From Child Abuse to Helping Foster Girls Find Their Way

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Let's get into the story. Here's Becky. If I hugged my mother and said, I love you, mama. She would push me away and say, I really wish you had never been born. She slept a lot. She stayed in bed a lot.

She took a lot of valium, but when she was awake and kind of engaged, she was just violently abusive. There were five of us kids, and I was the second to the youngest. Oftentimes, even though we did receive assistance from the government, which is why we didn't starve to death, we would still go days without eating. I don't remember if it was once a month or quarterly or what it was.

We'd have to go visit the social worker at the courthouse. Before we did that, though, that morning, my mother would make sure we were bathed and our hair was clean and our bodies were clean, our clothes were clean. She would give us a spoonful of dry oatmeal and a drink of milk so that when we went to the social worker's office and she said, what did you have for breakfast?

I would say oatmeal and milk. Doesn't that sound wholesome? Strangely enough, she had favorites. My baby brother and my sister that was just a year older or just five years older than me were the two kids that she probably doted over, I would say.

Then myself and my other sister, she did not. She was very physically abusive. Oftentimes, if she was feeling frustrated or angry, whether it be at me or somebody else, she would have me stripped down to my underwear and have me get up on a bed and she put a box fan in the window.

And for the longest time, I did not understand that. I thought she did that to drown out my cries and my screams, but she did it because she was hot while she was doing it. She would sweat and wipe the sweat from her brow while she was doing it and then she'd pick back up.

There were times when I would pass out while she was doing this and I would come to and she was resting and she would just stand up and get at it again. We were a sight. We were poor. We were dirty. We were hungry.

So the kids, I'm sure we were all malnourished, including my mother. And I'll never forget, we were we were walking. We were walking to town and I was sitting on top of the dirty clothes and a wagon. We were walking to the laundromat and this big fancy car drives by us and this lady's got her hair piled up as high as it could be.

I just remember it vividly. She turned around and she came back and said, where are you guys headed? And my mother said, we're going to the laundromat and she said, well, why don't I give you a ride? And she just loaded up us and our mess and our filth and our just so much dysfunction. She did that and then she began to take us to church and I remember her feeding us that day and just such a such a powerful memory as a little girl and I went to church and I learned about Jesus and then I really truly began to believe I was his favorite. I saw him as my Abba as my father and so when my mother would go off on these tangents where she would just really unleash her anger and frustration on me as a little girl, she would hit until she was too tired to go on and she was just physically exhausted and she would stand up and take a deep breath and just let it like.

And she would just walk away almost like she was defeated. It was so interesting as an adult who's been like the Lord has healed and I have freedom and the forgiveness that I've given her and it's very different when I think about it in that perspective as a little girl. I didn't understand it all and I thought I was a horrible kid.

I thought I was going to hell. I thought I was demon possessed at times cuz she would always scream and say there were demons in me and she was gonna beat him out of me and and so as a little girl, you can there's a lot of you know battle going on in my own head even as a child and so she would walk away very defeated as if she was very defeated and go lay down in a another room and I would listen for her deep breathing knowing that she had gone to sleep and then I'd get up my body still shaken with sobs and I would put my clothes back on and I would go out in the backyard and I would lay in the grass or I would swing and if I was swinging, I would pretend that I was jumping out of the swings into the arms of my dad of the Lord and there were times when I would lay in the backyard in the grass and I would be like talking to the Lord and going you know God someday I would really like a new mom and dad and some new brothers and sisters and then while I'm talking about like while I'm asking dad, I'd really like some horses too and when I was probably about 11 years old, my sister who had run away and she again she's only 5 years older than me. So if I'm 11, she's what 1516 she had been a prostitute, which she was just a child, but she had been trafficked and came home and she began to I watched her rebel against my mother and so I began to rebel with her and then I went into this world that was and it's it is truly the grace of God that I was not trafficked.

I started getting involved with you know a little bit of drugs and just different things like that and this feisty old social worker that I used to have to go see as a child who I was dreadfully afraid of began to get involved in my life again. I did not like her one bit. I thought she was a hateful old hag and I was so I was now so thankful for her. Mrs. Brewer began to get involved and she would have police come and pick me up from things and put me in jail and then she'd come see me and all the police officers would bring me snacks and be like, Holly, I can't imagine my kid being in jail at your age and I bet your mom's worried sick. No, she wasn't worried.

Well, the social worker feisty old lady. She plucked me out of there and she took me to children's home in Oklahoma and I was both thrilled and terrified cuz of the unknown. I remember driving up. I was it was on a Wednesday in the summer of like I think 1981 and then I remember going out to the playground. Of course, everybody's wanting to know who the kid is, the new kid is and everybody's talking to me and excited cuz there's somebody new and then I hear something off in the distance and I'm like, what is that noise and as it gets closer, I look up and it's a man on a horse and it would be years later that I realized that in my backyard as I cried and tears still drying on my cheeks and sob still shaking my body and I asked God for a new mom and dad and new brothers and sisters and oh, by the way, can I have some horses too?

He gave all that to me and so I thrived in that setting. I played sports and I did great in school. I remember making 100 on my first spelling test and going, you know, who knew I was smart like who knew I could spell. I graduated in 1988 and when I graduated from high school, the issue was is you can't stay at the children's home when you were finished. You had to literally you're aging out. You're going somewhere else and so I knew I couldn't go home. I didn't have I had tried to go home at one point my junior year. I went back to my mother.

Nobody met me at the bus station. I was seventeen years old went to the town I grew up in, but it had been years since I've been there. It was middle of the night. I got dropped off at this, you know in this town in the dark terrified called a friend who I randomly remembered their phone number. They came and picked me up in the middle of the night. Thank God and then took me to this motel when my mother was staying and she said. Why are you here?

What do you want? I mean I was still a kid just like what do you want and so I ended up placing myself back at that children's home and then a year and a half later. I graduated from high school, but I chose a Christian college because my house mom, my foster mom was like adamant that I go to a Christian college and not a secular school and so I ended up by Christmas pregnant and married in that order and at Bible College. That is like you know and you're listening to Becky Schafer share her story and no wonder she has such a heart for young people aging out of the foster system. Her story is just harrowing. I wish you'd never been born.

Her mom would tell her when she would say I love you mama and yet there's that grace that woman in that car who showed that grace and that love introduced to the church to the Lord. When we come back, we continue with Becky Schafer story here on our American stories. Get ready. Xfinity Flex has unlocked shows and movies from all over the globe and you can watch for free right from your couch. Journey to Japan with shows from Anime Network. Go back to the Wild West with Billy the Kid and other MGM Plus picks.

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This deal won't be around forever, so get yourself to Walmart today. And we continue with our American stories and with Becky Shafer's story. She's the founder of Saving Grace, an organization that helps young women aging out of the foster care system. When we last left off, Becky was describing her horrible childhood and left off with a story about how she wanted to be a doctor. She said, you know, I'm a doctor. I'm a doctor. I'm a doctor. I'm a doctor. I'm a doctor. I'm a doctor. I'm a doctor. I'm a doctor. I'm a doctor.

I'm a doctor. She left off telling us that after she went to college, she got pregnant, married to her husband, Kent, and by Christmas in that order. That wasn't the only big thing that would happen during that time period, though, and the next big thing would lead to the creation of Saving Grace. Let's return to the story here again is Becky Shafer. We've been married for maybe a year and a half and decided we wanted to be foster parents, so we went into child care at that point and I've gone back to our foster girls. We've mostly just had girls in our home, but I've gone back to them and said, I'm so sorry cuz I bet I was a wreck. I'm sure of it. Like I had so much trauma that I was dealing with and then I was dealing with their trauma.

I'm sure I did not do that again. I was dealing with their trauma. I'm sure I did not do that exactly right, but as we were as we were fostering, we began to see this trend that was there the whole time. I just hadn't seen it of these girls leaving our home and doing exactly what I did when I went to college most of the time getting pregnant most of the time ending up in a situation where they have zero supports and so in about 2006, the Lord began to plant the seed in my heart that I was supposed to do this and I don't even know what this was.

I just knew that it I remember not understanding how could I have gone through this and not figure this out for these kids. You know people want to harp on foster care. They wanna harp on the system. They wanna gripe about DHS and all they're not doing and but the truth is these are just people. These are just human beings doing jobs and they are over run. Their plates are full. They're going home devastated about whatever story they had to hear that day that is unspeakable.

They're sleeping in their offices with these children leaving their own kids at home. It's a really messed up system and so we just started praying and asking God for wisdom and we just went okay. We're gonna do something different. I begin to put information like I would watch a movie or I'd read a book, try to research what's happening to kids when they age out and honestly there was almost no information into it in 2006. You could find transitional living programs for adults with special needs, but there was nothing for kids that were aging out of the foster care system. So I just began to research and I put things in this file that I kept called Rebecca's Hope and thought one day we're gonna do something. I'll be able to glean from all these things that I've learned and we moved in 2008. We moved to Northwest Arkansas and it was a wild and crazy time. My time there in 2007, I began to tell the truth about some sexual abuse that I had endured as a child.

Oh my goodness. I was tired. I was weary and I remember asking the Lord before we moved. Lord, can I have a sabbatical and I didn't really know what that meant.

I'm a two seven on the Enneagram and so like I'm an enthusiastic helper. So if I'm gonna teach Sunday school, we're gonna have a party every week. I mean like that's just who I am and so he put my heart like he just put some slumber on my soul.

I did not get involved at our church. We would sit on the back row at that church that we began to attend and both Kent and I would would just cry. People talk about going to church and leaving your armor at the door and letting the Lord, you know, spiritually work out the dents and you know, I don't even know if we had any armor left. Anyway, my daughter, our middle daughter who is autistic and an incredible artist had made a clay figure for me back in 2007 when I told the truth about this abuse that I had and she called this little clay figure of this woman who was down on her knees with her arms stretched up towards heaven.

She called her courage and so one day and this was still in 2008 in October of 2008. I remember in October going Lord like when am I gonna know when my sabbatical is over? When am I gonna know when I'm supposed to start getting involved again and I had done nothing about saving grace at all. Just nothing and so I'm laying on my bed.

I don't know. I was probably watching TV. My middle child comes in and she goes, hey, mom and she starts talking to me just about stuff going on at school. She's in middle school and and I finally just said, sweetie, you gotta go to bed and she's autistic. So she's very, you know, she's scattered. She's ADHD and she's an amazing young woman and I'm trying to get her to leave my room and she turns around one more time and I'm by this time, I'm like going, I'm gonna get up like if you don't get in my room, I'm gonna get up, push you out the door and shut it. She goes, wait, mom, wait, just wait a minute and she walks over to my dresser and she picks up that little clay figure and she goes, mom, your courage is covered in cobwebs.

You need to dust it off. She put it down and walked out and it was like a moment where the Holy Spirit made eye contact with me and I knew it was time to get up. I remember at the beginning, it was January of 2009 and I had been working at Hobby Lobby for minimum wage at part-time in the fabric department and we were, we had a family of five. We didn't have much money and he was sitting down with me. Our kids were already off to school and we were having coffee and he said, you know, Sweetie, what do you think you wanna do with your life? And I was like, what do you mean?

And he said, well, we really can't afford for you to like cut fabric at Hobby Lobby anymore part-time for minimum wage and I was like, oh, well, remember I'm doing this thing called Saving Grace and he goes, that's gonna take like 5 years to get up off the ground. We don't have a 501 C3. We're not incorporated. We don't have a board.

We don't know anybody. We just moved here and what was incredible wasn't at the time I actually cried but he said, I need you to figure out what you wanna do. If you wanna, if we wanna do this thing, you can work on that, you know, like over here on the side but if you wanna go to school, maybe I'll support you in that and I just said, could you just pray and ask God that if this is what I'm supposed to do that he'll send us a sign and it'll be real obvious. So, my realest husband said yes and he bowed his head and with his tongue in his cheek, said, oh, by the way, Lord, could you please send us a sign, wink, wink, if Becky's supposed to do this. I went to work that day and this lady at the fabric counter was talking to me and and I began to kinda share some ideas about centerpieces for her. She was doing a retirement thing for her husband and so I was telling her how I knew how to do these things and where I worked at this children's home and had done events and didn't have a budget. So, if I wanted flowers, I picked them and she started saying, well, I helped start an organization that helped when children have been victims of abuse and so I was like, oh, well, I wanna do this thing called Saving Grace and I began to tell her about this. She was my very first customer that day and she was like, oh my goodness, you have to do this. So, she started writing down names and numbers and you know, emails and all of that and I was just like, Lord, like, I can't believe you just like that quick you sent me a sign that fast. Well, I was floating around the department, fabric department until I went on my lunch break and I go on my lunch break and I'm like, see this lady walk in and I'm like, I'm still kinda happy and then I was like, oh no, I've messed up her fabric. I've done something. It's the lady that had written down all those names and numbers and she said, no, you didn't do anything wrong.

Sit back down. I need to tell you something. I said, okay and she said, I was at another store and the Holy Spirit really pressed upon me that I was supposed to get this for you and she said, I had somebody get a ladder and get it down and she handed me a four foot long sign that said Amazing Grace. It literally last year dawned on me and Kent that the Lord sent a sign for me and then my husband needs a two by four. He literally got a two by four sign that he asked for and we started taking steps of faith to go toward making this happen. That was January 6 of 2009. By November of 2009, we were ready to open, fully funded for the year, fully furnished in an 8,000 square foot former convent.

We'll fast forward to now, we have over 150 applicants a year. So, if there's a dream that God's putting in your heart, just write it down. Go for it. The story of saving grace, the story of Becky Schaefer, and so many other kids who need the love of strangers here on Our American Stories.

Get ready. Xfinity Flex has unlocked shows and movies from all over the globe and you can watch for free right from your couch. Journey to Japan with shows from Anime Network. Go back to the wild west with Billy the Kid and other MGM Plus picks. Celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month with hits from Kukawa and Haya. And break out your dance moves with iHeart Radio's K-Pop Hits playlist. Find new entertainment on Xfinity Flex.

All for free, no strings attached. Stay free this week into your Xfinity voice remote. State Farm is committed to being your top choice when ensuring the things that matter to you. Michael Tura podcast host, Dramos, also believes in the power of financial knowledge. That's why he makes sure to share his financial tips on his podcast, Life as a Gringo.

Financial freedom usually means having enough savings, financial investments, and cash on hand to afford the kind of life we desire for ourselves and our families. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Learn more at es.statefarm.com. State Farm is a proud partner of the Michael Tura podcast network. With so many streaming devices out there today, what sets Roku apart? Roku players are made for one thing, to get you the entertainment you want quick and easy. That means a simple home screen with your favorites front and center, channels like iHeart Radio that launch in a snap, and curated selections of TV for when you only sort of know what to watch. Not to mention all the free TV you can stream, including over 300 free live channels on the Roku channel. Find the perfect Roku player for you today at Roku.com. Happy streaming!