LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A 13-year-old Arkansas boy who has been in foster care for seven years is asking for a forever home.

Local television station KTHV-TV released a report and video this week about the child, named Zachary, in hopes that a viewer might take him into their family.

“I want a forever home that I can stay in: have fun with [them], I can go fishing with them, exercise with them, and all that,” he said. “I would like them to treat me like I would treat them.”

Zachary says that he also enjoys science and hunting.

“I am very, very kind,” he added. “Super kind, and I make A’s and B’s in school.”

Zachary acknowledged that sometimes he cries because he misses his biological family so much.

“Just please adopt me,” he said. “Please, I just want you to adopt me, no matter who you are.”

According to the website Foster Arkansas, run by the Division of Children and Family Services, there are more than 5,000 children in foster care, but the Christian Alliance for Orphans cites the figure as being over 8,000. It encourages churches to get involved and make a difference in the life of a child—whether it be through fostering or adoption, noting that there are 5,900 churches in the state.

“If out of every 10 churches, 1 family adopted a child from foster care, all children whose parental rights have been terminated would have a new forever home,” the Alliance states.

Click here for more statistics on Arkansas children.

As previously reported, adopting children in foster care is very inexpensive compared to a private or overseas adoption.

“Adoption from foster care is virtually free, and you can also get subsidies for a certain amount of time and additional resources and support post-adoption,” Theresa Freed, the communications director for the Kansas Department of Children and Families, told Christian News Network in 2017. “It’s a very cost effective way to adopt, and also a very meaningful and important way to adopt.”

She explained the process that prospective parents would need to follow.

“They would go through a 10-week training, which consists of 30 hours of training about children from foster care and issues that may come up and how to address those,” Freed outlined. “They go through background checks, and they go through a home inspection.”

“And so, once that process is completed, then they can be prepared for adoption, and there is an introduction between the children and the prospective adoptive parents,” she continued. “And there is work behind the scenes that’s happening between case managers [and] the court system to just make sure this is a good fit.”

Families interested in adopting Zachary may contact Dawn Scott at dscott@thv11.com

Psalm 68:6 says that “God setteth the solitary in families.” Isaiah 1:17 also exhorts, “Learn to do well, seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.” James 1:27 similarly teaches, “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”

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