My wife's best friend has been a foster parent to a little girl. She picked her up shortly after she was born and has cared for her for about a year or more, I think. She has the most beautiful black skin and big brown eyes, with a loving smile that we've seen often at our house.
It was a terrible pain two months ago when the State of Texas granted the natural father immediate and total custody of that little child. The baby was placed into our friend's care. Our friend had high hopes of being able to adopt her. This father came into the picture late and, even though most of the case workers recommended a gentle transition towards him getting custody (proving his worth with a one-hour unsupervised visit, followed by a four-hour, followed by overnight, followed by a weekend maybe), the caseworker directly assigned to her recommended full and immediate custody be given to the father. My friend had met him a few times and sadly admitted that she genuinely kinda liked the guy (i.e. thought he'd be a good dad). It was hard to see my friend have to deal with the separation of losing that little girl that had changed her home and brought so much joy to her life. It was such a testimony to see our friend give love so unconditionally, with now not ever getting to see her again (except maybe during one follow-up medical exam by the doctor who'd regularly seen her during the past year).
Suddenly she got a phone call yesterday afternoon from the caseworker. "How would you like to adopt her?" she asked. She followed with the bad news: she'd suffered third degree burns over 13% of her body. This caseworker has to feel absolutely miserable, because she did not know that this couple would mistreat this poor little girl so horribly. The girlfriend is the chief suspect, but the wounds show that this burn event happened over five days ago, so the boyfriend/father is for sure complicit with the action of not taking the baby in for this threatening condition.
My wife is with her friend now several hours away, watching over and playing with her as the long road to healing begins. It will bring joy if our friend can now finally adopt this baby girl, but oh what a tragic road to get there. I'm told the caseworker wasn't allowed to travel to the city to be a part of these proceedings, as she's been deemed "too emotional." One can understand.
Please pray for the little girl, my wife's friend, my wife, this caseworker (who just has to feel awful about all this), and the father and girlfriend, too (who, even though they've just participated in a monsterous, hateful act, can be transformed by a miracle-working God).
Posted by Doug Van Pelt at June 8, 2006 10:33 PM