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Commentary
COMMENTARY: Teens ‘aging out’ of adoption need special attention and care Deb Leeper, Dec 23, 2009
Deb Leeper
By Deb Leeper Special Contributor
When my husband and I responded to God’s call to adopt, we had no idea what was in store. We knew we wanted a child from the United States, and since we are older, we thought that adopting one around 10-12 years old would still give us time to have an influence on the child’s formative years.
Our search for a child that might be a good match for us led us to become aware of the plight of kids “aging out” of foster care.
Imagine 17,000-20,000 young people each year in the United States, who because of their situations and mostly due to no fault of their own are more likely to end up in prison, on drugs, homeless, unemployed or underemployed, pregnant or dead. The statistics were heartbreaking and so were the stories we read from some of the kids who had aged out. Our research convinced us that our child would come from among those thousands of young people.
While working with our local Department of Social Services to complete the adoption process—home study, background checks, training, et cetera—we were referred to a Web site, www.adoptuskids.org, where we could search for children available for adoption who were in danger of aging out of foster care. We found Sabrina through that site.
Her radiant smile and the fact that she was standing with a horse led us to read her brief biography. We live in the country and have lots of animals, including a horse, so we felt like she might enjoy life on our little farm.
I still remember the day I received the call from our social worker. She had been contacted by Sabrina’s social worker, who had read our brief biography and agreed that we might be a good match.
And I remember how nervous I was when we went to meet Sabrina for the first time. We had dinner with her and her social worker. We asked many questions and told her about us. She asked questions, too, but the only one I can remember is “why me?” We didn’t know to say it at the time but now we know the real answer—because God picked her to be our daughter.
Sabrina was 17 and a senior in high school when we met. For her 18th birthday, we planned a surprise party. We had learned from her social worker that Sabrina’s younger sister was in the process of being adopted by a couple that lived not far from us so we invited them. Sabrina hadn’t seen her little sister for a couple of years. No present she received compared to the gift of having her sister back in her life.
Sabrina wanted to finish at the high school where she had been attending so for several months, she was only with us every other weekend. On her graduation day, we attended the commencement and brought her to her “forever home.”
Ten months later the adoption was final. By then, Sabrina was 19 (in Virginia, adult adoption takes at least a year) and already thinking about striking out on her own. She did just that five months later. During her time with us, she attended the local community college, worked part time, and attended church with us.
Although her time with us was relatively brief—21 months from the time we met her until she left to be on her own—Sabrina was able to see what a good, Christian marriage looks like and how to love and be loved in a family setting.
The heartbreak of seeing her drive away the day she left was worth the joy of having Sabrina in our lives. I was not able to have children, but there is now a 20-year-old young woman who lovingly calls me “Mom.” I always wanted to be a mother and thought I would be a good one. God gave me that desire of my heart—just not in the way I had imagined it would be.
Sabrina lives less than an hour away now and we see each other for lunch most weeks. She knows we are there for her and that there is always a place for her to call home. She has an extended family to experience the joy of a family sharing holiday time together, and a church family that cares about her and prays for her.
One of the things that Sabrina told us early on was that she had given up hope on being adopted. She had already put down a deposit to go to a residential training school to work with horses but wasn’t sure what life would hold after that. She was scared. When we told her that she could get that training locally while living at home with us, her fears were relieved.
Imagine approaching your 18th birthday scared and without hope. Picture not having a place to go for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Envision having no one to turn to when life throws you a curve. That is exactly what many kids aging out of foster care experience each year.
Not everyone is in a position to adopt a child of any age, let alone one aging out of foster care, but anyone can help.
Go to www.adoptuskids.org and select a child to pray for every day. Consider challenging each of the churches in your conference to become a “family” to at least one older child who never got the opportunity to become part of a “forever family” through adoption.
Ms. Leeper is a lay member at Bethel UMC in the Virginia Conference. Reprinted from the Virginia United Methodist Advocate.
Deb Leeper
And I remember how nervous I was when we went to meet Sabrina for the first time. We had dinner with her and her social worker. We asked many questions and told her about us. She asked questions, too, but the only one I can remember is “why me?” We didn’t know to say it at the time but now we know the real answer—because God picked her to be our daughter. 
