Foster Families

I found out this week that two of our older girls (about 10 or 11 years old) have left the Center and have been placed in foster families. My gut churned inside even though I was happy to hear the news. I can't write what I felt exactly, but let's just call it hard core mixed emotions. I then found out that another girl and boy are also going to be leaving soon to live in families. This girl came up to me when she saw me, gave me a hug and said, "I'm going to have a family soon!" For these children, most of whom admit they dream of nothing else than to have their families brought back together, this is their wildest dream come true.

Our ministry is pushing the envelope in Kyiv and working to find couples who are willing to become foster families for our children. This is challenging as daily life in Ukraine is, in a word, challenging. Unless they belong to the upper echlon of the rich, most couples or families are struggling to make ends meet just so they can provide the basic needs for themselves. Ukraine has had a history of homeless or orphaned children being the responsibility of the state and institutionalized so the concept of fostering children is a new idea. Society's demands makes it that much more difficult to find people who can or want to be foster parents.

To know that four children are moving on is a little sad because I am used to seeing their smiling faces come flying at me for a hug every time I visit the Center, but it is also encouraging to know that with education and hard work, foster families could become an even more popular and viable alternative for these children instead of living in a Rehabilitation Center.