No home for Christmas

~Our Family Christmas 2012~

 

Imagine for a moment, what would it be like if you had no family.  No one who you could call when things got rough, no one who you know you can count on, no place to go home for Christmas, no place where you "fit".  That's the reality for the roughly 30,000 kids aging out of the foster care system this year.

Did you know...

~In 2009 there were 115,000 children waiting to be adopted in the US state system.

~In 2009 57,000 children were adopted through the state.  That's about 50% of the total children waiting.

~The average wait time from when the parental rights are terminated to when a child is adopted is about 14 months. 

~In 2009, about 29,000 children aged out of the foster care system with no permanent family connections.

Do you have room in your heart for one of them? 

It's not easy to adopt these children, as we are finding out!  It is a process and many times we wonder if the agencies really have the best interest of the children at heart, but there is so much regulation that it makes things difficult all around.  There are photo listings of many of the kids that are available for adoption, like www.adoptuskids.org , and many states have their own photolistings as well.  We are finding that a lot of these kids on the photolistings are in process of being adopted already, but many are just waiting.  So even though the system isn't perfect, it's what we have to work with, so we do it.  We are glad God has chosen to use us in this way, to care for and love some of the fatherless in this old messed up world.  If you think of us, please pray that God would send us whoever he wants in our family, and that we would be open to His leading- thanks so much!

All statistics are from this website.