Shyenne had been bouncing from foster home to foster home, spending a night in each.
“When our caseworker called us and said they needed a home for a 9-year-old girl, we agreed to take Shyenne for the weekend,” Cliff Logan said.
He and his wife, Pat, had been foster parents for about a year at that time.
Answering the call
The Logans, who had been married for about 18 years, are unable to have children. They first began considering foster care and adoption in 2015, after hearing a sermon about the subject at their church.
“My wife had approached me and asked me my opinion and I thought, ‘Let’s pray about it and see where God takes us,’ ” Cliff said.
They attended an introductory meeting at a Shawnee Mission church and picked up some pamphlets. Later, they contacted the Kansas Children’s Service League, completed the required 10 weeks of training and were licensed for foster care.
Their first placement
They received their first call for a foster care placement in September of 2016. While they talked it over, KCSL found another home for the child. The following Monday they received a call about a 9-year-old boy. This time, they said yes. That boy still resides in their home.
“We took him in and haven’t looked back,” Cliff said.
And they haven’t looked back with Shyenne, either.
Just one weekend
“The weekend was extended to a week, then a month, then long-term,” Cliff said.
After a week, they turned their office/temporary bedroom into a permanent bedroom for Shyenne.
And after a few months, Cliff and Pat applied to adopt Shyenne. The adoption recently was finalized.
Cliff said he and Pat were told that Shyenne had been in several different homes. She was a “hard case,” they were told, who “couldn’t stay anywhere.”
Her last home
“I looked at Pat and said, ‘This is her last home. Shyenne is not going anywhere else,’ ” Cliff said.
Cliff said Shyenne has opened up to him and to Pat because she knows that “she’ll never have to leave our home; this is her forever place.” Because of this, Shyenne has “allowed us to guide her to healing that she needs so badly.”
Another adoption
“We decided she would be the right addition to our family when we learned the long trip she has been on in the short amount of years she has been around,” he said.
Cliff and Pat also are in the process of adopting the boy they took in so many years ago.
“My wife and I never thought we would be first-time parents this late in life – I’m in my 50s and Pat is in her 60s – but this is the path that God brought us down and we are so very happy with the end results,” Cliff said.