stories today?

Lynn McLarty: Yes. I am. Oh, I’m so glad.

Kimberly Faith: Because you guys tell the best stories, mostly because they’re real. So just by way of introducing, everyone to what we’re gonna talk about today, some of the best gifts of Christmas we’ve been we’ve been sharing in, on the podcast have been stories of how love was given and shared with that have changed people’s lives. And along those lines, you all fostered over a 100 kids in Arkansas. Now, I don’t know. I well, I’m very interested to hear how that all started.

So, mom, would you wanna lead us off?

Lynn McLarty: Okay. Well, it started with, I think, something the Lord planted in my heart. It started with something the Lord planted in my heart after we were saved, in 1975. I had a burden for children, and I actually wanted to start an orphanage. I actually had no idea what that meant.

And the how how overwhelming that would be, actually, to to start an orphanage.

Kimberly Faith: Wait, dad. What did you think of when when you heard about those orphanages?

John McLarty: Well, this is really interesting, because Lynn would say that. And Lynn when Lynn says that she has such a heart, when she says she’d like to start start an orphanage, she thinks of all these little children’s faces. Mhmm. And she would like, I would say, float the idea to me. And I would say something like, well, that’s something we should pray about, darling.

But I’m visioning this huge facility. Uh-huh. This huge, you know, 12 minuteority institution, and, you know, the property that we would need, and just the logistics, and the type of kitchen you would need, and bedrooms, and management. So I would go like, that’s something really to pray about, isn’t it, darling? So

Lynn McLarty: with that in mind, I kinda kept it in my heart Mhmm. Because I could tell that it sounded overwhelming to my husband. But years later, the Lord had a plan because he put that in my heart.

John McLarty: That’s true.

Lynn McLarty: And, there was a a guardian at Lydam, which he was guardian at Lydam for foster children.

Kimberly Faith: Now I wanna just this was Levinsky Smith. Right?

Lynn McLarty: This is Levinsky Smith. So so just

Kimberly Faith: a side note about Levinsky. Levinsky and I were in law school at the same time, and, we’d always joke because we were also both janitors at Harmony, which was dad’s company, dad and Johnny Tittle’s company. So we worked our way through law school working as janitors. And we would joke that we were gonna start a law firm together. And, and then now he’s serving on the 8th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals.

He served on the Arkansas Supreme Court. So clearly, the Lord had amazing plans for this very humble Baptist preacher who is now, you know, in in such an influential position. But, anyway, Levinsky came to you about this child he represented.

Lynn McLarty: Yes. It’s she was a teenager, and she was about to be dismissed from an institution, and she needed a place to go. So,

John McLarty: can I answer something? Actually, Tanya came to us. She had befriended this girl.

Kimberly Faith: So Tanya’s my sister, your mother.

John McLarty: Yes. Yes.

Lynn McLarty: She’s also a lawyer in Houston, Texas.

John McLarty: She’s a lawyer. So but Tanya was just in law school at the time, and she had Levinsky had brought this girl to church, and they had befriended each other.

Lynn McLarty: Mhmm.

John McLarty: So when Tanya heard about this situation, that that this girl needed a a shift in homes, she she said, mom and dad, can we can we bring Beth in? I guess we can use her for sure. Sure.

Kimberly Faith: She’s an adult now.

John McLarty: We can bring Beth can we bring Beth in? And we said, well, sure. Sure. And Tanya said, well, Vince is involved. He’s her guardian of items, so you need to go talk to to Vince.

So, anyway, so

Kimberly Faith: why you had to become foster parents?

John McLarty: Yes. So that’s Yes. So we went to talk to Vince. And Tanya’s reaching out to Beth that started it.

Lynn McLarty: Yes. And so we had to become foster parents. So we thought, well, okay. So when, we went through all these classes and then when the this guy came to certify us and check our home out, we had moved into this big rental house and, Right on the edge of the university. Right on the edge of the university because all our kids were coming back home and want and want to live there to go to college.

So we thought, well, it wouldn’t hurt to have another child living here. We have a big bunch of bedrooms.

John McLarty: Just make you a little more oatmeal.

Lynn McLarty: Just so when the guy came to certify us, for Beth Lynn to move in, he said, Well, I’ll certify you for 5. And I said, 5 kids? 5 what? And he said, 5 children. And we said, Oh, no, no, no.

We just want this one child. We have our all our kids are moving back home, and one of our daughters brought home a Chinese lady and another friend of hers. So we had extra friends living there, and then our 3 college students living there. And so he so we said he said, oh, no. You’ll never have that many.

He said, I’m just gonna serve you for 5. Yeah. So we said, well, okay. And, But

John McLarty: we don’t want any babies.

Lynn McLarty: But we don’t want

John McLarty: any babies. No children in diapers. No diapers. We’re done with diapers.

Lynn McLarty: Diapers.

John McLarty: We’re done with diapers.

Lynn McLarty: So, anyway, to make a long story short, the next thing we know, we’re getting a phone call on a weekend saying

John McLarty: From Gary.

Lynn McLarty: From Gary, the guy who said we would not have 5 children. And Bethlyn was living with us now, and, he said, would you mind taking a a an 18 month old little boy? And we said, oh, Gary. We told you. No babies and, no diapers.

And he says, well, he said, I guess I’ll have to stay in the office all weekend with this baby because you I can’t take him home with me. And we said, okay, Gary. Well, we’ll take him for the weekend, but that’s it. He says, yeah. Monday.

He said, we’ll have another home for the little boy. So we’re here we are at home, and he brings this little boy, and I had made a big pot of split pea soup. We’re sitting at the table, getting ready to eat, and here comes 18 month old Steven with his big dimples. He was so cute.

John McLarty: He was so cute.

Kimberly Faith: And, so big green eyes.

Lynn McLarty: And his big green eyes. So he comes and sits down at the table with us, sits on my lap, and I’m sitting next to my husband. And, we’re eating the split pea soup, and Steven wasn’t having anything to do with that split pea soup. And so John, my husband, goes to take a spoonful. Well, Steven’s looking at it, and, all of a sudden, he decided he liked John’s split pea soup.

So

John McLarty: Well, I fed him. I I thought, I’ll see if he’ll eat this. Yeah. And he would he ate for my spoon.

Lynn McLarty: Uh-huh.

John McLarty: That that kinda, you know, touched my heart. Right. Well, he’ll take split piece of soup from me, but he won’t eat it on his own or from Lynn’s. It kinda made me feel special.

Kimberly Faith: Isn’t that funny, either way? And, you know, the what what you just said is is so interesting, because in the an earlier podcast a couple weeks ago, where I interviewed, the stall cups, one of the the themes of that interview was about how, foster care adoption is a trifecta or trilateral blessing because it’s a blessing, obviously, to the children. Right? Mhmm. But it’s also this blessing to the people who are taking these children in, and and getting to experience just this pure love from a child who just has been neglected, or abused or rejected and doesn’t I mean, I’m sure Steve in Steven’s mind, he’s looking at you going, this is a male.

This is a man. And I identify because he never had that in his life. Yeah.

John McLarty: And at the time, I had I didn’t think of that, but I I that’s that’s probably all true, but I just felt like, oh, I have a little bond with this little boy. Right. You know? And it made me feel good.

Kimberly Faith: Right. And it’s the way it got made.

John McLarty: Got this little thing going

Kimberly Faith: here. Right. Right. It just I just think this is adoption and and foster care is such a look into, into the heart of God. Because I imagine that when we, you know, when we turn towards God as, his adopted children, when we’re adopted through the gift of salvation, that he feels a special delight in that that we can’t even comprehend.

But we get a little picture of that through this process of interacting with children who are so desperately in need. Yeah. So anyway, I I’m sorry. I I just thought of that. Yeah.

No. So so by the end of the weekend, were you ready to give him back?

Lynn McLarty: So we by by the end of that meal, we were like, well, we’re not sure we wanna give this little guy back. So we were actually, like, couldn’t wait till Monday morning at 8 o’clock when Gary got to the office. We thought, we need to call him first thing before he starts calling other people. And, so we called Gary up, and we said, Gary, we just wanna keep him. And so, of course, he probably thought, just give them the weekend, and that would be it.

They won’t wanna give them back. Mhmm. So he was very pleased. And, so we we of course, we weren’t prepared for a little baby, so we got this little, I forget what it was. At the end of our bed, we put a box or something.

I’m not sure. A nest. A a little nest at the end of the bed. And, so here here’s little Steven in the little bed, and we’re trying to sleep. And so I don’t know what time it was.

We hear him calling us. I forget Oh,

John McLarty: this is funny.

Lynn McLarty: So what did he call us, honey? Mom? Dad?

John McLarty: He would he would go, mom? We were trying to get to sleep. Uh-huh.

Lynn McLarty: So

John McLarty: we ignored him. They’d go, dad? And we ignored him. Then he said, Don? And we ignored him.

He said, Glenn? We ignored that. Then he said, babe? And that’s what we call each other, affectionately. Like, hey, babe.

What you know, we’re just and we just that got it. When he got he went through all the possible names. When he said, babe, and we’re like, okay, Steven. We brought him up, snuggled him in our beds, snuggled him. I said, it’s okay.

You figured out our name.

Kimberly Faith: That is so funny. So by so what what did Gary say when you you called him Monday morning?

Lynn McLarty: Well, he was he was I think he was expecting us to call him and, change our mind,

John McLarty: and he was very happy. Knew how things were.

Lynn McLarty: Yeah. Yeah. He was very happy that we changed our mind. And from that point on, we got babies, and we didn’t reject them. We just took took in babies.

John McLarty: We took in all ages. Gotta do, by the way. The intent of foster care is to reunite the families. Mhmm. And as we tell this story, that’s mainly what happens.

Mhmm. Of the 100 children that we we had,

Kimberly Faith: most

John McLarty: of them go back. They’ve they’ve fixed or tried to fix the problem in the family so they can reunite the families. And that was our goal. That’s always the goal. Steven ended up we adopted him.

Lynn McLarty: Right.

John McLarty: And that was not our you know, we didn’t go into foster care to adopt.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: We were just wanting to help out this one girl.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: But Steven you know, a couple of years later, after reunification efforts didn’t work out, maybe it’s 2 or 3 years later, we ended up adopting him. And he’s still our our dimple faced little boy today. Except he’s he’s great big.

Kimberly Faith: He’s great big. He has a big scrubby Viking hook. He has lots of tattoos, but those dimples, they’re still there. He can’t hide them. And even, you know, it’s it’s it’s actually he’s he’s delightful.

He really is. I can’t I can’t even imagine our life without Steven. Mhmm. You know? And and so from Steven, you know, we’ve mentioned at the very beginning that you fostered over a 100 kids.

First of all, I wanna ask a question because our our listeners, I think, at least, you know, I do I work in the foster care system with we have our foster kids boutique, which will be our next podcast will be about that. And, you know, I do love adoptions and guardianships in the foster care system. And I think there’s this perception by people who, like, watch our Facebook page and stuff that most foster parents are, like, in their twenties. Mhmm. So what age were you all when you started doing foster care?

John McLarty: We’re in our forties.

Kimberly Faith: Okay. And so you are starting over because, I

John McLarty: mean And again, see, that wasn’t our tent. So Right. And tent. All of our kids were in college and or graduating from college.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Yeah. I was in law school.

John McLarty: We were kind of thinking, should we downsize our house and plan more traveling? And god had a very different plan for us.

Kimberly Faith: So how so when when you began fostering, you eventually became foster care trainers. Foster parent trainers. Right? Foster parent and adoptive parent trainers.

Lynn McLarty: Okay. And we would actually be the ones going out to the house and making sure everything’s good and, you know, the parents are foster parents are, you know, meet all the requirements. Right.

Kimberly Faith: You know, it’s funny, when in I think it was the second podcast that you all talked about the foundation for, for a satisfying life. You had kind of recounted your story about how you never set out to do this career or that career, but the lord had guided you through the various careers. Was this one of them?

John McLarty: This is very interesting. Yes. It was. After 2 or 3 years of, foster care, we had just made relationships in Department of Human Services. Not only on the local level, but the foster parents go to Little Rock once a year, and they have kind of a foster parent conference.

And, you know, it’s just a luncheon and a thank you type thing. So we had, we met the state foster care, you know, the DHS people, and just built relationships with them. Well, at some time in the mid nineties, the the State of Arkansas decided to do this private sector thing, and let out the recruiting and training and opening homes, the foster and adoptive parents, into the private sector. Interesting. So we thought actually, we we didn’t even think about it.

This lady named Carolyn Reynolds came to us, said, John and Lynn, you y’all should do this. Y’all would be great at this. So we said, well, we don’t know anything about it. She says, well, just just think about it and try to make it happen. So we looked at the contract, and you needed some professional you needed somebody professional on your team with college, you know, the the qualifications.

Well, we were going to church with Vince Smith, guardian at Lydam, attorney, And his wife was Trendle, social worker.

Kimberly Faith: Oh, wow. I got

John McLarty: the social worker. Oh, we’ve got the dream team. We’ve got the credentials.

Lynn McLarty: Right.

John McLarty: You know, a guardian ad litem lawyer. And we have a social worker. And then we’re the boots on the ground, foster parents, we’re in the trenches. So we formed a company called Partners For Family Training, and applied for the contract and got it to recruit and train foster parents in the 4 counties of Northwest Arkansas. So it’s It became kind of a career thing because we were being, you know, contracted with the state.

And we went all over Carroll County, Madison County, put ads in papers, recruited people. And it was just it was just wonderful. Just training, meeting people, having these big sessions, and teaching them, you know, going through the training, doing the criminal background checks, opening the home doing the home studies. And Wow.

Kimberly Faith: And so were you doing that while you were foster parents?

John McLarty: Yes. Yes. And and So we would tell our sessions were it was really great. It was a great thing the state did. Because in our sessions, Vince would get up and give the legal side.

Mhmm. Chindell would get up and talk about the social worker side, and we would get up and tell real life stories about here.

Lynn McLarty: And we’d bring and we’d bring Stephen to those

John McLarty: with his little gimbles,

Kimberly Faith: because he’s

John McLarty: Our show and tell.

Lynn McLarty: Show and tell.

John McLarty: Oh, gosh. Well But we would say, you know, this isn’t just a piece of cake. You’re going to have some sleepless nights. You’re going to get calls from DHS on Friday late, and something’s happened, and they need to place 3 kids. And then most of these kids go back home, and you’ve been attached to them.

So you’re you’re gonna you’re gonna cry and miss them and you know? So we we we were very, transparent in our sessions.

Kimberly Faith: I just think about, you know, what you’re saying, how what a what a dream team this was. Because you did have all the technical, and then the boots on the ground. Was it I don’t mean to say it was such a selling point, but you had exhibit a, Steven, then you had the boots on the ground experience. You had your own, you know, walk, your own journey. And what a great parallel that is to the great commission.

You know, Christ, when we receive the gift of salvation, and we are born again, we’re a new creature in Christ, and then Jesus said we’re to engage in discipleship. Go ye therefore and make disciples. Well, you can’t make disciples if number 1, you’re not one yourself, and number 2, you haven’t you you can’t teach people how to make disciples if you’re not doing it yourself. And the credibility that adds to the the persuasion or the the art of making disciples, for lack of a better term. Because when you have, you know, the the beatitudes of Christ, right, that he talked about, and you have the fruit of the spirit flowing from you, and then you have the truth because you’ve done the training in God’s word, you become this incredibly credible source of, carrying out the great commission of Christ.

And that’s what you did with with foster care.

John McLarty: And productive. So just to kinda wrap that up. So we were very productive. We opened that team. We opened more homes per year

Kimberly Faith: Wow.

John McLarty: Than, bless their hearts, DHS ever did. Because we were very successful, and it would it would draw people. And so we opened, I think, 40 homes a year Wow. For 3 years. And then what what happened is I think it the rest of the state wasn’t experiencing the same level of success as as we were in Northwest Arkansas, so they they shut the the program down.

We don’t know that the rest of the state was as successful.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: So or it could be just, you know, a bureaucratic thing. Like, well, this was fine, but we wanna bring it back in house.

Kimberly Faith: Sure.

John McLarty: So but it was, it was our career, kind of, for I mean, we still have we had a plus going on with our mini storage on the side. Right. But it was very involved. Very satisfying, actually.

Kimberly Faith: So can you kind of tell everybody then how, the the, so we have Steven was adopted to a couple years later. And then there’s Hannah, Michael, I mean, and Jeremiah, who were also foster children. Can you kind of tell the story about how they came into the family?

Lynn McLarty: Yes. Well, I think I was out shopping, and, my husband was at home, and he got the call. There’s this little infant, 9 days old, premature, tiny little baby.

Kimberly Faith: How much does she weigh?

Lynn McLarty: Oh, about 3 and a half pounds, something like that. I don’t remember the exact weight. And, could you take her? And, of course, John said yes.

John McLarty: I didn’t even call in. I just said yes.

Lynn McLarty: You just said yes. So I get home with more groceries than I ever bought in my whole life. And so I fill the whole kitchen floor with bags of groceries, and John said, Honey, you better sit down. And so I sat down, and I thought, What is going on? I need to put these groceries away.

He said, Honey, we’ve got this little 9 day old premature baby coming here in about 30 minutes. And I went, Oh, my goodness. And, so I got the groceries put away, and they brought in this little, tiny,

John McLarty: precious little baby that you just hold in one hand. Oh, this is Anna.

Lynn McLarty: Hannah. She was 9 days old, and, of course, we just fell in love with her. And, it was kind of around that same time we were trying to decide, whether to kinda downsize a little bit. Meaning foster? In foster care

John McLarty: or Our homes the size of our homes.

Lynn McLarty: The size of our home or

John McLarty: We were just renting that house.

Lynn McLarty: Just, you know we had all these kids that really needed space. That we were living in a neighborhood, and we had a nice home, but it was, I don’t know. It just felt like they needed a place to just run and play and not have to worry about neighbors and Cars on the street. Yeah. Right.

So, anyway, here’s little Hannah, and we just fell in love with her. And, oh, we thought, man, I I just can’t imagine losing her. And, then after that, we got a call for one of her brothers that was in another home, and they were actually having to not be foster parents anymore. And so they asked us if we would take her brother, and we did, of course. There was one other little boy that was still with his his dad, I believe.

And, when we would go to little visits at DHS, there was this little guy that would just run crazy around DHS. That was Michael.

John McLarty: And then Jeremiah’s brother.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah, Michael. So Hannah and Jeremiah were in

Lynn McLarty: the home. We’re in the

John McLarty: home now. We would go visit.

Lynn McLarty: We’d go visit at the DHS, and there would be this wild little child that was running crazy. And, his language was about the same. Spicy? Spicy. And, so, at the time, I was thinking our house was filled.

We didn’t have just Jeremiah and Hannah. We had 5 or 6 kids. And, so they called us, and and I remember thinking, well, I hope these parents get it together. I don’t know if I could handle this this little guy. But, of course, that didn’t happen, and we got a call.

Could we take Michael? And we of course, we said, sure. And then

John McLarty: the sibling group together.

Lynn McLarty: Yeah. Keep keep all the kids together. And then I remember when Michael came, he would call me a name. I guess I can say this on this recording. Call me a butthead.

And I and I took him out on the little back porch, and I said, Michael, we don’t use that word in our home. We don’t use the word butt. And, so then when he’d get mad at me, he’d he’d say, you, you, you head. And so, of course, we’d we’d laugh. And so, anyway, to make a long story short, we decided not to downsize.

We decided to get these these 5 acres and build a log home and have a place for these kids. And, you know, we didn’t know how long we were gonna continue to be foster parents. But, so all these children came up for adoption. We had just adopted Steven, and, Hannah, Michael, and Jeremiah came up for adoption. And, of course, we were already in love with them.

They were pretty lovable.

John McLarty: Absolutely.

Lynn McLarty: We adopted them. And, we continue continue to be foster parents for a little while, but we felt like, at that point, that we needed to, kinda protect these children, nurture them, and,

John McLarty: Or not have their life so disrupted.

Lynn McLarty: Not have yeah. Have more of a calm life. So

Kimberly Faith: And you and I mean, you at this point, you guys you were in your fifties, when Hannah was adopted.

Lynn McLarty: Yes.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And and, I just I I mentioned that not to to be, like, you know, disclosing ages or anything, but just to just to clear audience needs to know that God’s love doesn’t have a limitation on by age or socioeconomic. I mean, you didn’t have a lot of assets. No. You didn’t have you know, you you opened up your home, every corner of your home, you know.

And and I remember, just from my perspective as an adult seeing this, how you’d have to put locks on some doors because you had kids who would who would steal and kids who would do invade your privacy to the nth degree. But in in my heart, in my mind, every time I would come around and see y’all, I would think about this, the the verse out of Psalms, 68, where where David talks about God being a father of the fatherless, a defender of widows. This is God in His holy habitation, and and there’s this one phrase where God it says, God sets the solitary in families. I think

John McLarty: about these great verse.

Kimberly Faith: It is such a great verse. And I think about, like, Hannah at 9 days old, so vulnerable, you know, and she struck gold when when she came into your home. Mhmm.

Lynn McLarty: You know? And you did too.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And and I think about how, you know, now, today, here she is, you know, she is, she’s working in our Go Faith Strong ministry, and how God just he just had this journey planned for her. And I love that what the psalmist says about how God knows he’s written a plan for us. Every one of our days are written down before we were formed in our mother’s womb. And and your story is such a a picture of that.

You know, how, you know, Michael, Steven, Jeremiah, Hannah, I mean, even dad, you know, the fact that you adopted, you know, Tanya, Thomas, and I, you know, when when you were just in your twenties. And, you know, it’s like, who does that?

John McLarty: I wasn’t sure what I was getting into, but I’m glad I did it.

Kimberly Faith: But here we are today. Right? It’s who would have thought who would have thunk? You know? And and and I think about weren’t you all fostering also, dad, when you decided to go back to an undergraduate school?

John McLarty: Yes. Mhmm. Yes. Yes.

Kimberly Faith: You were building a house, this cabin. Yes. You were fostering, and you were a full time student at the University of Arkansas.

John McLarty: Well, one funny story. When we first got Hannah, Lynn had to go away for 3 days, and I it’s my 1st semester. So I thought, oh, this is going to be great. I’m going to catch up on all of my homework. This is gonna be just have this little baby to take care of, and I’ll get all caught up and do some house projects.

Oh my goodness. Lynn left me 24 bottles and Hannah. I said, I can take care of it. No problem. Well, did I get an education on motherhood that you feed the baby, and then you you rock the baby when they’re crying.

You change the diapers. And when the baby goes to sleep, that’s your only opportunity to go to sleep. So it was wonderful, though. But all I did was take care of Hannah. I got no homework.

Lynn McLarty: And I came home with 24 dirty bottles in the sink.

Kimberly Faith: And a happy baby.

John McLarty: And a happy baby.

Kimberly Faith: And a

John McLarty: happy baby. And a tired dad. A dad. And happy to say to live by.

Kimberly Faith: Well, I just I I love that you all are, I I know I know you probably have more stories. Like, last night, we were talking about, was the girl we were talking about last night that it, Chiquita. Chiquita.

John McLarty: Chiquita.

Kimberly Faith: And and just how funny she was,

John McLarty: you know.

Kimberly Faith: She called you what’d she call you, John?

John McLarty: Yeah. She said, that’s right, John.

Lynn McLarty: She and

John McLarty: she Read so many. Yes. The Lord blessed us with 4 that children that just enriched their life and and became available for adoption. But in foster care, the intent is to, you know, have them go back home. So the typical stay is 3 to 6 months.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: But so we met the most amazing array of children.

Kimberly Faith: Right. And

John McLarty: And had had great times, and, I could just, you know, go on. But just wonderful experiences and sad when, you know, you see them, you know.

Lynn McLarty: Can I tell one story? Sure. We got this little baby, and she was called a failure to thrive. So a failure to thrive baby, when you’re feeding them, they won’t look in your eyes. They just look away.

And, so when we got her, that’s that’s how she was when I feed her. So we we actually changed our sleeping arrangements. I moved downstairs into a bedroom, and I just sleep with Haley Renee, trying to bond with her. And, by the time DHS called us, and it was time for her to go back, it was, like, within a couple weeks. And, this was, like, the hardest thing I ever had to do.

That morning was the first time she looked into my eyes when I was feeding her. Oh. So she started to bond. And, her mother actually sent me a thank you note. Oh.

And so it was kind of a special time. And, so but, you know, we experienced getting her to the point where she was bonding. Right. And maybe that her mother, you know, had time to kinda get her wife together, and she went back to be with her mom.

Kimberly Faith: You know, love is never wasted. It’s never wasted.

John McLarty: That’s so true.

Kimberly Faith: We have to really, and we think about this in the I I I just think about all the children you were able able to touch. I know that some of them you actually got to lead to Christ, you know, to to be born again, to have received the gift of salvation. And, and probably every child, that that came into your home who was old enough to understand and communicate, heard the gospel. They because you took him to church. You had, you had this great mission field.

And, you know, this the the the this Truth in Love podcast is this what you’re the story you’re telling is exactly what we, as adults, need to comprehend through your stories, is that when you are loving people, that is the best platform for giving them the truth. And you had this whole vulnerable population, that you were able to influence and plant the seeds, even if they didn’t receive Jesus Christ as their savior. You planted seeds, the seeds of the gospel, that will never leave, they’ll never be able to get that out. They will always have that, and the holy spirit will continue to work in them. And and, you know, I’m sure there’s still children you pray for, which is super powerful.

John McLarty: We do. And we have relationships with several of them that we have phone calls with and even reconnected some a couple of real some of the twins. We reconnected with them when they came by.

Kimberly Faith: I just I think about when I think about your life and and the the foster care system in general, and the people like you and mom, and and, be it the STOLCUPs, people that I know. I have other friends, that are amazing Christians who have taken this as their mission. I think about what Jesus said, he said, you know, in in Matthew chapter 18, he said unless you are converted and become as little children. He talked about humbling ourselves as a child. The only way you can love a child with kind of this this the the love that God gives us is if you have first come to Christ in the with the heart of full surrender, full trust, full acknowledgement that there’s, you know, kinda like the beatitude we talked about,

John McLarty: the

Kimberly Faith: poor in spirit, you know, and and knowing that you are nothing, you have nothing except God, that’s when you know you have all you need. And these children, you were able to love them like God loves you because you do come to cry you you do come to God as a child for all that you need. And then these children could come to you because they have they could sense, you know, that they they could trust this baby that you just talked about. She probably couldn’t even talk yet. Right?

But she knew, she had she had the ability to understand love, because we’re born with the knowledge of God. And it’s just so beautiful how the lessons that Jesus teaches us are full circle in what you’ve done in your foster care. So what I wanna I I hate to end this podcast because it’s so good, but I just wanna give you both the opportunity to share with our listeners anything that you think would be encouraging. This is Christmas. This is these are gifts of Christmas, the best gifts of Christmas.

So what else, in closing would you like to share with our listeners?

John McLarty: I would just say that god gets all the credit and that this whole experience, this part of our life, blessed us.

Lynn McLarty: Mhmm. And

John McLarty: we were used to help others, but it was a, a greater blessing to us. And we ended up with Stephen, and Jeremiah, and Michael, and Hannah. And that’s just an eternal blessing.

Kimberly Faith: Absolutely. Mom, do you have any last words, Horace?

Lynn McLarty: Well, just some of the memories that, are always gonna be In our hearts, seeing a little girl in the girl in the, Walmart dressing room, putting on a a the petticoat and twirling around and saying she looked beautiful. No. And the little girl I taught to read that was way past the age of learning to read, taught her phonics and taught her how to read and seeing the excitement in her eyes.

John McLarty: There’s just, blessings that you’ll never forget.

Kimberly Faith: Those are eternal blessings, and that’s that’s, that’s why I think that in, you know, sharing these these stories, I I just want this what people are hearing to inspire them to continue this, to continue this gift of love that the kind of love that it always comes back to bless you, and it will for eternity. It’s an eternal gift, the gift of love. So thank you both for opening your hearts and your homes and sharing, just what what the Lord did through fostering in in your lives, and you’ve been listening to the Truth in Love podcast, and I’m so glad that you joined us. And, we’re continuing this series on the best gifts of Christmas. And next week, you’re gonna hear from Joy Hinkle, our executive director at our Fostering by Faith boutique.

I guarantee you, the stories that she is going to tell about the foster children who come in into our foster kids boutique and shop are going to touch you. And this will be our Christmas Eve podcast, so I hope you’ll join us. Hallelujah. You have been listening to the truth in love podcast with your host, Kimberly Faith. To discover more answers to the big questions in life, visit us atgofaithstrong.com.

Hallelujah, you rescued me.