New Horizon and other hosting programs.

Hosting an adolescent or teenager from EE can be a positive experience for the child and hosting family. The family gets to know the child's personality and vice versa. Hosting a child opens a new world to them, a world they've only seen on TV and a world they've only dreamed of. Aging out of an orphanage can be terrifying especially if they had little contact with the outside world. No job, no home or family to fall back on. The hosting program can be a last chance for the kids, a last chance for a normal life. A last chance to avoid the fate of others aging out of the orphanage. A chance to love and be loved.

The families who decide to host may try to adopt their host children afterwards. These adoptions are the most heartwarming and heart wrenching, I cried when some of the adoptions didn't happen because of their country's disorganization. Families spending months submitting paperwork  just to find out the child who spent weeks in their home wasn't listed for adoption.  But most of the parents didn't give up, they fought for their kids to come home.

Sadly some of the best fights are lost but the family still maintains contact with the child they have come to love. The family doesn't stop caring for the kid if the adoption falls through.

Hosting a child is not like falling in love with a picture on a website or sitting in a room visiting a child for a couple hours a day. The child lives in your home and becomes part of the family. You get to know eachother outside of the institutional setting.  The child learns the rules of the house and is treated like the biological kids in the house.

The parents are heartbroken at the end of the summer when the child they had hosted returns home to their own country. More often counting the days until the child is back home with the family for good.

Waiting for a court date can be excruciating to be able to bring your child back home. There's always a chance the child might change their mind because of pressure from other's in the orphanage about to age out. It's a sad situation when that happens or when biological relatives try to discourage the adoption.

The reality of kids aging out of orphanages is grim. It seems kind of petty to convince a child they would be better off not being adopted.