Our family has had the privilege and joy of hosting 23 (and counting) babies through short-term respite care. Before we adopted our first child in 2009, a family cared for him between his release from the hospital and his placement in our home. At the time, we marveled, Who would volunteer to care for babies at their neediest stage and then give them back?
A few years later, we were waiting to bring home our third child through adoption. A caseworker from our agency asked if we would consider watching a newborn for a few days while a young mom prepared her apartment for the baby. We had never considered offering short-term care, but we sensed God leading us to care for this newborn girl. That brief placement uprooted our hearts and reset our plans for the future. Not long after, we became an official respite care home.
We’ve been stretched in so many ways by the challenges of ministering to people experiencing crisis and dysfunction. But respite care has also been the single greatest blessing in our life as a family. Because we became a host family, we have been able to minister to the vulnerable, steward our resources for the benefit of others, and press into greater dependence on Christ.
1. Respite care connects us with the vulnerable and hurting.
It would be hard to overstate the call for Christians to be on the front lines of caring for the poor, the outsider, and the fatherless. But many of us struggle to find organic ways to serve people in need. We tend to live in homogenous neighborhoods and go to churches filled with people like us. Those with resources to share are often surrounded by similarly comfortable neighbors, and this concentration of wealth can create the illusion that poverty is a distant problem. But even if we know the struggles of poverty firsthand, we may wonder how we can tangibly serve others who are hurting.
Serving as a respite care family has removed many of the barriers that can keep vulnerable neighbors off our radar. The vast majority of people seeking emergency care are single moms with no church affiliation, very little family support, and significant financial struggles. Without a formal program to help connect them with our family, we simply would never cross paths.
Serving as a respite care family has removed many of the barriers that can keep vulnerable neighbors off our radar.
Many of the families we’ve met struggled in isolation for a long time. Respite care has ushered struggling image-bearers right to our doorstep, enabling us to “do good . . . bring justice to the fatherless, [and] plead the widow’s cause” (Isa. 1:17). Despite the inevitable awkwardness that comes with entrusting your child to a stranger, by the end of most placements we feel an unexpected kinship with the moms we serve and we often keep in touch for years. Each text or photo update confirms in our hearts that “it is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).
2. Respite care allows us to use our God-given resources for the benefit of others.
Serving as a host family has also broadened our view of stewardship beyond money management and tithing. Inviting little strangers under our roof reminds us over and over again that our home is not our home. Early in our parenting years, my husband and I read Francis Chan’s book, Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God. His conviction that “something is wrong when our lives make sense to unbelievers” resonated with us. But we also wondered what it could look like to live radically and sacrificially during a season dominated by diaper changes and nap schedules.
Even though our life stage made it hard to be out and about, we realized God had given us space in our house and the luxury of time together. Respite care has enabled us to meet pressing needs while staying mostly within the four walls of our home. With each placement, we integrate the little visitor into our family’s fabric—sharing meals, toys, and bedtime routines.
Serving as a host family has broadened our view of stewardship beyond money management and tithing.
As our kids have grown, we’ve had to think more strategically about leaving margin in our schedule and setting limits on activities. Providing respite care has helped us steward our home, time, and other resources “in a daily way that seeks to make strangers neighbors, and neighbors family of God,” as Rosaria Butterfield writes in The Gospel Comes with a House Key.
3. Respite care pushes us toward greater dependence on Christ.
Before we took the plunge into short-term care, I thought it would be too hard to let go after taking care of a child. Since we stepped into this role, I can’t count how many times I’ve heard similar hesitancies from fellow believers. And it turns out that it is too hard. We can’t, in our own strength, do the emotional work of loving a child wholeheartedly and then letting him go. But choosing to risk our emotions, to allow ourselves to experience loss and pain for the sake of hurting families, has powerfully grown our faith and dependence on the Lord.
Each time we say “yes” to a new placement, we throw ourselves at the feet of Jesus, the only One who knows the difficulties it will bring and the eventual outcome. Everything about respite care forces us to relinquish control: the unexpected timing of the requests for help, the unpredictable lengths of each stay, and the very temporary authority we have over the lives under our care. Slowly and clumsily, we’re learning that God’s power is truly made perfect in our weakness and that he’ll equip us with exactly what we need (2 Cor. 12:9; Phil. 4:19). With every new crisis, sleepless night, and shed tear, we’re learning to lean harder on the One who renews our strength (Isa. 40:31).
Although each family’s or individual’s ministry work will differ, we all need to consider how we can honor the Lord with our firstfruits and welcome the least of these into our midst (Prov. 3:9, Matt. 25:40). Serving vulnerable families through respite care has allowed our family to point others to God as the stronghold who can handle both their brokenness and ours (Ps. 9:9).
The Gospel Coalition