Many of us have heard the story of the prodigal son, who asks to receive his inheritance, from his father, that he may go off to live a life of ease and enjoyment. When the money runs out and he’s left to steal food from the pig’s trough he realizes he needs to return to his father, who welcomes him back with open arms. But what if the prodigal son had children and he didn’t have a loving father to pick up the pieces of his wasteful life? In this world are countless stories of children whose lives are left in a mess by their parents’ prodigal living. Here’s one story of how God is picking up the pieces and restoring one of those families.

As a working mom, with a husband, home to take care of, two grown children and two teenagers, I never thought we would have another child. But when God plants His plan in your heart reasoning and common sense don’t matter.
I met Cameron’s mother about twelve years ago at a church we both attended. When he was about three years old, his mother would drop him and his to older brothers off to play with my boys. I would take my boys to his house, but it was so unkempt I preferred to have the children to play in my home and we’d have quite a full house. Cameron and his brothers would spend nights over and I would not hear from her, not knowing when the kids would return home.

As time passed I saw the steady decline within Cameron’s family. His mother had several children with three different fathers, two of whom she married. The house was becoming increasingly filthy from a lack of any housekeeping along with the animal droppings from the numerous pets they owned. My boys no longer wanted to play at Cameron’s home and I was rarely invited inside. On the few occasions I did enter the house I was appalled at the conditions and lack of food available for the children who were oftentimes left alone while their mother was out at the shopping. After she divorced her first husband he died and left her quite a bit of money. Cameron’s mom appearance was important her, so she would spend plenty of money on herself, to look good and go out for a night on the town, while neglecting the children’s needs.

I finally warned her that if she didn’t take better care of the children and clean up the house or I would have to call social services. As a mother I wanted to give her a chance to change and not risk losing her children to foster care. She did change, but only briefly. In the meantime she re-married and things got even worse. When her boys came to play at my house they would be so dirty and their clothes would smell as cat urine. I would give them a bath and give them clean clothes. When they ate they were always so hungry they would eat so fast I never seen kids eat like that. Cameron’s oldest sister, who was a teenager, ran off to Mexico with a boyfriend. In the years prior to this time, Cameron and his brothers had been a regular at our house. We even took them camping and to church with us. Cameron was left alone with his little sister’s ages 1 and 3 to care for Cameron was only 7 or 8 years old. Because there were ongoing signs of abuse and neglect I finally called social services and the children were removed from their mothers care. After he and his siblings were put into foster care I had no idea where he was. Cameron went from one foster home to another, I would stop by to see where Cameron was and I was told he was at a friend’s house. Then, for quite awhile, we had no idea where he was. My family and I started to pray that God would lead us to Cameron. It was during this time that I just knew he was meant to be a permanent part of our family, but where on earth was he? One day his foster parents decided to visit Faith Covenant and they had Cameron with them. My son saw him sitting in the sanctuary and went running to find me. “Mom! Cameron’s here.” I hurried into the sanctuary to find him. We hugged each other I talked to his foster parents and told them that I knew Cameron ever since he was little and that I wanted Cameron. She gave me his social worker’s phone number and I called the next day. There was paperwork to file and training to be completed before we could be his foster parents but we did it all within just two weeks. This was a miracle! Government bureaucracy simply doesn’t work that quickly. We knew God was orchestrating His plan and giving us favor with the State. During the preparation time my husband and I sat down with our children to discuss adopting Cameron and they readily agreed. Because we’d had such a life long relationship with him it seemed natural. In fact, even the State listed us as “next of kin.” In the first year of that Cameron was with us he would share odd things such as “Mary don’t eat black pudding its made out of blood” We had a cat and she was very old, Cameron said I know what to do lets kill her and then we can eat her. My husband said Cameron she our pet. I called the other foster parents that had the girls said any thing weird yes they said they would was their hands in blood that was their bunnies. I called and told my social worker. The girls also said that the older boys would touch them including their father. We found out that the father was in a cult at one time.

We applied to legally adopt Cameron but his mother was not giving up without a fight. You might wonder why she would care so much about Cameron when she’d given up the younger children without a fight. Perhaps it was because he was old enough to know what was really going on in the home and she didn’t want him to tell. As I mentioned, appearances were important to her and she didn’t want to be seen as a bad mother. I think it is more likely that God has a very special plan for Cameron and this was a spiritual battle over his life. It took several years for the State to finally sever Cameron mother parental rights but even then she fought the adoption process. One more year of legal red tape and fact gathering to present to the court ensued but finally, in November 2007, our victory was won. Cameron was ours permanently.

The healing process has begun. Cameron is a straight “A” student, active on the ski team and continually growing in his relationship with God. His older sister was brought back from Mexico and continued running away until she was taken in by a loving family and her life has turned around. His younger siblings were all adopted into the same family, which rarely happens for children in the foster system. We stay in touch with them and they are doing well. As for Cameron’s mom, she divorced her husband and we haven’t heard from her, and don’t know where she is. We pray for her and believe that the good work God began in this family will continue with restoring her to His kingdom.

My life is still hectic and adopting a teenage boy from a dysfunctional family might have seemed like a crazy thing to do, but God placed him in our family long before we knew His ultimate plan. What the enemy meant for evil God worked out for the good of us all. The joy we now experience made every battle worth fighting.