Foster Ministries

There are more than 60 million evangelical Christians participating in over 300,000 churches nationwide. This provides an incredible opportunity to engage in foster care ministry. With its existing infrastructure and caring congregants, The Lake of the Woods Church and its community of believers can be the solution to the local foster care problem.  With this thought in mind, we have created our Foster Ministry.  LOWC ministers to foster children and families through four different venues.

Bags of Hope
When children are removed from their home in cases of violence, endangerment or neglect, the child often carries their few belongings with them in a trash bag.  In our desire to see that every child has a fresh start we developed Bags of Hope.  Each child upon removal from their home receives a backpack filled with hygiene items, school supplies, some clothes, diapers     (if necessary) and a comfort item (doll, stuffed animal, etc.) as well as a quilt.
 

Foster Family Events
LOWC hosts special events for foster families throughout the year.  Picnics, Christmas dinner with Santa, and cookouts, are just some of the fun outings we offer our foster families.

Training
The Dept. of Social Services comes in once a year to offer training at the church for potential foster parents.  Following the training, they walk parents through the process to become foster parents or respite care providers.

Support Group
A foster parent support group offers parents an opportunity to connect with one another for encouragement, support, and fellowship.  See Ernie Leighty for more information.