By Susan Serrano

TREND: Longer wait times to adopt internationally from traditionally popular countries.

“Caution: Bumpy Roads Ahead” has long been a signpost on the road to international adoption. Although there have been numerous delays and program changes in recent years, international adoption is still a realistic and viable option for families and meets a significant need for the thousands of children worldwide who wait for a permanent, loving home. But families need to bring a healthy set of realistic expectations to the process. Read the rest of this entry

By Lauren Hollon Sturdy

When an 8-year-old child weighs what a healthy 6-year-old should, there’s a problem.

That was the case for a boy living in the Rio Grande Valley. Many children in destitute border communities, called colonias, suffer from malnutrition due to a lack of access to healthy food. Read the rest of this entry

By Jenny Pope
Buckner International

TREND: Fewer domestic infant adoptions nationwide. 

Most Americans favor adoption, according to recent National Survey on Family Growth and the National Foster Care Adoption Attitudes Survey (2008, 2009 and 2007). However, the traditional concept of adoption has changed. When people think about adopting a child, they typically think about babies. They rarely imagine older children, sibling groups or a child’s birth mother in the picture. But that’s exactly where domestic adoption is today. Read the rest of this entry

Adoption agency celebrates 40 years of operation

Q: Why did you start this ministry in the first place? 

DENIESE: Well, Jerry is a visionary, and I’m the stick in the mud. And he definitely had the idea. He had the vision long before I did, and he caught it because he happened to go to a Rotary meeting and he happened to meet someone who mentioned Korea and orphans there. Read the rest of this entry

By Scott Collins

It’s a scene I’ve watched for 13 years, going back even before Buckner took over what is today Shoes for Orphan Souls™.

The mission team files into an orphanage where a horde of giddy and excited children wait. It’s chaos in the best possible way. Boxes sitting on the floor are ripped open and eager hands extract the contents – shoes.

Mission volunteers, as excited now as the children they are about to serve, reach inside the shoes and pull out crumbled pieces of paper. In one shoe is a child’s name – Sergei, Misha, Juan, Carlos. In the other shoe is a note from somewhere in the United States written with love by a shoe donor from Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Florida. “God loves you.” “I’m praying for you.” Read the rest of this entry

By Chelsea Quackenbush
Photo by Lauren Hollon Sturdy

Head east out of Dallas on Interstate 20 and the whizzing cars and tall buildings shrink in your rearview mirror as the pine trees grow taller and life slows down just a little bit.

Longview may not be the big metropolis of Dallas, but it is growing. It is the real East Texas.

Buckner has been in Longview since 1992. Primarily focused on foster care and adoption services and various community programs, a brand new Community Transformation Center, only the second domestic Buckner CTC, is open for business. Read the rest of this entry

By Chelsea Quackenbush

Tom and Margaret Ann “Mac” Stone remember sitting in a Buckner meeting several years ago, their hearts breaking for children in Ethiopia but not knowing what to do about it at the time.

The Buckner trustee emeritus and his wife were captivated by a report about a school in Bantu and water well drilling.

Tom Stone was active on the Buckner board of trustees for 29 years. He and Mac had been on numerous mission trips with Buckner, including Peru, Latvia and a tour of 15 Russian orphanages. They went on the first Shoes for Orphan Souls trip nearly 15 years ago.

They saw Buckner ministries firsthand, so when the time came, there was no question about where to give. Read the rest of this entry

By Chelsea Quackenbush
Photography by Lauren Hollon Sturdy

The Church at Bethel’s Family built itself among the people it serves – and they’ve earned a very positive reputation in its effort to feed and clothe the community.

Their ministry is huge and it’s growing every week.
Read the rest of this entry

By Chelsea Quackenbush

DALLAS – Buckner-Hillburn Hills and AZAR Foundation, Inc. are reaching out to students in the Piedmont Home Association community to serve afterschool snacks twice a week to foster relationships and lay the groundwork for community transformation.

Students from John B. Hood Middle School and San Jacinto Elementary School swing by the community center to pick up a snack and either stay to socialize and work on homework or head home.

Buckner partnered with AZAR in November to provide the snacks, and plan to host a summer food program and GED and literacy programs within the community. They’re also working on a summer mentoring program to including job skills education. Read the rest of this entry

By Lauren Hollon Sturdy
Photography by Chelsea Quackenbush

Locke and Kara Curfman might be the strongest foster care advocates you’ll ever meet. Even with three birth kids and two toddlers they adopted through foster care, they’re still taking foster placements. They’re serious about children.

In fact, they’re such big advocates that they were recognized by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (CCAI) in Washington, D.C. as 2011 Angels in Adoption. They honored alongside 150 Angels at the national event.

But they weren’t always this involved. For most of their life together, the couple has been at odds on foster care. It started when they first married and Kara was a school teacher. Read the rest of this entry