Fatherlessness in Minnesota: what is the answer?

I know a young African American man named Brandon who has aspirations like most other guys his age.  He enjoys going to the mall, hanging out with friends, fast cars, girls... pretty typical.  At one point he told me when he wanted to join the US Air Force and to become a fighter pilot.  But unlike many guys his age, his biological parents are out of his life.  Brandon's mother died of cancer about three years ago.  His dad might as well be dead, as he has been a recluse and living in a completely different state from his children.  Since the death of his mom, his nineteen-year-old sister has become a single parent mother; his three younger siblings have been adopted by his Aunt, and he was without a home. 


When I talked talked to him on the phone following his mother's death, I felt heaviness and hopelessness like I have never felt before.  He was hurting real bad, and I felt completely inadequate to help him.  However, since I was a big brother to him in Minneapolis (before I moved to KC, MO), I gave it my best to try to encourage him to keep going.  In the days and months following, Brandon was moved from foster family to residential group home for boys.  He was really falling of the map at school and it took a long time for him to get back into a school district since he moved back to his mom's hometown in Michigan.  He felt a great void in his soul without his mom- seeing how she was the rock of their family.  The loneliness was ever pervasive and loomed over him a thick fog.  Where could he find a place to land, a place where people accepted him and appreciated him for who he is?

According the US Department of Health and Human Services, Brandon is just one story of 1,400 boys and girls in the state of Minnesota who are waiting right now to be adopted from the MN foster care system.  Last year alone, Minnesota had about 12,000 children that were put in out-of-home care into settings such as foster families, residential group homes and emergency child shelters.  Three quarters of the total children were reunified with their families within the year but twenty-five percent of these that are joined together with their biological families are cast back into the cycle of foster care within the next year
(http://www.childwelfare.com/minnesota.htm).

African Americans and teenagers, like Brandon, are among the highest percentage of these children that are waiting to be adopted.  Even though the African American community makes up only about six percent of the entire population of Minnesota, almost one in four kids in the foster care system of Minnesota are black children searching for an adoptive home according to Minnesota Human Services. Youth ages 13-18 are another demographic that over-represent the total of foster care children by making up over half of the total.

The problem is that kids that become too old remain in the state foster care system are the same children that have an overabundance of attachment or bonding issues.  These kids who are left feeling unwanted are the ones who by widespread research often become prostitutes and are more likely to end up in jail or prison following acts of violence and crime. 

Although this is what often can become the plight of these children, I am grateful to be able to say that Brandon is not among one of those statistics.  In 2009, Brandon was fully adopted into a loving family even at the age of seventeen.  However, the future of hundreds others teeter in the balance.

The proposition I have to make is to the church of God in the state of Minnesota.  Boasting of several "mega-churches" within the Twin Cities alone, the total number of Christian churches radically outnumber amount of adoptable children in the state.  There are approximately 5,500 churches in the state (icareaboutorphans website).  To put this simply if only one in every four churches collectively adopted a child there would no longer be any children left to adopt in Minnesota.

It comes down to this, friends, Jesus gave us the mandate through his own half-brother James when he declared that true religion is to relieve the burden of the widow and the orphan (Jas 1:27).  This commandment was given not the world, or the government, but to the children of God.  If you are not a Christian and you are reading this post, you are still blessed to foster and adopt children and I thank you.  However, I am calling out to the parents who wants to make a difference in the world.  We often say to ourselves that we wish we could live out the teachings of Jesus, but will we respond to the "least of these"- Jesus' beloved ones who don't have a family.  Just as Jesus said, if we have done it to the least of these than we have done it unto Him.

A closing word to those who have adopted in Minnesota.  Thank you and grace to all you who have taken the Lord at his word and have brought in the homeless poor, your reward is far greater than any Reactive Attachment Disorder issue you could encounter.  I pray that the very same Spirit of God that raised Jesus from the dead will that lives in you would rise up in the power and strengthen your spirits as well as your soul and bodies.  I ask that God would cause His light and truth to penetrate your heart deeper and guide you in the midst of the shadows of death that you pass in this journey of adoption (Is 58:10).  May you receive the refreshment and healing waters that your Good Shepard provides for His wearied beloved (Ps 23:2).

My heart goes out to the weary and struggling mothers and fathers who have taken up the call to adopt and have hit the proverbial wall.  Many may feel a complete lack and or inadequacy in the ability to father or mother the children they have brought in.  Maybe the child you most have want to pour yourself out to has rejected and hated you for it.  I pray for grace to be imparted to you and peace from the Spirit of Jesus.