Hometown Rankin - October & November 2016

medications per day,” and “dialysis in your home”. We were both fearful,
but God had been preparing us for that moment for years, and we just
didn’t know.
Currently we are waiting to finalize the adoption of our foster son.
Hopefully by the end of this year he will be a Walley. None of us can
imagine life without him. He is handsome, smart, funny, busy, and very
special. He is doing really well, and because of the outstanding care from
his team and Stephanie, he can continue to grow before his transplant is
scheduled. The reality of his situation is this; had we
not taken him into our family, he would not be alive.
Everyone involved with his care has stated that. Foster
families are critical, and our state is in desperate need
of more. Many more.
In May of this year I began working with 200
Million Flowers as the director of church relations
and training in addition to my ministry at Meadow
Grove. Shortly thereafter, 200 Million Flowers got
involved with Rescue 100.
Rescue 100 is a collaborative effort between the
Mississippi Department of Child Protection Services,
the Mississippi Commission on Children’s Justice,
200 Million Flowers and churches across the state
of Mississippi to provide loving homes for children
in the foster system.
The goal is to streamline the training and
certification process for resource families–most of
which happens over one weekend after a family
attends a brief orientation/informational meeting.
What took our family almost a year to complete can
now be done in about 4 months. The Central Mississippi Rescue 100
training is scheduled for October 21-23 at Mississippi College in Clinton.
Orientations will be October 10-13 in surrounding counties. Training
weekends are limited to 100 families.
This faith-based initiative started in Gulfport under the leadership
of Pastor Tony Karnes of Michael Memorial Baptist Church and the
J127 Ministry, which hosted the first Rescue 100 event. The second
event was held in July at William Carey University in Hattiesburg.
74 families from that weekend are in the process of being licensed.
In addition to regular resource families, partnering social service
agencies such as Mississippi Children’s Home Services and Southern
Christian Services for Children and Youth are helping to place families
as therapeutic foster care homes.
There are over 7,000 churches in our state. Currently there are
approximately 5,400 children in foster care in Mississippi. If one family
from every church were a licensed resource family, there would be a
waiting list of families and not children. All of the information for
the Central Mississippi Rescue 100 event can be found at their website,
www.200millionflowers.org.
People will think, “There is no way we could be a foster family.”
I would point them to the words of Christ in Matthew 19:26 where
He is speaking on salvation, but it certainly applicable to fostering:
“With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” n
“ With man
this is impossible,
but with God
all things
are possible."