Nazarenes in the News is a compilation of online news articles featuring Nazarene churches or church members.   

Massachusetts pastor opens home to more than 40 foster children

Somerville, Massachusetts

(Good Housekeeping) Jeff and Kelley Lane live in a densely populated area nestled between Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, in a welcoming home — full of children. Over the last decade, they have fostered more than 40 children, four of whom they have adopted. While foster parenting is not always an easy road to travel, both the challenges and the joys have taught them how to fight for what they know, in their hearts, is the right thing to do.

Kelley, 31, realized years ago that someday she wanted to become a foster parent.

"When I was young, my mother passed away from breast cancer and my father was an unfit and inadequate parent," she explains. "I lived in seven different places, moving from home to home." She also points to an early encounter with another foster child as planting the seed: "When I was 10 years old and held my neighbor's foster child, DJ, in my arms, I knew right then and there I would commit my life to caring for kids impacted by foster care," she shares. "It inspired me to ensure that kids like DJ had a caring adult in their lives."

The number of children in foster care in the U.S. is sobering. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, there were 415,000 children in foster care in 2014 — a number that represents a 4% increase from 2012. While roughly half of the 238,000 children who left foster care were reunited with their parents, others ran away (over 1,000 children), 326 died, 21% were adopted, and 9% aged out of the system. (Only 2% of children who age out of foster care will go on to get a college education.) And a mere 50,600 were adopted out of foster care.

So when Kelley and Jeff started dating, improving those troubling odds for as many kids as possible was a priority. Some of their early days were spent providing holiday gifts and parties for children whose parents were incarcerated — with Kelley organizing events and Jeff, now 39, helping secure funding and deliver presents.

For the rest of the story, click here.

Stories to share? Send them to news@nazarene.org.

--Compiled by NCN News