By Tabitha Evans Moore, EDITOR AND PUBLISHER

LOIS COMMUNITY — It’s a warm summer day and local father Wendall Keen just arrived home from work. Greeting him at the door are his wife, Melissa, and five kids – a blend of his step son, adopted children, and foster children but to Wendall, they are all just his kids.

Like many local men, Wendall follows a full day of work with a full afternoon of farm work. However, unlike other local men, Wendall travels with a tagalong, spitfire “hinder helper” – his four-year-old adopted daughter, Lillian.

“She is so smart, independent, and bossy. She thinks she’s 30 already. The big kids get by with nothing when she’s around,” Melissa jokes. “When her Daddy is home, she out on the farm doing whatever he is doing.”

Both Melissa and Wendall are natives of Lynchburg. Their families have known each other their entire lives. They currently live in the Lois area and their two school-aged adopted children are homeschooled. Their two foster children attend Moore County High School.

“His dad, Dan, would come and get my sister and I and take us fishing or horseback riding when I was a kid,” Melissa says. “I first remember really noticing him when I was a teenager.”

Wendall says years later he and Melissa ended up serendipitously and platonically living in the same house after Melissa moved in the basement apartment of his parent’s home to help Dan following a back surgery because he needed help taking care of his horses while he recovered.

“My dad ended up passing away about a month later,” Wendall explains. “Then about month after that, I ended up moving in upstairs because I was also going through a divorce. Several months later, we just kind of ended up together and have been together ever since.”

Wendall and Melissa have been together for 12 years and married for nine. Interestingly, the couple – who have a 15-year age gap – don’t have any biological children together. Instead, their blended family consists of Wendall’s three grown daughters – Rhiannon, Madeline, and Samantha – as well as Melissa’s 16-year-old son, Evan, and their two adopted daughters, Cecily, age 16, and Lillian, age four. They also currently foster two children: a 16-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl.

“We support each other in everything we do. I can count the number of fights we’ve had in 12 years on one hand,” Melissa says.

Offering love, stability, and structure

The couple say the agreement to foster came in 2020 during the Tennessee Baptist Convention Annual Meeting, but Wendall says that fostering kids has always been on his heart.

“I had been telling her that for years, but she wasn’t sure it was something she wanted to do. During that annual meeting, a representative from the Tennessee Baptist Children’s Home spoke about how great the need was here in this state. By the time we were on the way home, Melissa felt the same way I did.”

“We never really knew how big the need for foster families was until we started classes,” Melissa says. “Once we started foster parenting classes and started receiving kids, we realized how important it is for the kids to be shown love, what a healthy family looks like, stability, and structure.”

Melissa explains that nothing about the foster care journey comes easy. Many of the children come from troubled backgrounds that have left them riddled with trauma. Both Melissa and Wendell believes that fostering give them a shot at changing the trajectory of a child’s life for the better.

“They desperately need guidance even though they fight it,” Melissa says. “They need to witness what a healthy family looks like so that they can recreate that someday on their own.”

The couple say they treat each foster child exactly the same as their biological children, which can lead to jealousy at first, but it’s usually short lived.

“We do our best to let all our kids know we love them,” Melissa says. “We give them the same things our biological kids get. They all get the same hug at night before they go to bed.”

As the man of the house and the one who’s supposed to project strength and safety, Wendall says he often needs to let the more troubled kids to come to him.

“Each kid is different. Each kid has different baggage and different traumas. Some of these kids have seen some horrible things,” Wendall says. “You just have to be the best example of somebody they can trust and the best example of the way life should be as you can. Eventually all of them come around.”

Just an extra person to love you

Both Melissa and Wendall say fostering can be an emotional roller-coaster for everyone involved. Being a bonus parent isn’t always easy, they say, but it’s important to keep their eye on the goal of both making the kids feel safe and getting them back home with their biological parents if at all possible.

“We try our best to have a good relationship with our foster kids’ biological parents when we are allowed,” Melissa says. “We let the parents know we are here to support them in any way we can. Unfortunately, they often see us as the enemy.”

Melissa and Wendall say once a child enters their home, they treat them as if they’ve always been their kid. They see no difference between their biological children and those that fate brought their way.

The couple say it is sometime very hard to be a bonus parent. Sometimes the foster kids push back, and sometimes there’s jealousy when one kid needs a little extra love.

“We just keep showing them that we’re not there to replace their mom or dad. We’re just an extra person to love you,” Melissa says.

“They don’t want to bond with people. They’ve never had a bond with anyone before or they did and that person ended up not being someone they could trust, so they don’t trust anyone,” Wendall says. “Those are the ones who are gonna test you to see if you are gonna stand behind what you say and if you’re gonna continue to do what you tell them you’re gonna do.”

Offering a fresh start

Melissa and Wendall say once they decided to adopt Cecily and Lillian it felt important to give them a fresh start. They even gave both children new names to celebrate their new life.

“Cecily used to have a different name. She wanted a whole new one, so Wendall came up with Cecily Renae Keen and she loved it,” Melissa says.

Wendall explains that Cecily didn’t like her name, so they didn’t resist when she wanted to change it. Lily, however, insisted that her name remain Lily, even at a young age. So, they simply added the middle name to honor Melissa’s mother.

They say they don’t make an effort to keep Cecily and Lily’s biological families in the picture but they also don’t do anything to prevent it.

“We don’t incorporate any of our adopted kids’ backgrounds into their lives now. This is a new start for them,” Melissa says.

Melissa says Lillian, who came into their lives as a baby, doesn’t remember her family of origin. Cecily stays in contact with her biological siblings and both Wendall and Melissa say they encourage it.

“We went on a Christmas vacation to Arkansas last year and surprised Cecily with a visit at her biological grandfather’s house,” Melissa says. “I got in touch with him, and on our way home we stopped by there. She got to see him, her bonus grandma, and uncles. She loved it. We don’t keep her from her biological relatives except for the ones that aren’t healthy for her.”

Building a bigger table

There’s a saying that goes, “When you have more than you need, build a longer table, not a higher fence.” It’s the basic idea to help your fellow humans who are in need rather than cut yourself off from them. It’s a thought both Melissa and Wendall embody, though they also both confesses it’s not easy.

“I would say that it’s a it’s a blessing to be able to do it and it is not easy. But if you can make it worth it for just one kid, then it’s worth it.”

{The Lynchburg Times is a nonpartisan, independent community newspaper serving Lynchburg, Tennessee and the surrounding counties. We are dedicated to public service journalism for the greater good of our community. You can support us, by clicking here.}