Someone said, “There is never so much love in the world that reaching out is a bad idea.” There are more than 500,000 children and youth in foster care in the United States, due to abuse, neglect or abandonment by the parents. They are waiting for loving and kind foster parents to adopt them and give them a life of love and security.
A couple in Arkansas is giving most of us Christmas gift goals by giving the gift of adoption to seven siblings.
Terri and Mike Hawthorn have been hosting foreign exchanges students for years apart from their own four grown biological children, but now have decided to have some younger kids around the house. About six years ago they became foster parents.
Michael Hawthorn said, “I said, ‘We’ll do it for a couple of years, but we’re not gonna adopt any, so don’t get that in your mind.’ Well, we ate our words there’,” They adopted two siblings, Korgen and Haizlee in April.
This early December after fighting in court for years, they took in seven more siblings whose ages are 8, 9, 10, 11 and 15, the 9-year-olds and 10-year-olds are two sets of twins. Michael says, “It was pretty much a process from February all the way to December,” he added, “We committed in September that we were gonna adopt. And I think it was in September that they set a court date for Dec. 3 to make it official.”
Today it is official, these 7 siblings changed their last name to Hawthorn. Many prayers for these kids over the last 2…
Posted by Michael Hawthorn on Monday, December 3, 2018
It goes without saying that the kids are super elated that they would finally have a real family finally and wouldn’t have to go from one foster home to another one.
One of the kids Layna Hawthorn said, “When I got here, I was like, oh my gosh, we get our own beds.” Another sibling, Kyndal Hawthorn said, “We never got that,” she added, “We had like one bed, and most of us slept on the floor. The only times we got to eat is when our neighbors would sneak us a bag of chips.”
Terri Hawthorn says “This is a blessing, they are a blessing,” and added, “Every day, these kids wake up, and they are giggling and they are happy. And, you see the smiles on their faces. That’s what makes this worth it.”
This sums it up all, the gift of love and happiness given by this precious family to these foster kids by this family reminds us of the Love of the Father for us, when He sent His only begotten Son to this Earth to be born as a little baby to redeem us from our sins and shame. Hallelujah!