Welcome back to the Collide Kids Podcast! Join host, Christen Clark, as she talk to the inspiring Melissa MacDonald. Melissa is an author, speaker, and children's ministry leader, who shares her moving experiences with foster care, adoption, and her life-long devotion to advocacy for children. We also dive into what's "good" about Good Friday and the celebration of Easter, sprinkled with some talk about the absolute best Easter candies. Melissa also talks about her compelling book, "Discipling World Changers," filled with insights on raising kind, brave, and loving kids to become active participants in their faith. This episode is not just a conversation, it’s a call to action for parents and ministers to nurture the next generation of world changers, equipped to live out their faith boldly. So gather your family, tune in, and let's collide with faith, laughter, and stories that empower us to disciple our children. Let's raise a generation to change the world, together on the Collide Kids Podcast! Happy Easter!
Kids Only Segment featuring Tucker!
Special thanks to our editor Jay Lee from Provision Pods.
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The Importance of Foster Care: "Okay, so foster care is something that people can do to give kids a home who don't have a safe home to be in. And so oftentimes we have kids that are in homes that aren't safe, whether mom and dad aren't financially able to take care of them or emotionally able or whatever, or the state has come in and said, this is just not a safe home because mom and dad are making poor choices or wherever they're living. Oftentimes there's not a mom and a dad. And so what happens is those kids are taken out of their home, and they need a safe place to be while mom and dad or mom or dad or grandma or whoever it is, kind of works on themselves."
— Melissa MacDonald [00:07:58 → 00:08:36]
Unexpected Joy in Foster Care Adoption: "So we got a call about two and a half years ago about a seven year old boy. Would you be interested in taking him? And it went against the odds of everything we were told. Everybody said, oh, you'll get a sibling set, so you'll get a brother and a sister or three brothers or seven. And we were told, too, we would get a younger one. Like, look for a baby. We had a crib and all of that. And then we got a call about the seven year old boy, and they called us because he loved to go to church, and so they wanted to put him in a home where he could go to church, and so we prayed about it."
— Melissa MacDonald [00:09:14 → 00:09:44]
Raising Transformational Generations: "what if we raise up a generation that changes the world instead of the world changing them?"
— Melissa MacDonald [00:12:43 → 00:12:48]
Finding Grace in Imperfection: "Like, we just serve a God who can make beauty out of a fragile clay jar. And I love that picture. I love that reminder, because I am mess up all the time, all the time. And I love that idea that actually, in my mess ups, we serve a God who, out of chaos, brings order and brings beauty."
— Melissa MacDonald [00:16:21 → 00:16:38]
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