Jacob Smith was newly married, juggling full time college with a full time job, and wasn’t considering expanding his family, until he saw a Facebook post.
A group of 8 siblings were looking for a permanent home, but with so many children their prospects for staying together did not look good.
While there are roughly half a million children in the U.S. foster care system at any given time (which can involve temporary placement with family members), only around half are able to return to their homes.
These siblings were aged between 18 months and 14 years old and taking them on would mean a huge amount of work and finances, not to mention a huge house to accommodate them. They had a strong bond but they were living in separate foster homes.
Jacob, from Tampa, Florida, saw a picture of them on Facebook and were struck by how beautiful a family they were.
“Their photo pops up, and I’m like ‘Wow, what a beautiful family,’” he told Caters News.
He even mentioned them in passing to his parents who knew all about the foster care system.
Jacob’s parents Loryn and Thad had fostered over 100 children and were contacted about helping the children through the Promise Love Foundation, a nonprofit assisting families with the cost of adoption.
“Several months ago, we were sent a picture of a sibling group of 8 with the messaged attached: ‘Will you consider this?’ We were done adopting because most of our children were grown and out of the house. We were looking forward to a new phase of life… But after 4 or 5 similar messages about this group of siblings, we knew we HAD TO pray about this situation!” Loryn said.
“We just prayed about it and hoped God would say ‘no you can be done’ and we just kept feeling like it was ‘be open, be open,'” she added.
The two couples began speaking about the children, they came up with an idea: Loryn and Thad would adopt the 5 older children.
Meanwhile, Jacob and Peggy – who are in their 20s – would adopt the 3 younger children.
All 8 siblings would have homes a few houses away from one another.
“As they [Jacob and Peggy] said this, a peace settled over all of us,” Loryn recalled. “We each knew we could do 4 children well while allowing them to grow up in the same family together.”
As the couples got ready to set up the adoption, a big surprise came along – a 9th baby from the same mother would also need a home.
Peggy and Jacob decided they could adopt the newborn as well.
“So that’s when the ninth child came in,” Peggy explained. “Oh, my word! Okay, God, I guess we’re going to have a baby— and he has just been a dream.”
I’m so happy these beautiful siblings can grow up together with families that love them. Please share.