The ALL IN for FOSTER ADOPTION Challenge: The Goal and Strategies for Serving Waiting Kids
Today there are over 125,000 youth in the foster care system. Many have never known the security of a loving home and often must wait for over three years for permanency. While others are shuttled between a multitude of homes; the number of placements sometimes soaring into the double digits. One can only imagine what the lasting impact might be on a child who has never known the safety of a loving family. And what about the strain on our communities overall? Sex-traffickers that prey on these children, increased homelessness, and incarceration are seemingly inevitable due to lack of guidance and substantial gaps in education. These bleak, cultural realities stand in contrast to the mission of the church – to care for those in need.
What can the local church do? They can go “All IN.”
What’s at Stake?
When asked what’s at stake for kids who aren’t placed in permanent, loving homes, Alex Olson, an ALL IN for FOSTER ADOPTION Challenge Team Member whose own forever family fostered over 110 youth over time, said, “I had a friend in the system who took his own life at 11 years of age. And many young people I know have had similar experiences. It really is our lives that are at stake.”
Human lives made in the image of God are what’s at stake.
