There are currently over half a million children in the foster care system in the United States today. On average, a child who enters care will remain in foster care for 32 months, and only about half will return to their parents. Of the remaining half 49,000 children get adopted, and 118,000 remain in the “system” waiting adoption. Of which many of them will never experience. Most of the US orphan kids will be moved from foster home to foster home until they are 18 years old, and then they are simply on their own without ever having a real family that they can turn to. Some of these children have such poor social skills that they end up in group homes until 18 years old, then they are let out, and on their own to figure out how to survive with the little social skills they had in the first place.

The term orphan has been banished from our US language because orphans usually refer to children that are in orphanages, and we have the foster care system instead. However, our children are still orphans because they have no real family, and are waiting to be adopted by a family, but now they are less invisible to the public eye since they are tucked away neatly into foster homes.

When I was 25 years old, I was very involved with the foster “system”, I was married, and together for 3 years we fostered 17 children, and at 28 years old, we adopted 5 children with various levels of challenges. We were on the foster care review board, along with the foster parent association. The lack of concern and apathy that we saw from the community is similar to what I am seeing today in regards to our countries orphans. I will hear many people ask, “isn’t it hard to adopt children from the US”? It is only difficult if you only want a newborn, white baby. Most of children that are awaiting adoption are older and minority.

There were two main excuses that we heard from others on why they were not interested in becoming foster parents. At the time we were living near Sedona, AZ. We had one foot in the foster “system”, and the other in Sedona thinking. Sedona had a high rate of abused children that needed foster homes, and when we would ask our friends to help, they would simply say that they did not want to get involved with the system. Yet they seemed perfectly willing to drive on government roads. So if very few want to get involved with “our” children, then who will?

Another common reason that we heard often was that , they were afraid to get their heart’s broken when the children left. Yes, Our hearts did get broken a few times, and at other times we were really ready for them to leave, but we were not foster parents for our own selves. We were foster parents because we felt that it was our responsibility to help “our countries orphans”.

It has been a while since I have been a foster parent, and some ask me, would I do it the same all over again? The answer is absolutely. Not only have I been given the opportunity to touch at least 23 children’s lives, but also they have touched my life in ways that I could not have imagined or created for my self. The person that I needed to become to stand up to the plate for their needs, instead of only considering my own, has affected me in ways that I will always be grateful for.

So if you are feeling a bit of a calling to make a difference for “our” orphans”, then please consider being a foster or adoptive parent. And a very important thing to know is not to do it alone. Get the support and training right from the beginning so that the pain and suffering these children have endured don’t become your personal pain and suffering. There are support groups available, along with lots of training. And if you don’t feel called to work with the children, remember that the ones that are certainly can use our loving support.