“...the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few...”

Meet Adam and Jody Coblentz. They have a beautiful story of how foster care found them and how it changed their life.

Tell us who you are and if married, how long?

Adam and I (Jody) have been married for 15 years.

Tell us about your family...

I am a stay at home mom and Adam is a farmer.

Adam was born and raised in Chouteau, OK. I started out in Texas and then Tulsa. We moved to Chouteau from Stillwater after about a year and a half of marriage.

Did you have children in the home prior to foster care? We had two daughters before we started fostering.

When was the first time you heard about Foster Care? I had a friend who adopted children out of foster care. We didn’t meet until years after adoption but she was the first person I really spoke to about foster care and heard some of the stories of what children had to go through.

What was the tipping point in making the first call to DHS/Agency to become foster parents? For months I had been praying to see what my next steps should be. Both of my children were in school and I was in a mom transition stage. I knew God had a plan and a path but I felt a little lost in the transition. I was sitting at the kitchen table one evening reading my bible when I read “the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few” in Luke 10:2. It sparked the thought for some reason, of becoming foster parents. I asked Adam, who was in the next room, what he thought about being a foster family (completely expecting him to think I was crazy) and after a short pause he said, “we can talk about it.” We talked about it for a while and then I sent a request for more information about foster care. The very next day I received a phone call from the recruiting team with DHS.

Knowing what you know now, would you do it all over again? That is a really hard question for me to answer. Foster care is physically and emotionally exhausting. But could I turn away from these children now that I KNOW some of their stories… no, I couldn’t. So yes, I would do it again because it is so important to help and support these innocent children who have been dealt a rough hand. Many of the parents just haven’t had the best examples in parenting or need a support system. They don’t want to be bad parents, they just don’t know how to be good ones. We can be that example and support for the parents and the children.

How long do you think you will be foster parents? We recently just adopted three little boys so our time as foster parents may be coming to an end soon but we’ll just have to see. We have been fostering for five years and didn’t have intentions of adopting but God had other plans for us!

How has FCAO played a role in your foster journey? We were really struggling and needed advice and support from people who had been there and done that before us. FCAO was a wealth of knowledge and support! Foster parenting is not the same as parenting and we end up in situations that we just don’t know how to handle or the best way to proceed. Our foster children have been through things that I will never be able to understand. The members of FCAO understand what we go through and many have been doing this a lot longer. When I found FCAO I finally felt like I had a guide, a support system of people who “get it”!

How long have you been a part of FCAO? Approximately 3 years

How important is community to you? Community is extremely important! We must have a support system when we struggle and people to celebrate with us with even the minor successes. This is a hard journey and we have to help children through HARD things and that can be really heavy! The littlest successes are huge sometimes. We need people who understand both! When my 6 year old is finally doing something he should have done years ago, I need someone to be excited with me for that huge, little thing.

What would you tell someone who is thinking about becoming a foster parent? It’s hard but oh so worth it! Make sure you are in a stable place in life because foster care can rock your world if you aren’t ready. But don’t stop yourself from taking the leap if you are willing to help children to have the best chance possible.

To see families reunite because the parents are succeeding and the kids are healing is so amazing and to help children who just can’t go home to find the best family for them is heartwarming.