Paying It Forward

JENNIFER KELLER

I first met Jennifer Keller at the age of 16, when my family moved to Kansas. In typical teenage fashion, I resented my parents dragging me halfway across the country, and I was not happy about entering a new high school during my junior year. Jenni, as we affectionately called her two decades ago, was friendly, bubbly and the life of any party. Her warmth made me feel comfortable and welcome from the outset. We were typical teen girls...interested in boys, our social calendar, and boys! I never knew in those days that Jennifer's parents had adopted her out of the foster care system at the tender age of 4 months old. Adoption and how families are formed simply were not average adolescent conversation starters!

It was only after we reconnected recently via the internet that I discovered what similar interests and passions we both share as adults - namely, our faith in Christ and heart for the orphans of this world. When Jennifer married her husband, he adopted her biological daughter, who is now a teenager. They wanted to expand their family, but encountered fertility challenges that God used to re-direct their path.

The couple completed foster-to-adopt training in November of 2003, and in July of 2004, were chosen to parent a 3 and 5-year-old sibling group who had been prenatally exposed to drugs. Four months later, Jennifer received a call from their social worker, informing them that the children's birthmother was pregnant again and to obtain their foster license in the event the baby would enter the system. They began corresponding with the birthmother and planning for a voluntary placement. In the meantime, Jennifer and her husband also welcomed a one-day-old methamphetamine-addicted baby into their home. Several months later, another day-old meth positive baby was placed into their care. Next, Jennifer learned that the older children's birthmother had been incarcerated; her baby was born in prison, and then immediately welcomed into the Keller household.

Finally, they received a call from one of the other children's birthmother, who was still meth-addicted, pregnant, and due in 3 months. She asked if the Kellers were ready for child #7. "We prayed and pined over this," Jennifer shares on her family blog, "and decided there was NO WAY we would want them to grow up without one another."

The Keller children are now ages 17, 9, 7, 3, 2, 2, and 1. Jennifer homeschools and serves as an advocate for The Alliance for Drug Endangered Children, speaking at many national conferences. She and her husband have also been instrumental in initiating Kansas House Bill 2602, making illegal drug use during pregnancy a crime.

Watch an interview with the Kellers and meet their children!

As an adoptive mom, I am acutely aware of the many unique challenges inherent in parenting children who have been abandoned and neglected. When I ponder the profound impact Jennifer is having on seven precious children - 6 of them drug exposed and separated from their birthfamilies - I am reminded of God's own love for us: "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God." ~ 1 John 3:1

Don't ever think that you are powerless to change the world! Jennifer Keller is doing it one child at a time. Be sure to visit the Keller family blog to read more about their inspirational story.