Ready for a recap of our amazing year, full of highs and lows? Which basically makes it the same as everyone else’s recaps of 2020. But ours is different! We promise.

And, we recorded this episode on December 30th, 2020, with the intentions of releasing it the next day… Well, here we are almost 3 weeks later! Gotta love those good intentions! We are going to go ahead and blame after-shock of 2020 on this one.

But welcome to season 7!

We had an absolutely incredible season 6, and we are so thankful for all of the new listeners who joined us on our journey this last year.

This episode talks about some of our favorite books and episodes from this year. We hope you enjoy it!

Some things we mentioned in this episode:

• DISC assessment Do you know your letter? Share it with us! Chris is a High I and Jihae is an S. We are both ‘accepting and warm’ apparently – which is great 🙂
• Michael Jordan Trifecta – Jihae is Michael Jordan. Chris is Phil Jackson. That probably makes Cate Scotty Pippen! If you watched The Last Dance on Netflix or ESPN, then you know what we are talking about. Michael Jordan wasn’t a nice guy. But he got things done. That’s Jihae. Really working on the nice part though…
• BekandKev.com was a website that Jihae built on Showit, using an Elizabeth McCravy website template. (They were also on our podcast, and we talk about them often, as they adopted our foster daughter Evie!)
• Jihae started her journey as a foster care instructor through CFC.
• Look at each others’ hearts! A great team/community involves many different people of many different walks of life and perspectives

Recap of Amazing Books We Read

We LOVED reading/listening to these biographies this year – “Greenlight” by Matthew McConaughey, “Born a Crime” by Trevor Noah, “That Mean Old Yesterday” by Stacey Patton (by a former foster youth), “Real American” by Julie Lythcott Haims, and “Becoming” by Michelle Obama. Almost all of them were read by the authors, so definitely worth the listen.

We also read Candace Owens’ book, and we really appreciated reading books by two powerful black women in politics who come from opposite sides. We encourage everyone to be friends with, and have regular conversations with people who don’t agree with you on every point! It’s good for both of you! And for society as a whole!

Chris LOVED ‘Team of Teams’ and really LOVED ‘Emma’ by Jane Austen. It’s amazing what a serious escape it is to read books not from this era. If you want to join our Jane Austen Book Club, we are thinking of starting one – with Chris as the president!

Jihae really enjoyed Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together In The Cafeteria by Beverly Tatum, and One More Thing by BJ Novak (from The Office) but do not listen to that with kids nearby!

You can check out this other episode where we reviewed books we read! A recap of our amazing year wouldn’t be complete without a review of the books that we read. Chris and I both ended up with over 30! We are always open to book suggestions, so share yours with us in the comments below!

Recap of Amazing Podcasts We Enjoyed

Basically every podcast episode we recorded this year were our faves for different reasons!

Foster Care Episodes

We met Gaelin Elmore and his wife this year, and he was on episodes 86 and 87, and he shared about his journey as a former foster youth. As did my friends, Monica, in episode 107, and Wendy in Episode 100.  

We loved interviewing Justice James Beene in episode 108, as he talked about being a judge on the family and juvenile bench for several years. Kirsten Abiatti, from Arizona127 also shared how you can get licensed in Arizona right now!

More Episodes

Davey Jones on episode 99 shared how to start and maintain a podcast! A question we get asked very often! You can also watch that interview on YouTube. Our sister Lindsay on building community in your neighborhood in episode 104. Dr. Ray Branton on episodes 97 and 98 talking about marriage and anxiety respectively.

Some of our highs from this year were that we officially became a family of 9 through adoption. Chris was promoted at work, and Jihae delivered a good talk at United Apart (that you can watch on our YouTube Channel!)

The Good Word of the Day

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ⁴ ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Revelation 21:3-4

One of our greatest accomplishments in 2020 was reading the whole Bible! If you want to do this – just download the Bible App and download a plan to do it – and stick to the plan! You can get the Bible read to you, so you can listen to the Bible while you drive or exercise or do the dishes! There’s always time to read the Bible.

Our Recap of Amazing Sponsors

We are so thankful for our sponsors from this year – Showit, and Charles and Grace, and Keller-Gibbs Realty Team!

If you would like to be a sponsor of our podcast, we would love that! You can check out this page about becoming one. You can be a part of the recap of an amazing year for 2021!

If you would like to connect:

Fostering Voices on Instagram

You can also email us at hello@fosteringvoices.com 

AND we would LOVE it if you would SUBSCRIBE and leave us a review on iTunes! This helps others to find our podcast so we can share these voices from the foster care and adoption community with more people!

If you want to see how to leave a review, check out this handy little video! We really hope you enjoyed this little recap of our amazing year, and that you will stick around to journey with us through 2021!