Foster to family

“I knew I was going to be safe forever,” Rosy Ornelis said of the day she believed the Ornelis home was going to be her forever family.

Alexis, 15, Sam, 13, and Rosy, 10, came from a home where they did not feel safe. Mental health issues and abuse were a part of their daily lives. Now after years in the foster system, the three girls have all been adopted into a new family. On Oct. 8, 2020, they officially became Alexis, Samora and Rosalia Ornelis.

“It’s like living with the family that you knew you were supposed to be with for a very long time,” Sam said.

Rich and Tammi Ornelis knew they wanted to help a child in need. They had a big house to fill and their children Patrick, 27, and William, 24, Haugland were grown, although William still lives at home. The Ornelises chose foster care as a route to adoption.

“In praying what we should do, the fostering and adoption came up and there was just a peace in our hearts,” Rich said.

The day they received their foster care license, the call came. Would they be willing to take in a 14-year-old girl?

The answer was yes and Alexis came to live with them. Alexis had been in foster care for more than two years, including placement in shelters and group homes. She had had difficulty finding a place that was appropriate due in part to her age and her mental health issues.

“They’ve been helping me and ... they hold me and tell me it’s OK,” Alexis said when asked how she was able to fit into Rich and Tammi’s family after not doing well in other placements.

Rich said Alexis was on a variety of medications when she came to live with them. The first thing they did was to help her get off of the meds so she could think clearly.

“It’s a lot of education ... teaching her why she was doing the things she was doing,” Rich said. “A lot of God in there, too.”

“Watching her let go of her hurts and grow,” Tammi said. “My heart is: the children are our future. If we don’t start teaching them that we value them and to value themselves we’re headed down a really bad path. They need to know how special they are and how important their choices in the future (are).”

Alexis said she knew from the beginning this would be her “forever” home. Of the many things she loves about the Ornelis’ home, she cites food and fun at the top.

“They make better food and they’re fun to be around,” Alexis said.

Three girls

As Alexis was settling in, there was another burden on her mind as well as Tammi and Rich’s: Rosy and Sam. Alexis’s two sisters were still in foster care elsewhere.

Tammi and Rich asked the judge to alter their foster care license so they could bring the two girls home.

“At first it was kind of scary because of all these new people,” Sam said. “Then figured out who I was.”

The three girls love to do normal family activities and help Tammi with the day care children.

Sam is participating in TRIO, an educational opportunity for first generation, low-income, and disabled Americans, through Southwestern Community College. She is just starting to learn to play the guitar.

Alexis has discovered a love for giving pedicures — to friends and family for now.

Rosy likes to play with Barbies and sing and dance. She hopes to be able to go to dance classes some day.

The day care that Tammi and Rich started has been an extra blessing coming from their adoption journey. Tammi was working outside the home, but she wanted to be able to stay home in order to be there for any foster children who came into the family.

Day care was the perfect solution. Not only would Tammi be able to stay home while still adding to the family’s finances, she would be able to care for and minister to other children and help parents who needed a safe place for their children while they worked.

The journey

At the beginning of their foster/adoption journey, Rich and Tammi specifically asked to have an older child because they knew how difficult it is for teenagers to find an adoptive home.

“The older kids, they get put in these shelters and when they turn 18 they’re put right out onto the street,” Rich said.

Tammi said she wants others to understand that the process of fostering children as a path to adoption is not an easy one, but it is worth it. It took nearly a year and a half from the time Alexis came to live with them and involved three hours of classes a week for 10 weeks, home visits and court dates before the girls were legally theirs.

“It’s such a blessing to watch kids blossom from the foster system to your daughters,” Rich said.

Supporting children in the foster care system is still important to Tammi and Rich. Now that the girls are officially adopted, their license is once again open to have a foster child placed with them. In fact, they would be willing to adopt another child in the same way.

“But we would like to help the system help the families, too,” Tammi said of taking in more foster children even if they are not eligible for adoption.

From a foster care class she took, Tammi pointed out that church families can make a huge difference in the number of children in foster care.

“If one family would take on one child and the church would support them, there would be no children in foster care,” she said.