New Group of Ministries Seeks to Honor
God’s Command Regarding Orphans
By Emily Nienhuis
“A father to the fatherless, a defender of
widows, is God in His holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families;” (Psalm 68:5-6)
Can you imagine
being a 12-year-old boy who was abused by your birth parents as a young child
and separated from your siblings? You
have lived with several different foster families over the past six years while
the courts decide what the best plan is for your life. You are lonely, hurt, confused and you have
lost all hope of ever finding a loving family to call your own.
There is a similar
story for over 1,200 kids in Missouri who are waiting for an adoptive family.
As of March 2007, Missouri had almost 10,000
children in our foster care system. James 1:27 says, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to
look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being
polluted by the world.” What is the Church doing to obey the Lord’s command
to care for the ‘orphan?’ What are
Christians in St. Louis doing to care for the orphan? One Heart Family Ministries is doing their part
to educate Christians in St. Louis 
about
the need for more foster and adoptive families for Missouri’s kids.
One Heart Family
Ministries was founded by Dave and Robin Kruse.
The Kruse’s were foster parents for the St. Louis County Children’s
Division for over 15 years. They have four
biological children and have now adopted five boys out of the foster care
system. Five years ago they felt the
Lord calling them to do more for the children in Missouri’s foster care
system. They knew that the Christian
community in St. Louis did not know about the great need for more foster and adoptive
families especially for children age ten and over or for children in sibling
groups. So they started One Heart Family
Ministries in January of 2004.
One Heart recruits,
assists in training, and supports Christian families who want to foster and
adopt children in the custody of the Missouri Children’s Division. In the past five years One Heart has
recruited 70 families who have opened up there hearts and homes to many
children in our foster care system. Some
children have been a part of these families for just a few days and others will
be for a lifetime as the plan for their life became adoption. One Heart believes the key to the success of
their ministry is, while assisting in the state required foster care and
adoption training, to teach families to see children in the foster care system
through God’s eyes. Families are given
the truth about the challenges these children face due to being abused and
neglected but they are also encouraged with the truth that these children need
to know the love of God through a family.
Jeremiah 32:27 says, “I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is
anything too hard for me?” The Lord
can heal these children of their troubled past and will give each family the
strength they need to preserve through the challenging days. One Heart families are encourage through God’s Word and supported by One Heart’s
staff on a regular basis. The Kruse’s
along with many One Heart families have seen the power, grace and mercy of God
change many children’s lives. God has
used many of His people to care for the children in our foster care system and
show them the perfect and healing love of God.
In the Spring of
2007 God continued to reveal His plans for One Heart and the faith-based
community in
These agencies
believe the faith-based community is a largely untapped resource in targeted
recruitment of foster and adoptive families.
Through the support of their local congregation, families within the
faith-based community are better equipped and supported to handle children that
are physically or emotionally challenged.
Fostering Faithful
Families will be carried out by each organization within their own
denomination. For example, Presbyterian
Children’s Services will work with the Presbyterian congregations. However, a variety of collaborative services are
woven in throughout the program; these activities will be organized by the
administrative agency. One Heart Family
Ministries was chosen to be the lead agency in this project.
Each agency working
with Fostering Faithful Families is looking for ambassadors within the
denomination they are affiliated with to help carry out this project. Ambassadors need to be former or current
foster/adoptive parents or a professional in social work who has the desire to
recruit and support foster/adoptive families from within their own church. Fostering Faithful Families will be working
closely with these ambassadors to help educate their church about the needs
within our foster care system and within the foster/adoptive family’s at their
church. Volunteers will be recruited within the church to help support the
foster/adoptive families in a variety of ways.
A volunteer might be licensed to provide respite care so a foster family
can take a much needed break. A
volunteer might offer to pay for and provide transportation to dance lessons
for a little girl. A volunteer might
offer to tutor a child in math. Maybe a
volunteer just wants to make a meal for a foster family when they receive a new
child into their home. There are many
ways the Church needs to step-up and care for these foster and adoptive
families and the children in their care.
Through Fostering
Faithful Families many more children in our foster care system will receive the
love of a family and the love of Christ through that family. Our faith-based community will be better
educated about the needs within our city and within their own congregation.
One Heart Family
Ministries and Fostering Faithful Families has recently gotten the attention of
Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs, CO.
Focus on the Family recently started an Orphan Care Initiative. Their goal is to educate the Christian
community about the orphans in our world, which include children in our foster
care system in need of adoption.
In November of
2008, Focus on the Family hosted an adoption recruitment event called “Wait No
More.” The event in Colorado Springs was
attended by over 1,300 people who were interested in getting more information
about adopting children in the Colorado state foster care system. At the end of the conference, more than 260
families requested more information about adopting kids. The conference was considered an
unprecedented event for Colorado and extremely successful.
Focus on the Family
is currently planning to host a similar event in St. Louis in May of 2009. Fostering Faithful Families and their
collaboration of faith-based agencies along with representatives from the
Missouri Children’s Division will be joining forces to make this a successful
event in St. Louis.
There are over
8,000 churches in Missouri. As stated
previously there are some 1,200 of God’s precious children in Missouri in need
of an adoptive family. If only 1,200 of
our churches had one family adopt a child, we could solve the present crisis of
our waiting children in Missouri. God
gave us the command to “love the orphan.”
Do you feel God calling you to care for these children in our
community? Could you open up your home
and family to a child in need of foster care?
Could you open up your heart to adopt a child and provide the forever family
they have been waiting for? Could you be
an ambassador at your church and tell others about this great need? Could you provide a meal or respite for a
foster/adoptive family? There are many
different ways big and small that we as Christians we can answer God’s call to
minister to the orphans in our community.
“Do not merely listen to the Word,
and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” (James 1:22)
For more information
about One Heart Family Ministries or Fostering Faithful Families please call
(314) 835-1690 or email Emily Nienhuis at egnienhuis@yahoo.com.
