Part of the Village
by Coz Crosscombe
Our experiences of loving children in our neighborhood have transformed how we think of family, and it began long before Joyce and I decided to share life together. In 1995, Joyce was happily single, enjoying her space and freedom, directing an urban children’s ministry involving hundreds of kids on a weekly basis. She developed a special relationship with nine-year-old Jazmine. Jazmineʼs mother was a drug addict and her older brothers were drug dealers. She had been taking care of her younger brother for three years.
When Jazmineʼs mother decided to enter a fifteen-month rehab program, Joyce agreed to take Jazmine for a few months until she could be placed in a group home. To share her bedroom with a nine- year old who’d had almost no structure in her life was a huge shift. Joyce kept reminding herself it was only temporary.
Then Jazmineʼs five-year-old brother and his father appeared at her door. “I have to go to jail, Miss Joyce. I donʼt trust anyone but you to take my son.” Joyce, now a single mother of two, began making plans for Jazmine and Luis to be moved to a children’s group home–until God decided to get involved. It became clear that God’s will for these children was that they be in a family, not a group home, so Joyce decided to take on the role for the next fifteen months. We married in the middle of that time, and quickly learned a few essential truths: Having two parents really does make a difference. We need the help of our community to raise children. And, most significantly, kids need to know that they are deeply, unconditionally loved by someone.
Though Jazmine and Luis transitioned back into the care of their own family after those fifteen months, they changed our concept of family forever. We have had many children live with us over the years, and our own family of six is a blend of biological children and a child that we chose to be part of our family. This is how God intends for family to be, and if all Christians would begin to participate in this vision, every child in our city could find a home and a place where they are loved unconditionally.
On any given day in Philadelphia, there are roughly 660 children waiting to be adopted. An additional six thousand children are under the care of child protective services, an entity whose annual budget is approaching $600 million. There are also about 2500 churches and 150,000 people in church on a Sunday. We are no great theologians, but a few parts of the Bible seem incredibly clear. One refrain is God’s constant injunction to care for the “orphans,” the children who have no parent providing the basic necessities. How many families have the capacity to care for another child? How many have space in the house, room at the dinner table? I’m sure that in my city, there are at least 660. Which leaves about 145,000 others to help those families with the struggles of providing a permanent home for a child, provide stable environments for the 6,000 kids in transition, work with biological parents on reunification, and save the my city enough money to totally reform the school system.
When we began taking children into our home, we were warned “not to get too involved.” Our communities are full of children who need to be loved in an unconditional way, without the selfishness of the systems we have created to protect us, the adults. As we shared our struggles trying to parent “other peoples kids” with family and friends, we were told, “Don’t worry, it will be easier with your own kids.” They were wrong. They are all wrong. Warnings not to get attached are not to protect the children, but to protect us, the adults, from the inevitable pain that comes from loving a child not born to us in situations we cannot control, often in a labyrinthine system that would never exist if we simply opened our homes.
If you met our eldest daughter, Saiyeh, who came to us at ten months, you would know it is all worth it. At thirteen, she is a talented musician, filled with empathy and loving the unlovable. We have maintained a strong relationship with her Puerto Rican family, and her biological grandmother often looks after our children, especially our young son. She proudly shows off her “grandson” to friends and strangers alike (and don’t dare question the obvious lack of family resemblance).
Many of our good friends who grew up in this neighborhood act as mentors to us as we learn to raise our children in the community. What we couldn’t give to Saiyeh was her native culture. Although we’ve lived for quite some time in our Latino community, we didn’t know much about Puerto Rican heritage and spoke limited Spanish. We were blessed to have a public charter school with an emphasis on bilingual education open its doors just as Saiyeh reached school age. Because we wanted all our children share this heritage, our other daughters also attend the school. (It’s fun to see reactions when our fair-skinned, Australian children speak fluent Spanish.) Our middle daughter was the first Caucasian in the school and has been made far more welcome than what we hear often happens when the first Latino or African American child enters a “white” school.
Yet this unconditional, very attached love has also brought heartbreak. It still pains me to read my journal entries of the time when our three-year-old daughter Aniah, was taken from us by court proceedings.
