Buckner encourages families to adopt children from around the world

Jim and Linda Kimberly are in the process of adopting a brother and sister through Buckner foster-to-adopt services in Texas.

International (MNN) ? November is National Adoption Month. Throughout the month, Buckner International is raising awareness for the large amount of children who need families, not just in the U.S. but globally.

In the U.S., Buckner is focusing much of their efforts in Texas.

"Buckner Foster Care and Adoption provides Texas families with a number of ways to ‘be a family' to a child in need, including foster care, foster-to-adopt, adoption of Texas Waiting Children and domestic infants," according to Buckner's Web site.

In the states, the need is great as Child Protective Services (CPS) investigated 165,010 allegations of abuse and neglect in 2008 alone. From these children, 14,295 were removed from their biological families; 70,589 were confirmed victims of abuse or neglect; 213 died from abuse and 43,697 were placed in foster care.

Buckner's foster-to-adopt services are meeting a great need. In fact, because of this program, Jim and Linda Kimberly of Carthage, Texas, are now in the process of adopting siblings, Ethan, 6, and Alisa, 4. The siblings came from a family where alcohol, drugs and violence were common.

Buckner partners with Dillon International to provide homes for children across the globe in China, Korea, Haiti, India and Hong Kong. Buckner also helps children in Ethiopia, Russia, Honduras and Guatemala.

Specifically, in Guatemala, at the Buckner Baby Home, children ranging in age from infancy to 10-years-old are waiting for families.

Although international adoptions in Guatemala are closed, the children in the baby home in Guatemala are being placed in country with Guatemalan foster and adoptive families.

The home was designed as a temporary place to provide care for the children until they are adopted. Buckner is now placing a high priority on finding families for them in country and working with the appropriate government officials to help foster care and in-country adoption succeed. 

However, the older children of the house continue to wait for someone to take them home and make them part of a family.

Please pray for these children and others across the globe as they are in desperate need of a loving family. Also, when children are placed in loving homes through Buckner, they get the chance to hear about Christ' love and how He died for them--some of them for the first time.

To learn more about Buckner's foster care and adoption, visit beafamily.org.