Home for Good’s goal is to find a loving home for every child who needs one. Founding director Dr Krish Kandiah says this dream will become a reality if at least 7,000 foster families come forward.
It was realising they had more capacity to love after having three birth children that prompted Krish’s wife to ask: should we adopt or foster children? Krish didn’t know at the time that that question would lead to monumental change, not only in their lives, but in the lives of boys and girls who had nowhere permanent they could call home.
It’s not that Krish was instantly on the same page as his wife; “I was rather hesitant and had reservations,” he says. But, after meeting with friends in their 60s who became foster parents for the very first time to teenagers, and receiving confirmation from God, he
was persuaded.
Home for Good was established more than five years ago after Krish, in his then role of executive director for churches in mission at the Evangelical Alliance, partnered with Care for the Family and CCPAS to launch a campaign to encourage Christians to think about adopting or fostering vulnerable children. “Out of that campaign, Home for Good was born,” says Krish. “Its heritage is very similar to Tearfund’s, in that it was birthed, blessed and incubated by the Evangelical Alliance, for which I am very grateful. I want the nation to see in our actions as well as our words what Christianity is all about.”
In the UK, there is an urgent need for more than 7,000 foster families, and there are not enough people coming forward to adopt children who wait the longest for adoption. “When you add up the Evangelical Alliance’s, Care for the Family’s and CCPAS’s databases, we can reach thousands of churches,” emphasises Krish. “One family per member church will more than meet the need.” Krish, who, with his wife, became a foster and adoptive parent 12 years ago, says the church, which has received adoption to sonship (Galatians 4:4), should consider how it can make a difference in the lives of children in care.
Krish acknowledges that adopting or fostering “isn’t for everybody” and encourages those thinking about taking on a child to talk to God and hear what He has to say on the subject. He also urges them to consider the cost: “The romanticised portrayal of adoption that we see in Hollywood movies is far from the reality,” he explains. “Around 70 per cent of these children have experienced abuse, neglect or sexual violence and are living with deep-rooted trauma which manifests itself physically and emotionally. They need resilient people who want to make a difference in their lives and who will love them forever.”
Krish delights in the fact that Home for Good has made a way for prospective foster carers and adoptive parents from the church to offer a loving home to children who need it. “I recently heard about a couple, church leaders, that was moved after listening to a talk I gave entitled ‘A relentless revolution of love’, which is about caring for orphans and vulnerable children,” he says. “What followed in this couple’s life were more internal promptings urging them to consider adopting. They have now taken on two little girls. Not only has this couple changed these two lives, but they’ve set an example in their church.”
Krish encourages members of the church, for whom adoption or fostering is not their calling, to see themselves as a support network for foster or adoptive families. “We need the rest of the church to step up and help, taking on roles as aunties and uncles, and praying for and encouraging these families,” he says. “We need to be the family of God we’re supposed to be.”
