Yesterday (12/9), I had the great privilege of finishing up Abogar’s Team Trip (our annual December trip to a children’s home in Ensenada, Mexico, where we partner with a children’s home and team in the mass distribution of Christmas Shoeboxes/Bags to children of the local area, while also sharing the gospel message). This year’s team was small… a current board member and I were the only team members, as at the last moment a few others had extenuating circumstance that prevented their participation. However, it gave me a great and intimate time with one of Abogar’s board members, which was very instrumental to growth and depth in our relationship and our mutual understanding of what/how Abogar is called to do; how we serve and function. As I sit on my final layover, heading back home to be with my wife and son, I thought I would reflect upon and share with you all some of my thoughts and processing!
Yesterday afternoon, as I sat across a meal table from the board member, sharing a quick lunch in San Diego airport, before we would part ways to return to our perspective abodes, we spent some time debriefing our very blessed and successful trip. This brother then candidly shared with me that he believed that we need to have a more concise/articulate/prepared expression of what we are focused on as a ministry. So, as we sat together, we both pondered and discussed points and parts of what the mission, vision, and three-fold focus of Abogar are.
As we sat there, I suddenly felt inspired with a thought… While Abogar is clearly about family preservation and family strengthening, advocating that every child deserves the opportunity to truly have lifelong family and lifelong home, with educational opportunities, a major difference in our ministry from many other models is that we are looking for lifelong results and not just immediate and visible results. That, my friends, is NOT to say that other ministries are doing it wrong, but rather that we have been clearly called to focus on one of the main root problems for children throughout Latin America and around the world! It is a problem that I, due to my time living in the foster care system and now as an advocate for children at risk and in great need, unconsciously assume that others are aware of. However, my dear brother in the Lord challenged me on that, suggesting that maybe we should clear something up, which then led to me writing this blog.
What is the thing that I assume people know of and understand, you ask? Well, it is the ‘age out’ system. The who what what?!? Yes, I said the ‘age out’ system. Over the last few centuries, government has been given more and more power and responsibility to ‘care’ for children who are orphaned, abandoned, abused, and/or living in the streets. While I believe this responsibility truly is supposed to be the ministry and focus of the Church (James 1:27 and a whole slew of other scriptures), it has become a governmental programmatic process of ‘handling the situation’ with these children in vulnerable and traumatic situations. Due to this becoming a governmental cause and focus, it has shifted focus from family networking and truly belonging, to the task of getting children to adulthood… period. And this is where the age out system enters the picture.
‘Age out’ refers to the release of responsibility, connectivity, and belonging of a child to a ‘family’ or community (most usually controlled and enforced by local government, through foster care or children’s homes), solely based on the fact that the child has reached the official age of ‘adulthood’. A child turned adult immediately ‘ages out’ of the system. To be very honest, as one who had personally lived through the age out system of government, I am often infuriated by our lack of consideration for the children’s (now adults) needs for a lifelong family and home, a place and group of belonging! Not many of us ever stop longing or craving to be a part of, and belong in, family (even through the challenges, turmoil, and disfunction we may experience in such family)! I often wonder why these precious children are not included in the decision making process of truly belonging and being part of family for their whole lives. However, I do want to note that there is a world wide movement, World Without Orphans (check out their documentary online), that has begun to drastically pursue a shift in how we engage with and work with such children… moving away from institutionalization to a family-based care model with more permanency and belonging as the focus of that model.
For more than 30 years now I have been an advocate for ‘aging out’ the age out system, and bringing about a complete return to God’s original design… lifelong family and lifelong home! It has been almost 14 years completed with Abogar, as an advocate for these children, but much longer as an advocate to ‘age out’ and eradicate the age out system. As I work with Abogar, I often share that our focus as a ministry is… the whole child for their whole life as a whole person! I believe the age out system is very inconsiderate and dangerous to the whole person that these children are, as it does not consider or work for genuine belonging, but rather a temporary solution! I believe God looks at the whole child as whole person for their whole life, and also would ask us Christ-followers to do the same. I truly believe we need to move forward in aging out the age out system!
What would it look like for us to age out the age out system? What actions can be taken to move us in this direction? I truly believe the first thing is to bring God back to the center of all our efforts and work for these children. As we grow to know His heart and plan, we will find ourselves more and more aligned with His lifelong model and plan for each and every child. As godly (albeit imperfect) families connect with God’s heart for lifelong families and lifelong homes, we then are also called to fight for other children (not just our own) to truly never age out from being part of a lifelong family and home! The foster care system, children’s homes, and sometime even the adoption process have been hijacked and convoluted into a programmatic way of treating ‘those other’ kids for a temporary time. We must genuinely and completely move to a family based care model that considers the whole child as a whole person for their whole life. While I do understand that circumstantially there will still be situations where this is not possible, these would be the exception to the model, rather than the overarching and all-impacting influence on how the model show be run. Now truly is time for aging out the age out system, and to return to God’s heart for every child to have a lifelong family and home. While there is much to flesh out in this conversation and consideration of the age out system, and how to eliminate this programmatic system, may we not convolute it to mitigate the great necessity that there is for every child to have the opportunity to truly have and belong in lifelong family and lifelong home!
