Megan and April came home from a long day of filling out applications. This is about the ninth time they have spent a day just walking around and applying for jobs in our area.

Every where they went they were fully staffed. Laying off or just not taking applications. Here are two young girls trying to make a start in todays work world. Only to find themselves competing with Older Adults with homes and families to support.

Jobs in Mid Michigan are very few and hard to find.
Major auto plants are sizing down. Factories are closing. Forcing people to relocate and to obtain work away from the home town they grew up in.

Megan will be turning 19 soon. She is a nice young lady who got good grades in school. But as more time passes and no job to pay for rent or food. She is living from place to place. Where ever a friend will allow her to live for the night.

April will be 17 in September. I am concerned for her but she has her dad and I to support her. I think of all the opportunities April has passed by her and it depresses me. As an adopted child she could have earned monies toward a college education.
Her failure to attend school and to keep a "C" average tossed those opportunities down the drain.

Our Adopted children do have a lot going for them.
They have new loving families who encourage them to achieve. They have therapy and insurances to help them through the past issues. They even have greater opportunities for college grants and full scholarships right at their finger tips.

I consider that a wonderful thing. Every adoptive parent should encourage their child to achieve and take the opportunities before them.

Adoption has come along way in this world. But we have so much farther to go.

Just as the nations drug addictions increase. So increases the need for more loving homes. As families fall apart and children are left behind in state custody.

As the adopted children get older they also have the issues of finding jobs and affording a place to live and money for food and utilities, a car and gas.

Helping these children find a way to meet the expectations out there in life is becoming a major goal for some of us adoptive parents.

Those of us who have adopted children with special needs or emotional issues will be left to continue parenting our kids beyond the age of 18.

It is vastly important that Michigan find a way to maintain factories and businesses in the hard hit areas. So we wait for the government to intervene.

I just don't see growing jobs......I see poverty and food lines growing. This concerns me and our young adults survival concerns me also.

It's all in a days parenting I guess. We are here to encourage and to inspire. For us that might be relocating to another area or state soon. Somewhere
that offers more job opportunity for our children.
We shall see.