My passion and purpose to protect the innocent children from the evils of abuse and neglect allowed me the opportunity to help the state of Arizona create the first Child Placement Facility in 2015.  I worked with the Director of the Department of Child Safety and the founders of the non profit Childhelp to provide a safe, comforting place for children to stay after being removed from unsafe homes.
At the time, our state was tapped out of financial resources, foster families, group homes and emergency shelters, because the issue of child abuse and neglect was at a massive high and increasing every month.  The number of children in state foster care in January 2016 was around 21,000, but the state also had a backlog of cases that were around 17,000, and the Department of Child Safety was under new leadership that was forced to expose the mess that had been swept out of sight by former leadership.
Things did not look hopeful for the future of our state’s most vulnerable lives, and at the rate that children were moving into state custody, the entire future of our state and nation was in grave danger.  I considered how it would look as those kids all moved into adulthood, and I knew that this was not going to be resolved without divine intervention.
I talk a lot about what happened in our state Foster Care System, because it is something that all people should understand in order to see changes in every area of our communities around the nation and world right now. The miracles that have taken place in Arizona since 2015 can’t be disregarded as simply luck or contributed to one or two people, but they are evidence of God’s powerful presence and supernatural intervention.  We needed our state to receive more than a just the heat of a scorching sun the summer of 2015.  We needed the fire of God’s Holy Spirit to spark an awakening of love and unity in the people that would turn hearts from self-focused to selfless acts of mercy and kindness. We needed a love revival in the hearts of the churches and the people.
I poured out my heart Day after day in prayers and I asked God to pour out blessings like never before in all of the lives of the people around the Valley. I wanted people to be aware of the awesome love that God had for them, and to know that all things were possible no matter how difficult the current situation appeared. The people would have laughed at me if they knew what I was believing for and what I was asking God to do, but I didn’t share my prayers or hopes with people, because I needed to believe and not be discouraged or doubt that God could do all that I was asking.
Three years later here are some of the results of those prayers and streaming tears and heartbreak:
The Arizona Department of Child Safety is now considered the best in the nation. The number of children in state care went from 21,000 to around 14,500. The number of backlogged cases now is ZERO. The number of kids needing placements ZERO. It should also be mentioned that many group homes were closed and many licenses were revoked for the treatment of the children, and many workers were replaced with people that put the safety of kids as the top priority. The leaders of our state legislature turned from blaming and withholding needed funding, to listening and finding ways to help the crisis. The number of children continues to decrease each month for kids in state care, but before 2016 the numbers had increased every single year for seven years straight. On the eighth year, we had a new beginning. The number eight represents new beginnings, so that is relevant to mention.
Obviously I can’t list the results of all of my prayers in one post, but I can say that not one of my prayers or tears fell to the ground without being captured by God!
When the Governor’s office began highlighting as top priority all of the issues that I had prayed for in the prior season, (treatment for people suffering with addictions, laws changed that cause heavy financial burdens to the people, opportunities created to educate and teach job skills to the homeless, unemployed and prison inmates, so everyone could have hope and a future regardless of their past mistakes, providing needed support to teachers and students to be equipped for the future, opening up new ways to bring funding for entrepreneurs and new business ideas that were needing developed, just to name a few key areas), I knew that God was putting solutions in the people, and providing resources to help those areas, because only God could take a broken and devastated economy and a bitter and hardened people and turn them into optimistic creators of good.

God wasn’t merely focused on building up the churches that had lost their voices due to the role shifting to our government as the care takers of the people, but He wanted to bring all of the members of the community into unity and begin working together for the greater good of all people.
God didn’t need anyone to expose or highlight all that was wrong everyday, but what He wanted was someone willing to pray for all of the things that He wanted to fix. He was sending me out to the streets everyday where I could encounter the devastating impact of how it looks when a society ignores the highest authority and the law of love. What we end up with in a godless society are laws that cause many to suffer, people turning from helping those in need to assigning the task to government to fix. This is how hearts get hardened and lives get destroyed.
God takes all things and works them together to make them good. We are all united in Christ if we belong to God, and if you haven’t given your life to the Lord, you are being led by the Spirits of the world that seek to do evil by causing division, chaos and confusion. The people led by Christ are filled with love for all once they are emptied out of self.