AdoptUsKids, an initiative of the Children's Bureau (part of HHS), is a national database of children awaiting adoption and families approved to adopt. Their website allows families to search for children and workers to search for families throughout the United States. The following is a guest post from AdoptUsKids. We encourage you to prayerfully consider this avenue of adoption in addition to the services Nightlight offers.
My name is Phyllis Stevens and my husband and I are the proud parents of five children: one birth son and four who we adopted.
My kids know that Thanksgiving and Christmas are our favorite times of the year, as these are the times that we get together as a family. We spend our time reminiscing about growing up in the Stevens home. My son (who is now 27) still loves to tell the story about the time when he knocked over the Christmas tree when he was six, and then ran up the stairs to his bedroom and jumped in bed, pretending to sleep. Or the time he got so mad with his brother that he broke the arms off his eye glasses, but then, feeling guilty, put them back together using paper clips.
Over the years many people have asked me, knowing what I know now, if I would do it all over again. Would I adopt children that were born drug addicted, mentally challenged, children with ADHD and Fetal Alcohol Disorder? And, knowing what I know now, I say yes. Yes, because every child deserves a loving, supportive home. And yes, because all four of my adopted children turned out to be happy, functional adults and have provided me with more joy and happiness than I could imagine.
Do we still have issues now and then? Of course we do, just as any normal family has over the years. But as we sit around the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve and read the Christmas story, I thank the Lord first for sending His son Jesus to be our Savior, and then I thank Him for my wonderful family. I thank Him for not only saving the lives of my children by giving them a permanent home, but for saving the lives of their children as well.
This holiday season, I hope that you will consider adoption or foster care for your family. There are more than 123,000 children currently in foster care who are available for adoption – so many wonderful children waiting for homes.
AdoptUsKids provides many services and support to children and families – and the need is great for help of all kind. Visit the AdoptUsKids website to see the many wonderful children available (http://www.adoptuskids.org/) and learn more about how adoption and foster care could be right for your family. You can also read more family stories at their site. You can also read more about the Stevens family.
Her comments about sniavg a child and these kids have to be rescued are so inappropriate. Every adoptive parent should adopt because they want to have a child, not because they want to be heroes. Let's hope that international adoption is not seen as a fad and that no-one will adopt to try and be like their favourite celeb. The person who does that get's my vote for Stupidest Person Alive . Adopting a baby is a life long responsibility and I wish people would realize that.