Pastor Robert Griffith Virginia: What I’ve Learned from Listening to Children in Care
Pastor Robert Griffith Virginia
Most of what I’ve learned about foster care hasn’t come from policy manuals or training modules. It’s come from sitting across the table from kids—sometimes quiet, sometimes angry, sometimes just trying to make sense of a world that’s moved too fast for them.
You can hear a lot when you stop talking.
Children in foster care have experienced things that most adults will never fully grasp. Even when they’re young, they carry a weight. And when they speak, you realize they aren’t asking for perfection. They’re asking for presence. For someone to stick around after the paperwork is done.
One child asked me once, “Are you going to be here next time?” That was the entire question. He didn’t care how I served. He just needed to know I’d still be there.
Another child was shocked that we brought a toothbrush kit without being asked. “Nobody brings the little stuff,” she said. That sentence has stayed with me for years.
What I’ve learned from children in care is this: they notice everything. They notice who listens and who performs. They notice who keeps promises. They notice who stays. And more than anything, they notice when adults care without conditions.
You don’t need to have answers. You don’t need to be a therapist or teacher. You need to be steady.
Children in care are not projects. They are people. And the Church does its best work when it treats them as such—not as recipients of charity, but as image-bearers of God, deserving of dignity and safety.
I’ve also learned to slow down. Kids who’ve experienced trauma don’t move at the speed we expect. They don’t open up on our schedule. And they don’t respond well to pressure wrapped in spiritual language.
They respond to consistency. To meals that keep coming. To notes that keep arriving. To volunteers who show up again and again, even when the child doesn’t say much.
Listening has changed the way I lead. It’s made me more careful with my words, more patient with process, and more aware of what foster families carry. It’s taught me that the best support sometimes looks invisible. And that impact isn’t measured by how much you speak—but by how well you stay.
Every church has access to this kind of insight. It doesn’t require a seminary degree. It requires attention. When we slow down, and truly listen, we’re not just learning from these children. We’re honoring them.
And that’s the beginning of trust.
To explore foster care engagement, national dialogue, or connect with Pastor Bob Griffith’s book Fostering Jesus, visit FosteringJesus.org.