Kim Offut met her oldest son when he was 8—and in that moment, she knew he was meant to be her child.
At the time, Kim was working as a social worker in the Michigan foster care system. She was trying to find adoptive families for kids in foster care, and she was "going around Detroit videotaping kids . . .
I thought, if I just let them share their story, people will respond."
"When I videotaped this boy, there was something about him. I just knew that he was my son. I knew it."
She and her husband applied to become foster parents with the intention to adopt. When they went back to pick up their son-to-be, he was incredulous:
"Me? You want to adopt me?"
Eleven years later, Kim can still hear the disbelief in her son's voice. For that little boy, it was a miracle: A family wanted him!
Right now, 104,000 children in the U.S. foster care system—out of a total of 400,000—are waiting for adoptive families. The courts have determined that it is unsafe for them to return to their biological families. They are "legal orphans," living in uncertainty, longing for permanent homes.
At the same time, while children wait, many married couples are yearning to grow their families through adoption. If you're one of those couples, have you considered adopting a child from foster care? You could change a child's life.
"Kids stay in foster care for two to three years on average but can be there much longer," says Kim, who now works as National Foster Care Adoption Liaison for Bethany Christian Services. Based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Bethany is a global child and family services agency that provides adoption and foster care services across the United States.
As time passes, children feel increasingly unworthy and unwanted. "Can you imagine how it feels when you're 16?" Kim says. "Your picture is out there [on the adoption websites], you've gone to recruitment events, families have seen you, and no one has chosen you."
Deep down, every foster child's fear is that time will run out—that they won't have a permanent family by the time they turn 18. That's when they "age out" of foster care. It happens to about 26,000 youth each year.
"It's kind of impossible at my age to really find someone to actually adopt [me]," says Cassandra, 17, in a video called Children in Foster Care on the website AdoptUsKids.org.
"It kind of hurts," she says. "I wish there was just some magic answer, but there's not."
Once they leave foster care, teens are on their own. They have no parents to offer advice and encouragement. No practical support like help with moving boxes or a check for first month's rent. No place to go home for the holidays.
Small wonder, then, that they carry anger and hurt. It's reflected in the statistics: within two years, 30% of youth who age out of foster care will experience homelessness or incarceration. More than half of young women will go on to have children who also enter foster care. And so the cycle continues.
In response to this great need, Bethany has launched an aggressive initiative to help kids in foster care find families. It's called N.O.W. (No One Without).
http://www.todayschristianwoman.com/articl...
Posted By: Jeni Fa
Friday, May 23rd 2014 at 9:34PM
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