Conversation - with Nicole Bowman - Hope Bridge

In this episode of Kingdom Conversations, Pastor Robby sits down with Nicole Bowman from Hope Bridge, a ministry dedicated to supporting foster families, adoptive parents, and single mothers throughout Ohio.

Nicole shares the heart behind Hope Bridge and how their team is working to disrupt cycles of dysfunction through practical care, spiritual encouragement, and community support. From providing essential resources and respite care to creating awareness and mobilizing local churches, Hope Bridge is helping families experience hope and stability in the middle of difficult circumstances.

Drawing from her own experience as a foster care provider, Nicole offers powerful insight into the importance of support systems for foster families and explains why foster care is ultimately about reunification, healing, and restoration whenever possible.

You’ll also hear practical ways anyone can get involved — because while not everyone is called to foster, everyone can do something.

This is a meaningful conversation about compassion, community, and how the Church can reflect the heart of God to vulnerable children and families.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to the Church of the Lakes Podcast, where our mission is connecting all to Christ, to become healthy in God and courageous in love. In 2026, we're emphasizing a kingdom mindset in all of our ministries and missions by being more like Jesus and our cultural in our living. Today's podcast highlights one of our ministry partners, Hope Bridge. Hope Bridge is an advocate for change in the Ohio foster care system by mobilizing churches into action and equipping communities to serve. We work heavily with single moms, foster care families, and support children through the transition out of foster care. Let's join Pastor Robbie as he interviews Hope Bridge's foster care program and engagement manager, Nicole Bowman. Be blessed.

SPEAKER_03 0:55

Welcome into another Kingdom Conversation. Pastor Robbie here, and today I'm so excited because we are sitting down with the amazing Nicole Bowman from Hope Bridge. And Hope Bridge has been just an outstanding, amazing, you know, layer on the adjective, part of our foster care ministries here at church. As you've heard in the introduction already, Hope Bridge, with the power of the Holy Spirit, is doing great things to disrupt dysfunction, cycles of dysfunction here in Northeast Ohio, across Ohio in general. Nicole's a part of this powerful team that offers a variety of services and initiatives to local churches that empower not only foster families, but single mothers and adoptive parents also. And that empowerment sometimes includes providing items for physical, emotional, or spiritual needs and support. It may be respite care, it may be creating just awareness in her own circle of influence. But Nicole, welcome in the Kingdom Conversations.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so glad to be here today.

SPEAKER_03 1:55

Yeah, Nicole, for anyone who might be learning about Hope Ridge for the first time, let's kind of start from the beginning a little bit. Can you tell us a little bit about what Hope Ridge is and what you do, what's your goals, your mission, your focus, so on and so forth.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Yeah, so Hope Ridge is a nonprofit that's here locally that seeks to make an impact on the Ohio child welfare system. And we seek to do that through intervention, prevention, and restoration. And uh we wholeheartedly believe that it's the church that's called to care for the orphan and the widow and the vulnerable. And so our mission is gospel-led, and we believe in bringing the churches on board to help us with this um this journey of impacting the child welfare system. Um, we have a single moms program, and that is really our prevention side of things. So we have direct services where we have a single mom's housing program, we have support groups, we have uh resources that we offer our single moms, and our hope really is to prevent kids from going into the foster care system. Our intervention piece of things is our foster adoptive and kinship support uh program. And we do a variety of things such as social events, support groups, trainings, and things of that nature. And then we have our aged out youth program that's currently being developed, and that is the most challenging piece of this journey for us is because um there in Ohio a thousand kids age out of the foster care system every year without any supports. Um, and it's just a very broken system. And so we have our direct services in each of those spaces, but a huge piece of what Hope Ridge does is work with churches, equipping them and mobilizing them to make an impact.

SPEAKER_03 3:43

That's that's amazing. Yeah, I I I love the way that you aren't just focused on the intervention part, but the prevention part as well, and then after as well, because to be honest with you, so many times when people think about the foster care system, they forget about not necessarily the trauma that's happened before, but that the trauma so often just continues on and on and on. And anything that as a congregation, churches can do to help disrupt that dysfunction, you know, we need to be empowered to do so, right? Yeah. So, what are some of the things that you like to do to partner with churches so that they can be a part of disrupting the cycles?

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Yeah, so we don't want to come in and take over and and you know, and that's a huge piece of what we do, is just actually our job and our hope is to walk alongside churches. And so we will meet with a church and kind of just talk through like what what are the strengths of your church? Where is because really there are so many ways for churches to step in. Um, we don't believe everybody should do it all, but we all can do something, right? I love that. And so when we work with a church, what are your passions? What is the heart of your congregation? Uh, where are what are their goals? And so um a church can step in and do by doing service projects. Sometimes those are the easiest on-ramps for churches who don't maybe have a lot of um capacity. Um, but really the heart of it is just helping churches to learn how to sustainably wrap around families. And this could be wrapping around families who are currently fostering or who have adopted, or even families who are vulnerable. So prime primary families, families who their children had been in care or children could be at risk for going into foster care, how to how to wrap around them. And a lot of churches just don't know how to do that in a sustainable way. Um, you know, it's not good for man to be alone. And what we are learning in general that our society is full of generational poverty or relational poverty, generational too, but yeah, absolutely relational poverty is a huge thing uh within our society, and just really coming alongside churches and helping them to be able to bring awareness to the fact that these families that are vulnerable, they need community. These families who are caring for vulnerable children, they need community. Um, and we all really need community. So, yeah, just equipping churches, giving them tools and resources to be able to wrap around families.

SPEAKER_03 6:05

Oh, that's incredible. Uh, you know, and we've modeled a lot of our Grace 68 ministry off of Hope Bridge because we have felt a sense for a long time that while Royal Family Kids Camp is an incredible week in which we go love on kids, we provide respite care, of course, logistically for foster care parents, but by bringing 60 or so kids down to a camp, we can help um expand their horizons a little bit because certainly a foster care camp needs to be more equipped to handle with kids with trauma. Yeah, but like one week out of 52, right? Yeah. And we've had a lot of people want to know, I want to do more. And we struggled uh as a church to kind of figure out how to implement that. So I know Pastor Jared was really inspired, moved by the spirit to engage with Hope Bridge because you gave us an avenue to create a support structure that allowed parents to consider fostering, know that they had a support group behind them. Just for uh, for instance, you know, we're blessed enough to house a support group here uh uh, you know, I think I believe it's once a month, but you know, where people within our own congregation or within our own wider community um can go to your website, they can sign up, and they can come here to help get that support system that they need, even if it's just you know, respite care for a little bit, and then they can talk about what it means to foster with other people who actually know what it's like. And that's why I'm so curious. Like, Nicole, you're burying the lead here a little bit. You know what it's like to foster, don't you? Can you tell us a little bit about how that background has helped uh create the movement towards Hope Ridge a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 7:48

Yeah, so my husband and I became licensed foster parents in 2016, and a huge piece of that was so that we could step in and wrap around the biological family of the children we were caring for. So it to us to me it was very missional when we started. Um, but once you get into it, man, you really see the the gaps and the brokenness of the system. You have a front row seat and just the reality of the fact that there is not a lot of hope for these families, you know, who maybe have lost their children to foster care and and the lack of support for families who are caring for these children. And so it was very organic how we started. I I didn't intend to ever have a job again. You know, it was one of those things where um you see a need and there was nobody fulfilling that need in our area. And so we just really started um part of us around my kitchen table, just a group of foster moms who met once a month and started seeing these needs in our community. And so we kind of launched a really small ministry out of my home church at that at the time, just serving families, you know, delivering bags when they received a placement. We were very much uh word of mouth. We didn't partner with anybody in any great way. It was just created a social media page and some generic Google forms and people could fill out a request and or text me, and and I would just show up with my two kids in bags of uh items that they needed at the placement. And um, you know, those items were important to have good quality items when you receive a placement, but really the biggest key to what I was offering was relationship, and I would show up and give them my phone number and say, like, I see you and and I get this. If you need anything, call me.

SPEAKER_03 9:33

Well, it's uh Nicole, it's so cool to see because like so oftentimes we tell our own congregation here that um sometimes you have to remove physical hurdles to allow people to hear the word of God.

SPEAKER_04 9:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:45

Like, so when we serve others, sometimes you have to, you know, feed them first so that they're in the right state of mind to be able to, and like of course, like uh I just heard you say, like, yes, it's important to show up with the bag to help support with physical needs, but like it's the emotional spiritual side that's just as important, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:03

Super important, and and we're learning, especially as we're working with kinship families, so families who are relative caregivers um who weren't planning on doing foster care, right? But their kids, maybe their grandchildren needed a place to stay and they're with them now. Um, a lot of times they have a lot of physical needs, but they really just want to be heard and seen because it's so isolating and they're so alone. Um and again, it goes back to that whole that relational poverty that we have here in our society of being isolated and alone. And and when you step into someone's space and you say, I'm here and I see you, that makes a world of difference on many, many levels. And so the church itself, you can step into the lives of people who are vulnerable, who are caring for vulnerable children just by showing up and saying, I see you. You don't have to have all the answers because I certainly didn't have them and I still don't have them. Um, but I can relate to what they're going through to some extent, and and that makes a huge difference.

SPEAKER_03 11:06

Yeah, and once again, like um, I have to admit my own ignorance when it comes to the foster care system. Like one of our foster families, we were having a long conversation, and they uh empowered me to learn that fostering the goal isn't always adoption at the end of the road. There's this magical moment with the healing of the spirit through our father where reunification in a stable and safe environment is possible, and that's our prayer. And like for people maybe who don't understand why it's so important with a kinship placement, is that kids are still associated with their family and adjacent to their family and that support structure that a lot of us take for granted? I know I take it for granted every year how close my family have been. Now that both of my sisters have moved somewhat farther away, they've kind of lost that kinship, you know, ability to tie in. Can you kind of like how does Hope Bridge really um empower the reunification process? Like that you have so many amazing facilities where you, you know, people from the county can come in and help facilitate meetings uh with foster kids and their biological parents who they've been separated from. But maybe you could speak to the other avenues that that all that you also breathe life into that way.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

Yeah, so a lot of it really is just, you know, awareness and in in a lot of our groups and conversations and within our community, we have those conversations about biological family relationships and how important that is for the foster parents to really just engage with a biological family and support them. Because a lot of times when the children are reunified, if those families don't have any supports, which they usually didn't have support to begin with, which is how they ended up where they were at. Absolutely. Because if you think about us, like we are, you know we have a crisis in our life. We usually have family who was our safety net, and these family parents don't have that. And so we really do a lot of talking through about what does it look like to wrap around the families, to set boundaries. And that's you know, just something that has happened organically within our group of moms that started. Like, how how do you handle this relationship? How do we navigate that? You don't have to be afraid of these these parents who've lost their children. Many times they were children themselves in the system, you know, and if you can see them as somebody who's created in the image of God, who's somebody who maybe has never had the same chances that you had in life, and love them where they're at, and see them for who they could be through um through God, you know, through God, and just having that perspective and bringing awareness to maybe our podcast or through posts that we have, or again, through trainings that we have within our conference Mobilize Ohio, or just in conversations within our support groups, bringing that awareness of how to navigate um those biological family relationships, because that's crucial. And then a lot of times when kids are reunified, um you will have then now those families have a support system. They have you that foster parents. And and ideally, if a church is actively involved, it's not just that foster family that is now involved with the biological family and supporting them. It's all those other people who were wrapping around that family who can now still be a part of those ch children's lives and as well as the family.

SPEAKER_03 14:30

So incredible.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

Hopefully, we can like just bring other people in to wrap around these families, these vulnerable families, and love them like Jesus tells us too.

SPEAKER_03 14:40

It's so important, as you have said, endlessly in interviews, it's on your website, it's in it's everywhere. You your your phrase, your motto almost, and I hate to issue it that way, because I'm sure it's not the official motto of Hope Bridge, but it's like not everybody can do everything, but everybody can do something.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

For something, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 15:00

And and it's so encouraging to know that there are ways to wrap around people because not everyone's called to foster, right?

SPEAKER_04 15:07

Right.

SPEAKER_03 15:07

That that's certainly something that the spirit has to get behind and a discussion that happens logistically, and let alone, you know, we've already talked to Meredith, who talked about uh how long the process is, and and uh uh rightfully so, right?

SPEAKER_04 15:21

Right.

SPEAKER_03 15:21

But uh I'm I like what are some of the logistical things that people who feel the spirit ride now nudging them to get involved. What's something that's logistically someone can do to help support, whether that's here at Churchill Lakes or whether that's through Hope Bridge that they can get involved, you know, wrapping around these families that soever you know present need that is.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Yeah, so you could be part of like a care community that's wrapping around families by bringing a meal once a month to a family. You could offer to do laundry, you could offer to help transport kids to visits, or maybe even if it's not the children who are in foster care, maybe it's even helping with getting the biological kids in the home to their appointments and to their events or to their sporting events, because there's so many things that come into play when a family takes a child and and the amount of appointments, and um, but life still goes on. And so, or just even bringing a coffee to a mom who's staying at home with kids and and offering to let her go take a shower and you know, have a break for a minute. It could be offering to do child care during the support group, you know, for one night a month. It could be um offering to do child care at various times, you know, through at Hope Ridge, you know, when we do events for single moms or groups for single moms. There are just so many ways. There could be supporting social workers, it could be um sending cards to social workers and thanking them for their work. It could be just recognizing a foster family for the work that they do by sending them a gift card, sending them a letter, praying for them. There are just so many ways. Volunteering for royal families, kids' camp, you know, is so important and helpful. Um, yeah, there are many, many ways you can get involved. You can offer to take a bed to a family who's a kinship, you know, offering to take items to those families who may be receiving children into their home and they don't have those items. A bed, a crib, uh, donate those items, donate items to families. Um, we have a wish list, we we pack bags. You guys help us deliver bags to families at times of placement. Uh it could be helping to pack bags or deliver bags. Or, you know, there's just so many ways that you can get involved. Um, some that are just like ankle deep and some that are knee deep, or you can get all in and you can be a great support to a family, like by continually to walk beside them and mentoring them and their children.

SPEAKER_03 17:43

How about those that are feeling though the tug more of creating uh a foster care home that's gonna be a safe environment? Because certainly there's foster care homes uh that do not always um emphasize certain aspects that specifically like you know, I love how Pastor Jared always says it, like you guys are unapologetically Christian as an organization, and we want to partner with people and organizations that do that. Because to be honest with you, Nicole, you know, like you guys have formulated a network and a support system that we want to come alongside of because we don't, it's not a competition. Like we're trying to partner with other churches to help, and that's why we're so excited to get involved with mobilize Ohio here in just a little bit, because we're trying to encourage other churches to see, okay, we've gone ankle deep, we've tried to go knee deep. Here's some of the things that we've learned, and this is how Hope Bridge can empower you to take this because every church is a little bit different, right? And Mobilize Ohio kind of speaks to that difference and empowers different churches to have different abilities, right? Depending on what they're called to. Um, you know, that's why there's so many breakout sessions and stuff like that. And, you know, we're so uh proud that we've gone from one foster care family to seven over the course of just a few years, and like certainly it's nothing that we want to quote unquote pat ourselves on the back for, but we're trying to disrupt the cycles of function, dysfunction, right? So uh, but anyways, Nicole, uh, for those who are feeling the tug to foster, um, what encouragement would you give them uh in this moment as they're trying to discern what's best for them and their family?

SPEAKER_01 19:21

So I would say, you know, a lot of the hesitation is fear for all of us. I mean, because you know that what you're stepping into is is heavy. Um, and so we often will hear the phrase, or I like to use it. I heard someone say this once that when you invite people to do foster care, you're inviting them to wreck their lives for the sake of the gospel.

SPEAKER_02 19:42

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Um and ultimately, you know, we can sit down and talk about all the reasons why this isn't a good idea. Um But God goes towards the hurting and the broken and he jumps, you know, Christ came to the mess of this broken world and he calls us to do the same. And so I would say if there's hesitation and and the fear is just like, you know, it's gonna be really hard and it's gonna wreck your life. Yeah, you're right, it is, but I'll tell you it's gonna make you into something you would have never been unless you had stepped into foster care. And God's gonna really refine you and and mold you and break you, and he needs us to step into the mess, he needs us to go towards these hurting and broken children and families and be God's light to them because there is no hope outside of God. And so if you're wrestling with like, should I or should I not, I just want to bring you um some statistics. There are currently between Stark and Summit County, 1,800 kids in foster care currently, and only like about 260 families, and a lot of those are kinship families, and that and I don't say that in a way that's like it's amazing there's kinship families, but the fact is a lot of these kinship families are also borderline vulnerable, right? Meaning they're not stable, and at any moment they may say, I can't do this. And so really we do not have enough good families, we do not have enough families, and on top of that, not all the families who foster are um are good, you know, and so our standards are are kind of different than they used to be because we're they're desperate for families. So there is a huge, huge need. There's a huge need. Um there's these kids, I don't know, there is no reason with the amount of churches and the amount of believers that we have, that there's children who have no safe place to go.

SPEAKER_03 21:30

We gotta bridge the gap for the least, the last, the last year.

SPEAKER_01 21:33

We have to, we have to. It's our calling as the church. Um, and so our goal is to bring awareness that there is a need for families to step in. And I pray if somebody is just hesitant because of fear, um that they reach out and have conversation with somebody who's in this space already and and and just talk through those fears and know that and that's what I love about Church of the Lakes. That's what I love about partnering with churches who get it. We want to bring awareness and say, step in. But you don't just call them to step in and then leave them.

SPEAKER_04 22:03

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Like this is part of the problem. Some churches will be really like care for the vulnerable, care for the least of these. They'll have Orphan Sunday. They'll bring awareness and we want that. We need to bring awareness. But then you step in and they're in the trenches, and you're like, Where's my church? Where's my church? So yeah, invite your congregation to step in, but not just step in, say, we're going to support you and wrap around you. And in doing so, we're going to be the hands and feet and the church to you as well as to these children. And so that's that's really our goal.

SPEAKER_03 22:35

And well, the reason why we wanted to do ministry focus on foster care in March is because it's completely encapsulated in the season of Lent. And so oftentimes in Lent we talk about sure repentance, you know, getting right with God and returning to Him. But part of it is exactly what you just said. So, Nicole, thank you so much. It's all about, you know, so many times we have the head knowledge of knowing that Christ is King, but we don't always act like He's King. And part of acting like it is serving the least and the last and the lost, so much so that you step into vulnerable situations and make yourself vulnerable, right? Yeah, because it's hard. You didn't say uh you didn't mince words at all. Um, but certainly we're not gonna let people struggle alone.

SPEAKER_04 23:19

Right. That's so important.

SPEAKER_03 23:20

Yeah, Nicole, thank you so much for your time today. I'm so grateful for everything that Hope Bridge has helped to partner with us to help organize us and reorient us. And certainly we're still learning and we're still trying to follow your lead a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

We're so blessed by you guys. I, you know, when we talk with other churches or we talk with people out in the community, like like, oh, Church of the Lake, that's like our that's our church that we point to because we're certainly not perfect, that's for sure. No, no one is, and that's you know, only Christ is perfect, but I believe when we're willing, He will use us in ways that um, you know, we never imagined he would use us. And so I I just appreciate the heart for vulnerable children that this church carries. And and you guys don't just say it, you do it.

SPEAKER_03 24:04

Trying.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

And it's not just leadership, it's like the congregation.

SPEAKER_03 24:07

And oh, and everything is leading or is is is congregation driven, it has nothing to do with us pastors.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

That's just but I mean you guys have made a you guys have made that like opportunity, you presented that opportunity, but they have chosen to accept that. And that's what's so amazing about this church. And I will continue to like tell everybody how amazing you are. And the really cool thing is is like when I know a family is searching for support and they want to go to a church that will support them, like we'll say, we know a church that you can go to that will support you as on your foster care journey and will love you well where you're at. And so um, you know, I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_03 24:45

Well, we're so grateful, grateful for everything Hope Ridge has done the once again to help uh reorient us a little bit from one week to 52 um and keep spreading and keep conquering cycles of dysfunction. But Nicole, thank you for your time today. And uh, I would encourage anybody that's listening right now, if you want to find out more about Hope Ridge or um how you can help support uh ministries like this, get in contact with Pastor Jared, get in contact with me. We'd love to be able to point you in the right direction because certainly um there are avenues to start serving the least and the last and the lost through foster care network uh ministries. And and we're so grateful for Hope Ridge and how they're helping us do that. So, Nicole, thanks for your time and uh we'll keep you in our prayers and certainly we'll circle back around in the near future and see how you guys are doing.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 25:32

Thanks, Nicole.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

Thanks for listening to this episode from Church of the Lakes. If today's message encouraged you and helped you grow as a devoted follower of Christ, we invite you to subscribe so you never miss an episode. You can also help others discover this podcast by leaving a five-star rating or review and sharing it with your friends, family, coworkers, and others in your circle of influence. We're also grateful for your generosity, which helps make messages like this available to more people. If you feel led to give, please check the link in the description. And if you're in the Canton, Ohio area, we would love to invite you to join us in person on Sunday and worship together. To learn more about Church of the Lakes, visit churchofthelakes.org or click the web link in the description. Until next time, stay encouraged and keep walking in faith.