Macy had a broken family. Her father was abusive and a drug addict. Her mother was an alcoholic. She learned at a young age how to be independent. She dressed herself, bathed herself and fed herself. Her parents weren’t around to help her. Her father occasionally got mad and hit her. Her mother died while drinking and driving. This was a normal life for Macy. She knew nothing different. At age 9, she was taken away from the home after her father was arrested for child abuse. By age 15, she had lived in 23 different foster homes. She had given up hope. Macy knew no one adopted teenagers.
Aiden had a wonderful family. He lived with his mom, dad and two brothers. It was a good and happy family. They sat down at a table to eat dinner as a family. Aiden’s favorite day of the week was Tuesday when they had game nights. He liked to play basketball with his brothers. When he was 7, his parents died in a car wreck. He was split up from his brothers after being sent to different foster families. They would never see each other again. By the age of 15, he had lived in 19 different homes, most of them were abusive.
Both of Macy and Aiden’s stories are just like the other thousands of kids who are in foster care right now, waiting for the day to find a forever home. Kids who are looking for a stable house and loving guardians.
According to the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the number of kids in foster care reached over 420,000 in 2015. In the same year, 26 percent of those kids were waiting to be adopted. However, each year 20,000 kids age out of the system. The phrase ‘aging out’ is the equivalent of kids being kicked out of the foster care system because states failed to reunite them with their families or find them permanent homes. A National Public Radio study reports that kids who age out of the system are 9 percent more likely to commit crimes, 25 percent more likely to become pregnant as a teenager and 30 percent more likely to abuse their future children. To make it simpler, kids who age out of the system are more likely to have children that will become a part of the system.
It doesn’t have to be this way. We need people to step up and take initiative to break this seemingly endless cycle. People who have the heart for orphans. People who have a heart full of love to give away freely. People who have a vision of a better place. By people, I mean Christians.
In America, more churches exist than the number of kids in foster care looking for a permanent home, according to the Focus on the Family organization. In Arkansas, there are 1,034 kids ready to be adopted and there are 6,343 churches. That’s six churches per a child. Let’s not forget that Arkansas’s foster care system is falling apart. Foster Arkansas reports there are 5,000 children and teens in the system, but only 1,600 foster family homes in Arkansas. In Texas, there are 13,238 kids in foster care but there are 27,505 churches. That is more than twice the number of kids ready to be adopted. Nationally, there are more than 100,000 kids ready to be placed in a permanent home and there are almost 350,000 churches.
There seems to be an easy fix that people are ignoring. Specifically, the people who are quick to shout pro-life at any chance they get, but are not quick to act on these urgent needs. I guess the issue is kids having the right to a life. Now, whether the life is a good one or a bad one is a completely different issue.
If you think about it, there really isn’t another choice for young women who find themselves in an unwanted pregnancy other than termination. Why would mothers who are not financially stable, or any other reason, give their kids to a failing system? Foster care is overrun with kids who are abandoned and orphaned by their parents. So many kids that there aren’t enough families to take care of them-but there could be.
If one family in each church across America stepped up and answered the call to become a foster family with the intentions to adopt, every child in America could find a permanent home. These kids could have a good life. They could envision a brighter future, something they could not see through the darkness. These kids need someone to love them. Who could love on these kids from tough and broken homes better than people who are full of God’s love?
Asking for one family in each church to answer this call should not be necessary. The whole basis of Christianity is love. Love your neighbor as yourself, take care of the orphans and widows. America needs good, stable families with love to give. Families that will protect these kids. The church is the answer.
Orphans like Macy. Orphans like Aiden. James 1:27 says, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”
