Couple Helps Tennessee Baptist Children’s Homes Provide Family and Moral Constant
by: Kim Burke - Sep 1, 2005 - comments: 1
She is the picture of “Sweet Sixteen”—a high school cheerleader with shoulder-length red hair and a beautiful smile. But sweet experiences were not plentiful in her childhood. Prior to turning fourteen, she lived first with her mother, then her grandmother, then back with her mom before spending four years with an aunt, uncle, and their three children. Moving from place to place and person to person left little chance for April and her younger brother to experience stability and opportunities for growth.
Robert and Jenna Pautienus are the picture of stability—he is an attorney, and she is a stay-at-home mom expecting their third child. In addition to parenting their two children and teaching a couples’ Sunday School class at Forest Hills Baptist Church in Nashville, they serve as a volunteer visiting family for Tennessee Baptist Children’s Homes. Their commitment to the visiting family program involves having April in their home every other weekend and most holidays.
Tennessee Baptist Children’s Homes, a ministry of the churches of the Tennessee Baptist Convention, have provided residential childcare to at-risk children for over 114 years. Their spacious, family-style homes on East Tennessee, West Tennessee, and Middle Tennessee campuses provide a nurturing environment for children like April. At TBCH, up to six at-risk children — often with their siblings — can live in a stable home with a married, Christian couple as house parents.
Now a two-year resident of TBCH, April says her life is better thanks to house parents David and Sandra Petrie, visiting family Robert and Jenna Pautienus and their girls, and many other caring adults who support the statewide ministry. “I like living here,” April says with a smile. “I have my own room, and my brother Robert lives here too. I like my house parents. They’re really cool.”
While being labeled “really cool” by a teenager can be a compliment, the house parents and staff of the Tennessee Baptist Children’s Homes know they are called to a higher standard to serve the children in their care. This call is shared by Robert and Jenna, who help parent April during their time together as they would their own daughters if they were teenagers—“as unto the Lord.”
“We know that today’s youth continue to face the issues of drugs, alcohol, and premarital sex,” Robert states. “But I see the bigger issue facing youth as relativism, the idea that there are no moral constants and everything is relevant to the situation and persons involved.”
The need to provide stability and nurture while protecting at-risk children is a nationwide problem facing state foster care and residential childcare ministries as they meet a child’s basic needs and fill the vacancy left by inactive parents or guardians. The National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information states that 60 percent of victims of suspected child abuse or neglect reported to child protective services agencies nationwide did experience neglect, meaning a caretaker failed to provide for a child’s basic needs.
The staff of Tennessee Baptist Children’s Homes not only help meet the physical and developmental needs of children who have experienced this kind of neglect but also model and introduce the children in their care to God’s love for each of them. For many children, TBCH is their first exposure to learning about God or going to church.
Like most foster care or house parents, TBCH house parents David and Sandra Petrie are responsible for the children in their care around the clock. Part of this responsibility includes modeling Christian values. Visiting families like Robert and Jenna Pautienus help TBCH offer children and their house parents the benefit of time spent with another Christian family who also model the same Christian faith and values.
Robert and Jenna had been acquainted with Children’s Homes ministries in Florida and Texas. After moving to Nashville, they learned about Tennessee Baptist Children’s Homes. Their decision to become a visiting family came this past year when, during a worship service, Robert and Jenna noticed in their church bulletin that TBCH had a need for visiting families.
“We both mentioned to one another that we wanted to talk after church about something that we saw in the bulletin, which turned out to be the same thing,” Jenna recalls. “We each felt like this could be something that the Holy Spirit was leading us to do, so we decided to commit it to prayer for a period of time.”
Their final confirmation came when a girl from TBCH gave her testimony and talked about the importance of visiting families during a mission emphasis week at their church. “At that point the decision to become a visiting family was easy,” Robert says. After completing the required paperwork and background check, they became April’s visiting family.
April is a special part of the family. Jenna, her two girls, and April have matching silver bracelets, gifts from Jenna’s father. April has been with the Pautienus family to Orlando to visit Robert’s parents and to Brunswick, Georgia, to visit Jenna’s brother. When she stays at the Pautienus home, she enjoys playing with three-year-old Ally and one-and-a-half-year-old Cari.
“Cari and Ally like for me to fix their hair and play with them. They’re loud but cute,” April says. “Mr. Pautienus is funny—he jokes around a lot. And Mrs. Pautienus and I talk a lot. She tells me stuff about when she was a teenager. She and Mr. Pautienus like to run, and Mrs. Pautienus and I run together sometimes.”
The Pautienus family looks forward to April’s visits and to being her visiting family for years to come.
“When she is not here, Ally makes a point of saying that April is missing from the dinner table,” Jenna notes. “Sometimes Ally wants Mommy to fix her hair ‘like April does it.’
“April has become part of our family, so we hope to have a long-term relationship with her,” Jenna adds. “She has many talents and gifts; our prayer is that April will use those talents and gifts to the Lord’s glory. As with Ally and Cari, we hope and pray that she will graduate from college and that someday she will find a husband who loves the Lord, and will have a loving Christian family of her own.”
“Recently in a Bible study, the Lord drew me to the second half of John 14:23, which says ‘we will come to Him and make our home with Him’,” Robert shares. “This verse is not just a declaration from my family to God, but also a promise from God to me and my family. If we will commit all our hearts, minds, and strength to loving Christ, then God the Father, Christ, and the Holy Spirit will make their home with our family. Jenna, our girls, and I are grateful that our family includes April.”
Kim Burke is Communications Specialist at the Tennessee Baptist Children’s Home and a freelance writer.
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1 On Jan 24th, 2008, at 4:42pm, Tim Wibking wrote:
Wonderful article. So well written with compassion.