Curt and Brenda Heuer of Prescott, Arizona opened their home and hearts to numerous children in need over the past decade, fostering 52 children, CBSNews reports.
Recently, the couple adopted five of those children — siblings ranging from ages 2 to 9 — to keep them from being separated by the foster system.
“Due to the circumstances, knowing these children would likely be separated, and that’s all they had left in this world is each other – it’s just heartbreaking,” Brenda Heuer told CBSNews. “We didn’t want to see that happen.”
The children came from an abusive home, but seem to be adjusting well to their new circumstances. Boating, camping, traveling, Disneyland trips, and photo shoots with smiles in front of the family Christmas tree have been documented by CBS News.
Here’s more from the report:
We always tried to cater to the larger sibling group of children to keep them together,” Brenda told CBS News.
Two years ago, the Heuers took in a family of five, four girls and a boy.
As time passed, the Heuers were starting to realize that the kids had nowhere else to go. Their father had been killed, their mother severed ties with the family years ago and relatives were unable to care for so many children.
The Heuers said they began to think about adopting them. When they posed the idea to the kids, Brenda said they were thrilled. On Nov. 19, the Heuers officially adopted the siblings, according to the report.
In the foster care system, these five children may have been separated – not only from their biological parents but also from one another. It is wonderful to see a family that has not only considered adoption as a loving alternative for so many children, but sought to minimize any further emotional scars by keeping the five children together.
On the average day, 415,000 children are in the foster care system, with over 650,000 children passing through the system in 2014, Children’s Rights, an independent non-profit, reports. Furthermore, 60,000 children were waiting to be adopted in 2014.
At the same time, as many as 2 million infertile couples in America hope to adopt someday, the Federalist reports. This statistic does not include the number of families wanting to adopt for their own personal reasons. For every adoptable baby, 36 families are willing to accept that baby as their own child, the report states. Many are willing to accept these children into their homes and hearts, but the hoops to jump through and other costs to adoption may be prohibitive to some.
Furthermore, abortion rates have negatively impacted adoption numbers. About 1 million unborn babies are aborted every year in the U.S. when so many waiting couples who cannot have children are eager to welcome the child as their own.
Many pro-lifers already have adopted and are pursuing adoption through foster care, domestic or international programs, and demonstrating that every child is wanted by someone.
