Randall Murphree
AFA Journal editor
May 2007 – Joe and Paula Smith have been married for 32 years, and they’re getting ready to start a new family. They’ll be house parents for eight at-risk teens in a Chattanooga, Tennessee, group home.
Joe has worked with at-risk teens at the Chattanooga YMCA since 1993, so he encounters troubled and in-trouble kids every day. The Smiths began foster care after volunteering as a visiting family for Sada,* a 14-year-old girl at the Baptist Children’s Home (BCH). Sada’s mother had lost custody of her after Sada reported that Mom’s boyfriend had molested her.
The Smiths’ two birth children, ages eight and three, quickly became friends with Sada. One Sunday after she had spent the weekend with the Smiths, they took her back to BCH only to find her mother there. She tried to persuade Sada to retract her charges, but Sada said, “I can’t, Mama. It happened.”
The mother told Sada, “You’ll never see me again!” and as she drove away, Sada ran down the driveway crying, “Mama, please don’t go!”
The Smiths looked at each other and agreed, “We’re taking Sada home to stay.” The next day they went to a juvenile court judge who gave them custody. Sada is married today and mothering her own two children.
“Now, we’re only doing what we’ve always done,” Joe said. “We’re just calling it something different.” Since 1990, the Smiths have cared for 19 foster children. They once had six at one time in their 2,200-square-foot home. Now they are preparing New Creation Ministry, a larger home where they will live and be Mom and Dad to juvenile justice teens placed by the courts.
“These are the toughest of the tough, kids who may have spent some time in juvenile detention units,” Joe said. He and Paula will use a parent-teaching model to provide a stable environment for the youths. They say that’s a contrast to the standard institutional group home which is more like a business than a family, with a first shift staff, a second shift staff and a weekend staff.
Don and Sheri Cobb have a similar vision for a group home in Baldwyn, Mississippi. The Cobbs married in 2000 and cared for about 30 foster children in Illinois over the past four years. In 2006 they moved to Mississippi where Don is Internet tech director at AFA.
Most of the Cobbs’ foster children were placed for respite care, critical short-term care in situations such as family emergencies, foster parents needing a break or severe illness.
They have cared for three children long term and have adopted two of them, Jordan, 14, and Danielle, 10. Beginning at age nine, Jordan had been in five foster homes. Danielle had been in foster care since age five. These two plus the Cobbs’ four birth children (and another one due this summer) make for a lively household.
But Don and Sheri are confident God has called then to minister to kids in this way. They say the church is failing to fulfill its Biblical mandate in this critical mission field. “It is the church’s problem,” Don said, “and Jesus made it that when He said, ‘Pure religion is to take care of the widow and the fatherless.’”
Sheri agrees: “If the church were doing what it needs to do, we wouldn’t have all these kids without homes. If people think they can’t take a kid because the house is too small, they’re wrong. Kids are living under bridges and in trash cans.”
Jon and Sarah Rufenacht are career military, married eight years and stationed at Ft. Knox, Kentucky. A graduate of West Point, Jon is an Army Major. They began foster care just last fall, and have had six children in their home. With no birth children, it’s been quite an adjustment. At present, two-and-a-half-year-old Tommy* and his four-month-old sister are in their care.
“Since we’re at Ft. Knox, we would only get military kids,” Jon Said. But Ft. Knox is the only Army post that handles foster care that way. The Rufenachts anticipate a move to Ft. McPherson near Atlanta this month. They are already certified for foster care in Georgia and look forward to having foster children in their new home.
Motivation to care
The Cobbs knew from the beginning they would be doing foster care. “I always knew I wanted to foster and adopt kids,” Sheri said.
“From the first date, we discussed it,” Don said. Still, because they began filling their home with children by birth, the Cobbs didn’t meet some of the state guidelines which restrict how soon a couple may receive foster children.
“We applied to be foster parents right after we got married,” Sheri said. “We started the required training, then found out I was pregnant. I had to give birth before they would place foster kids with us, so we were put on a waiting list.” They eventually connected with Catholic Charities, which contracts with the state of Illinois, matching foster children with families.
For Paula Smith, her interest was piqued at age 12 when she read the book The Family Nobody Wanted by Helen Doss, who with her husband Carl adopted 12 children in the 1940s. Paula knew then that she would like to adopt.
“Before Joe and I married, I learned he was adopted,” she said.
“I have a sister two years older than I am,” Joe said. “When I was two weeks old, our parents abandoned us. We were adopted and moved to Chattanooga with parents who will always be Mom and Dad to us.”
Joe and Paula planned to adopt, but God’s plan took them a different direction. In reality, they have been able to care for many more foster children than would have been possible with adopted children in the home.
The Rufenachts approach foster care from a different perspective. Sarah taught kindergarten for nine years. “I love being around children,” she said, “and it’s been on my heart for a long time to help other children.”
However, Jon had never considered foster care until after he married Sarah, but it made sense to him. “I enjoyed being a kid, and to give that enjoyment to someone else is a good thing. We know we’re making a difference in these kids’ lives.”
Children in need
As of September 30, 2005, more than two million U.S. children were living with relatives other than parents, and more than half a million children were in the foster care system, according to www.fostercaremonth.org. The average foster child was 10 years old and in care for 28.6 months. This informative Web site gives a wealth of data as well as ways people can be involved in volunteer service to at-risk children, even if they cannot care for children in the home.
Each year, 20,000 young people “age out” of the system. At 18, they still need support and services. Only 54% completed high school, 84% become parents (compared to 42% of the general population), and 51% are unemployed (compared to 30% of the general population).
Both the Cobbs and the Smiths want to see group homes extend care to older youths. Don said, “We want an environment where kids can learn life skills, learn how to do a checking account, complete high school, not be thrown out when they’re 18, and not end up in prison.”
Don also sees such group homes as an opportunity for Christians who cannot provide in-home foster care to participate in the care of a child in the group home. A church or a family could sponsor a child in the group home with financial support, spending time with him or tutoring.
Pros and cons
“You can get hurt,” Don admitted. One teenager the Cobbs had hoped to adopt chose to return to a rebellious lifestyle rather than accept the safety of a loving family.
“The hardest thing to realize is that blood is thicker than water,” Joe said. He referred to the inborn desire of kids to go back to parents who have abused or neglected them, no matter how deeply the foster parents have loved them and how well they’ve treated them.
But both men agree that the blessings far outweigh the downside.
“I’m blessed to see that I have changed,” Don said, “that I can love at a level beyond being just a biological father.”
Success stories such as Sada’s – and they have many – give the Smiths motivation to continue foster care.
The Rufenachts concur that the blessings are immense. Jon observes that, even with short-term children, he and Sarah are able to add not only love, but also a little structure and stability to the lives of the children they care for.
“It’s fun to come home,” Jon said. “Tommy sees me at the door, goes “Yeaaa!’ and comes running to give me a hug.”
“One of the biggest blessings that has ever touched my life is watching my three natural born children watch while we tube-fed a little boy who had been shaken as a baby,” Don said. “It was a teachable moment with them. Here’s this needy little boy, one of mine is comforting him as Sheri feeds him through a tube, and they’re seeing what the work of God is.” 
*Names of foster children have been changed.
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By the year 2020:
▶ Almost 14 million confirmed cases of child abuse and neglect will be reported;
▶ 22,500 children will die of abuse or neglect, most before age 5;
▶ More than 9 million children will experience the foster care system;
▶ Each year, more than 20,000 youth will age out of the system, most in poor health and ill prepared for success in higher education, tech school or the workforce;
▶ 99,000 former foster youth who have aged out of the system can expect to experience homelessness.
source: www.fostercaremonth.org
