Rachel Russo: Saying Yes to God at Home

Pastor Jason
Our second interview that we have this morning, guys, if you don’t know her, is Rachel Russo. And she is an incredible…give her a hand. (applause) She is an incredible, incredible, godly woman. She has served here on staff at FBC for ten years in a number of different roles in the student ministry and the communications department. She has also been a foster parent for nine years, and during that time fostering 14 children and adopting two. She is the founder of Vault Fostering Community, a non-profit organization that serves foster families and children in the San Antonio and greater area. She’s become a very powerful and important voice in the foster care community in San Antonio and right here at our church. She helps lead our services, FBC’s Foster Care Ministry here at First Baptist Boerne, keeping our church body aware of all that’s going on in the fostering community. The needs. She leads our Foster Parent Night Out. The next one is November 12, so mark that on your calendar. As well, she’s added to that list a midweek small group discussion, that has now been growing every week, for connecting and a support system for foster and adopting families in our community.

And so, Rachel, everything I’ve just described, this is your life. It’s amazing whenever one sits and lists it all out. Did you ever imagine that your life would be like this? And how did you get here?

Rachel Russo
I 100% did not imagine what you would ask me. Even if you asked me a year ago, did you imagine your life would look like this in a year? I would have said no. So, it feels like it’s just constantly changing and growing. I’m being stretched. But you asked me, will you share a testimony of a time when you said yes? And I was just like, I could sit up there for hours talking about time after time after time where God called me to say a yes that was terrifying, or just scary or just uncomfortable, and He ends up blessing me in the process. And I loved all the stories, just hearing all of those. I hadn’t heard them yet. And so, just hearing the consistency of the message that no one regrets those yeses. I will say that in every one of those times, none of those yeses really were my preference. Really my response initially is I’d rather not. When God’s like, “Hey! I’m calling you to this.” And it’s like, “I’m good. Like, that sounds not cool.”

And eventually there’s just this growing process and a little bit of tug of war with God, but eventually getting to a place. I was thinking the other day, my kids were watching the movie “Moana,” and I really related to Moana when she’s screaming at the ocean, trying to throw back this glowing stone. She’s like, “Pick someone else! I don’t want to do this anymore.” That was very relatable to me. However, this saying yes has always eventually ended in goodness and blessing and intimacy with the Lord.

Pastor Jason
So, take me to the first time that you said yest to foster care. Because as a single woman, I could imagine that that’s quite scary. You know, I’m just thinking of time and money and even perception.

Rachel Russo
So, in 2014, I was actually already in full-time vocational ministry here at First Baptist, and I kept feeling this prompting. I was seeing some other scenarios where foster care was playing out, and I kept felling this prompting to participate. I had a lot of resistance and a lot of very valid reasons why this probably wasn’t for me. I think one of the things was I argued with God a lot because my whole life is ministry. Like all week into the evenings, I was doing student ministry. I’m investing in kids in our community. You know, kind of arguing that, but my home…that’s too far. You’ve taken this too far, God. That’s my safe place. That’s my haven. But He continued to draw me and really assure me that following Him, my safety be would in Him, and my haven is in Him, not in my home.

I was doing student ministry…investing in kids in our community. You know, kind of arguing that, but my home…that’s too far. You’ve taken this too far, God. That’s my safe place. That’s my haven. But He continued to draw me and really assure me that following Him, my safety would be in Him, and my haven is in Him, not in my home.

And eventually there’s just this growing process and a little bit of tug of war with God, but eventually getting to a place. I was thinking the other day, my kids were watching the movie “Moana,” and I really related to Moana when she’s screaming at the ocean, trying to throw back this glowing stone. She’s like, “Pick someone else! I don’t want to do this anymore.” That was very relatable to me. However, this saying yes has always eventually ended in goodness and blessing and intimacy with the Lord.

Pastor Jason
So, take me to the first time that you said yest to foster care. Because as a single woman, I could imagine that that’s quite scary. You know, I’m just thinking of time and money and even perception.

Rachel Russo
So, in 2014, I was actually already in full-time vocational ministry here at First Baptist, and I kept feeling this prompting. I was seeing some other scenarios where foster care was playing out, and I kept felling this prompting to participate. I had a lot of resistance and a lot of very valid reasons why this probably wasn’t for me. I think one of the things was I argued with God a lot because my whole life is ministry. Like all week into the evenings, I was doing student ministry. I’m investing in kids in our community. You know, kind of arguing that, but my home…that’s too far. You’ve taken this too far, God. That’s my safe place. That’s my haven. But He continued to draw me and really assure me that following Him, my safety would in Him, and my haven is in Him, not in my home.

I remember saying, “Lord, I know that what you want is better. I know what you want for me is better. But what I want and where I’m at feels a lot safer; so, I’m cool with this.” I think I’m okay with it. It’s not really until that started to be too uncomfortable that I said, I mean, basically most of my yeses are just throwing my hands up and saying, “Fine!” It’s not this magical, spiritual moment. It’s like, “okay,” and then the supernatural starts to kind of show up where it’s “oh, this is where He’s working, and here I am with Him.”

Pastor Jason
And so you started foster care in 2014. Did you think that was going to be a long-term endeavor?

Rachel Russo
I wasn’t sure what it would be, but I said yes to the temporary. So, I said yes to I’m a foster only home where I am the middle person. So, if a child needs a temporary place, they can come to me, and then there’s two options. They either reunify with a biological family member and things get safe again and they get to go home, which we celebrate. Or I had at least six kids move into an adoptive home, where they move on to their permanent family, their forever family – the next thing. And so, I had a very hard permanent boundary with God. If you’ve been walking with Jesus for any amount of time, you may have experienced that He’s not the best at respecting your boundaries, so permanency did become a part of our story.

In 2018, no one was more shocked. No one was more shocked than me when I adopted my son, Lucas. There were a lot of fears and legitimate reasons why I shouldn’t have, this is probably not the best idea, Rachel. But the Lord just, this is His plan. And so, I in 2018 adopted Lucas and our family. That changed the course of our family, basically, because before that, it was me. And then we were a family.

Pastor Jason
Let me interject here. Think about this with me, right? Because we love Rachel’s obedience that you got into foster care because you know that Christians are called to care for and to serve the most vulnerable. But you went in with a temporary yes. Yes, God, I’ll be obedient thinking it’s for this season. And then four years later, you have adopted your son, Lucas. Now, you’re still working full-time for the church, and Vault is beginning to take off and that ministry, and as a single mom. I’m sure at that point in 2018, right after you adopted Lucas, you though, God is done stretching me now.

Rachel Russo
Yeah, this feels good. This feels good. Three months after Lucas’s adoption was finalized, we were settling into this is what our family looks like for now. I was working here at the church, and I was sitting in my office up top, and my cell phone rang. And it was a mystery caller, which I typically don’t answer mystery callers. I also told Jason I don’t recommend answering mystery callers.

Pastor Jason
It might be God calling.

Rachel Russo
Watch out for mystery callers. I answered the phone, and they said, “Is this the parent who has adopted Lucas?” And I said, “Yes, it is.” And she said, “I’m a caseworker and investigator for DFPS, and he has a sibling that was born.” Actually, I didn’t know if it was a boy or a girl at this point. She said, “This baby is in the hospital (I think he was seven days old) and needs to be discharged today. And we’re wondering if you would accept placement.” I can’t really explain that it was like everything became a blur at that point. I didn’t really hear much of what she was saying, but I was like, “Yes, of course, he’s our family.”

And then this flood of “what on earth did you just do?” And I said, “Wait! Can I call you back? I think I should probably process this before I just impulsively say yes.” And she said, “Yeah, you can call me back, but we need placement soon.” And I said, “Okay, I’ll call you back.”

There might still be worn carpet in that office because I started pacing and praying and saying, “Lord, you know, this was already a big deal to take one kid.” Do you guys know the cost of daycare? Just that alone, I was like, I can’t. I can’t. It’s impossible; I can’t do this. And I heard very clearly a message that I continue to repeat over and over. And the Lord said, “You don’t know what treasures I have for you. Just keep saying yes.”

So, we said yes to Jasper, and he’s permanent now. I have two adopted sons. But part of that message from the Lord, I took a little bit of my own interpretation in that moment to make it okay. I thought, okay, He must mean that the treasures He has for me is more income or a different housing situation or a different vehicle situation or a husband. That could be a treasure.

I had all these ideas of what that would look like, what the treasure would be. And as some days and weeks and months passed, I was trying to think of what to name him and word studying this word treasure. And in 2 Corinthians 4:7 says, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.” I think the assurance that the treasure is that I get Him, that I get to be a part of the work, that I get to be the vessel that He uses.

It didn’t have to be me. I didn’t have to say yes, but I got to. So, I think people frequently say, I know they say it to me, but I know to lots of foster parents or missionaries or people doing what looks to you to be an extraordinarily hard thing. I get told all the time, “I don’t know how you do it. You are amazing. You must have a special blessing from God. There’s something special about you.” You know, these phrases that we hear as foster parents. I frequently want to say, “I think that’s a cop out because I promise you there’s nothing special about me. The only difference between me and you is that I said yes.”

And I’m not saying that you need to say yes to foster care. In fact, some of you should not say yes to foster care. I make that clear. But I’m saying that we all have a thing that God is calling us to say yes to, and you should say yes because He is faithful in that. And I think it’s like a belief that we have that you have to be special to do the hard things. And it’s not. You just have to have Jesus – that’s it.

Pastor Jason
So, in reality, that’s the gospel call. Right? The good news of the Gospel is not only that Jesus has died in my stead and resurrected for my sins, but that the Gospel calls us into our own death. Jesus says, “Anyone who wishes to follow after me must take up his cross daily to follow me.” Because with Jesus, death is always followed by resurrection. That is the resurrected life in us. That’s what this verse ten said. It is, “We die so that the resurrected life of Christ may shine through us,” and that God is calling us deeper as Christians, deeper into the Gospel.

And as you stated, you now have two sons, and you named your second son Jasper because that means treasure. Jasper means treasure. Since adopting those two boys, you’ve left First Baptist (I haven’t forgiven you for that) to go to Vault full-time. So, she’s at Vault full-time, and recently you just received another phone call.

Rachel Russo
Yes. When Jason asked me a couple of weeks ago, “Hey. Would you share a testimony of when you said yes? I know you’ve even recently said a big yes. Would you share that?” And I said, “Yeah, I could do that. But it might be depressing because it’s a hard season right now.” I wish I could say that saying yes to some hard things, like once you get past saying the yes that it gets easy or it’s a cakewalk after that; you just got to say the yes. And then it’s all good.

We got another call. It’s basically déjà vu, another call, another baby, another son in our home who likely will become permanent. And it has not been as easy as I thought it would be to transition. Like I told Jason, I might not have a lot of positive things to say about the hard parts of saying yes, but I do have a lot of hopeful things to say.

We’ve been at my house playing this song over and over in the house, in the car. My brain just was like, you’re a liar, Rachel, because the song you’ve really been playing is “This Girl is on Fire” because that’s Jasper’s favorite song, and he asks you to play it all the time. So, second to that sing is Maverick City Music has a song called “Firm Foundation.” Some of the lyrics say, “I’ve still got joy and chaos, I’ve got peace that makes no sense. I won’t be going under. I’m not held by my own strength because I’ve built my life on Jesus, and He’s never let me down. He’s faithful through every season. So why would He fail now?” It says, He won’t. And that is the hopeful peace that I know He won’t fail me. But not even will He not fail me, He will be gentle and tender with me in the process. When it sucks, when it’s hard, when I’m angry or when I’m grieving, He is very patient.

And He brings me back to this verse, “the treasure is that you won’t be crushed, Rachel. You’ll be challenged, you’ll be stretched, but I didn’t bring you here to crush you.” So, we are very hopeful in this season because of what He’s done in the past. I have full assurance and full confidence that He will make this beautiful and show His glory and manifest His life through our surrender and our yes.

Pastor Jason
Amen. So, what would you say to someone here today who might be in a scary season where they sense that God is calling them to step out in courageous faith, but the cost is scary, and they don’t know how it’s going to turn out?

Rachel Russo
I was just thinking about that as I was listening to the other stories because I would encourage you. God didn’t ask me in 2014 to adopt three kids, to say yes to that. He didn’t take me all the way there. It was baby steps along the way. Yes, that felt huge saying yes to foster care. It felt like my whole life is getting wrecked, but now foster care is like, I just do that. That’s just the thing I do. I don’t do it without the power of Jesus because it’s hard. But I think that God’s going to call you into it. He’ll ease you into it, I guess.

I was thinking for some people, thinking about the family from our church – they’re serving. Their whole family uprooted, brought to Africa. But God might just be asking you to show up to a lunch after church to learn about a mission trip. He’s not saying pack up and move to Africa unless He is.

I’m not going to pretend to know what God’s telling you, but I think He is going to ask us to do baby steps. Maybe it’s not foster care, but maybe it is volunteering for a Parents Night Out so a foster parent can have a break. That’s a huge yes for some of you guys.

I think for some people, He might be saying, “I want some of your finances. You haven’t surrendered that to me. You haven’t given that to me.” Then for others, He’s saying, “You’re really good at writing checks, but I got something else for you.” You know? So, it’s going to be different for all of us.

It’s really leaning in. It’s just that surrender piece. My encouragement would be that you can trust Him with your yes. He will be gentle with you. He will be patient with you. He will carry you through. The fear is not from Him, and it really is not legitimate.

Pastor Jason
Amen. Beloved, I want you to think about this. Think about all the testimonies we’ve heard this morning. Remember Acts 1:8, “And you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you; power to be witnesses.” Whether that’s at work or in your home or serving here on campus. Or like Mike on a mission trip on the other side of the world; or Rachel, with foster care, you can hear these testimonies.