The Rev. D. Mitchell Mullenax is asking churches to act as Jesus did and welcome the nearly 2,600 children in Maine’s foster care system into their congregations.

The Fairfield man doesn’t want them to stop there.

Mullenax, 44, wants churches to support foster and adoptive families in their communities and to encourage members of their congregations to become foster and adoptive parents.

Mullenax is spearheading an effort called One Church, One Child of Maine for A Family for ME, a Gardiner-based nonprofit organization that works with the state Department of Health and Human Services to place children in state custody with foster and adoptive families.

The program is not new but under Mullenax’s direction, it is being stepped up.

He said that turning to the church for help in meeting the needs of children in state custody seemed natural.

“I think the church is predisposed to think that it needs to live life for someone else,” he said in an interview. “The first hospitals and orphanages grew out of the church. It’s only natural that it return to its roots of good social work.”

In addition to recruiting foster and adoptive families, churches in the One Church, One Child of Maine program is asking churches to form a ministry within its church that, among other things, would regularly pray for foster and adoptive parents and their children, network with other churches in the

program and encourage members not able to act as foster or adoptive parents to provide respite care for those who are.

“The most important thing a church community can do,” he said, “is pray that God raises up people who want to protect these children.”

One Bangor couple, the Rev. Brian Nolder and his wife, Sally Nolder, appear to be at least one answer to that prayer, even though Mullenax has never met them.

The Nolders have been foster parents and recently adopted a boy who had been their foster child.

Brian Nolder, 40, is pastor of Pilgrim Orthodox Presbyterian Church on Mount Hope Avenue.

The Nolders have always wanted to raise four children. The cost of a private adoption in the United States or overseas times four was prohibitive on a pastor’s salary, said Brian Nolder. They also felt that by adopting through foster care, they could be a child’s first and only placement.

That is how the couple was able to adopt Matthew, now 31/2 years old. The Nolders picked him up at the hospital a few days after his birth and adopted him earlier this year.

“We wanted to have as significant an impact on shaping a child as possible,” Brian Nolder said of their decision to act as foster parents to the youngest children in state custody.

The Nolders met 11 years ago in a Hebrew class when both were students at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia and were married a year later. In their marriage, the couple learned they would not be able to have children unless they adopted.

They moved to Bangor in 2001 when Brian Nolder was called as pastor of Bangor’s only Presbyterian church.

Christians adopting and providing foster care for children is nothing new, he said. During Christianity’s earliest years amid the Roman Empire, Christians would take in children left by some to die of exposure on hillsides.

“We see it both as what God himself does in adopting us into Christianity,” Brian Nolder said, “and as another way God fulfills his promise to make the barren woman a mother – to give her that joy.”

Members of their congregation have been very supportive of their decision to adopt children in foster care, the couple said. They have provided meals, acted as baby-sitters and offered advice to the Nolders.

At least two other families who attend their church also have been foster then adoptive parents.

Although the couple hopes to be able to adopt more children, the Nolders have learned firsthand how DHHS’ primary goal of family reunification can affect foster care families.

“While we have no regrets over what we’ve done, it is a hard road,” said Sally Nolder, 39. “It has its trials that I couldn’t handle if not for my faith. Because I can trust that, I feel like I can handle better the trials and tribulations of foster care and adoption. It allowed me to rejoice with that birth mom over her reunification with her child.”

The Nolders know that the route they’ve chosen is not always easy, but they believe that God set them on it for a reason.

“I believe God did not allow me to have children because these are the children he wanted me to have, and I’m grateful for that,” she said.

For information on One Church, One Child of Maine, call the Rev. D. Mitchell Mullenax at 1-877-505-0545.

The Mission

Churches in the One Church, One Child of Maine program are asked to:

. Pray for foster and adoptive parents and the children in Maine’s foster care system.

. Act as a resource for individuals interested in pursuing adoption or

foster care.

. Network with Christian foster and adoptive parents from other churches.

. Provide a support system for those in the process of or to those already parenting children.

. Communicate regularly with the congregation about foster care and adoption.

. Help equip families for the complex issues foster and adoptive parents experience.