By Derek Brown
Executive Director
Arkansas Baptist Children’s Homes and Family Ministries
A few weeks ago, one of our foster families took a camping trip. After several weeks of quarantining at home, it was so nice to safely enjoy a family getaway. Their teenage boys could hardly contain their excitement about spending some time in the national forest. Their sense of adventure overtook their sense of direction as they ventured farther from the camp than instructed. As their foster mother realized the boys had slipped out of sight, she immediately began to panic. Almost as soon as she and her husband began recruiting others for assistance with the search, the boys found their way back to their now very relieved foster parents. Upon the boys return to the camp, they were taken aback by the anxiety they had caused. In the middle of this frightful situation is a beautiful picture of the Gospel. David Platt put it this way: “There’s really only one thing worse than being lost. What’s worse is being lost when no one is trying to find you.” I am so grateful for the foster parents who were there to have a panic moment when they could not find their teenage boys. Every child deserves someone who is willing to do whatever it takes to find them when they get off course. Foster care provided the opportunity for this couple to demonstrate the Gospel in a real way to a child in need. I am so thankful for the good news that “the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10 CSB). These boys will never forget the love they discovered through the unlikely circumstances of an adventure gone wrong. “Amazing grace! how sweet the sound, That saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see.”