Walk Me Home

Here are some staggering facts about children in U.S. foster care. There are about 510,000 children in the foster care system across the country. They are ages 0-18 and cover all racial and socio-economic backgrounds. The majority of the kids waiting for adoption are over the age of 12 years. This is the hardest group of kids to place, and sometimes all they need is someone to care about them in order to succeed.

About 129,000 children in foster care are waiting for forever families. Sadly, more children become available for adoption than are adopted. In 2006 - 79,000 children became legally free for adoption, however, only 51,000 were adopted. That means more than 26,000 kids age out of the system every year. To see a photolisting of just some of the children available for adoption from foster care, visit www.adoptuskids.com and click on "waiting children".

My husband, who happens to be passionate about statistics (you see what I have to live with) came up with this formula. Based on his research, it would take just 3 in 1,000 married Christian families adopting just one waiting child to completely eliminate children lingering in foster care waiting for a forever family. Absorb that for a minute... 3 in 1,000 (.3%). This is not an insurmountable problem. That's not counting single Christians, non-Christians, grandparents, etc. This is just existing Christian homes. So, my question is, what's preventing those 3 families from stepping forward?

Below is the music video for a song written by country singer Jaime Fox about children in foster care finding a home. It is really touching if you have a few minutes to watch it. Next post I'll continue with our story.