LDS Church Honors Foster Parents

By Chandler Growald

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints hosted a foster parent appreciation night for Arrow Ministries on Saturday, August 29, 2015. With over 125 in attendance, including Dallas-Ft.Worth Metroplex foster parents and their families, Arrow Ministries founder and chairman Mark Tennant spoke passionately about his life as a foster child and his desire to provide opportunities for other children who find themselves in a similar situation to his.

Founded in 1992, Arrow Ministries serves over 4,000 children annually through foster care, adoption and a wide range of social services. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, with offices in Maryland, Pennsylvania and California, Arrow’s heartfelt goal is to provide homes for all children, no matter their circumstance, from which they can launch into a successful adulthood.

Integral partners in this mission are foster parents, whose quiet service is all too often unsung. For Jeff and Jeanette Furgo of Watauga, foster parents since 2011, it has been a learning process about themselves, about children, about God’s plan and their part in it. When asked how foster parenting changed them, they were quick to acknowledge the hand of the Lord in their lives.

“We have learned so much [through foster parenting]. Our biggest change is getting a big dose of reality that [the Lord] is in charge. We have also learned that some children were meant to come to this earth with two families, and that’s okay. We’ve learned that some women, who can biologically bear children, are not ready to be a mother to them, and that’s okay. There are many other women who are ready to be a mother but cannot biologically bear them, and that’s okay, too! 

“The trick is making yourself open and available to God’s will so that He can work a miracle in your life. You have to bring yourself to the very edge of selflessness, both in terms of listening to God’s will and in terms of opening up your home to a variety of children, that you create the maximum amount of space in your life for God to create a miracle in it. Because He will! And, believe me, His miracles are pretty darn awesome!” said Jeff Furgo, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Foster Parent Appreciation Night was attended by President David Hadley and Bishop Karl Ross representing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from the Hurst Stake whose privilege it was to honor these families and the work of Mark Tennant and Arrow Ministries. With nearly 400,000 children living without permanent families in the foster care system in the United States, the need for loving foster families is ever present. Arrow Ministries has also established “Freedom Place” in Texas, a rehabilitative center for victims of child sex trafficking, and “Casa de Ester”, a girls’ home in Honduras.

Tennant reminded the guests that the inspiration for Arrow is rooted in Psalm 127:3-4, which he frequently quotes: “Children are a gift from the Lord…like arrows in the hand of a warrior so are the children of one’s youth.”

More information about Arrow Ministries can be found at www.arrow.org