Alex was 3-years-old when he first went into foster care. He went through 15 families in 11 years, but he found his forever home in 2018 at the age of 13. Jenny and Stephen Madkour first saw Alex appear on Jeff Gianola’s “Wednesday’s Child” segment in October 2017. When they heard the story of the boy’s past and that he had started to give up hope on being adopted, they knew they wanted to meet him.
Never having had a real home to call his own made it hard for Alex to believe that being adopted was still possible for him. He said he had few long-term connections in his past during his interview with Gianola, and that story resonated with Jenny and Stephen. They felt that they understood his challenges and wanted the chance to get to know him.
Boys and Girls Aid connected Alex with the Madkour family, and they instantly hit it off. Alex shared that he had trouble trusting adults due to his history of moving so much in foster care but said he felt safe with Jenny and Stephen right away. The couple met Alex right before Thanksgiving in 2017 and asked him to move in a little before Christmas. In 2018, they officially adopted him.
Alex, Jenny, and Stephen live near Portland, Oregon, where there is a shortage of available homes for foster children. In 2018, there were 200 children in the state waiting to be adopted and 800 living in foster care. Keep reading to learn more about Alex’s story and how his life changed forever.
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It was Alex’s appearance on TV that put him on the Madkours’ radar. “Anybody who’s seen that video of Alex, his core awesome comes out in that video,” Jenny told the KOIN news team. “It was such a great thing, the way Jeff Gianola talked to him and Alex’s interaction with him, it gave us a glimpse of who Alex is.”
When Boys and Girls Aid first told the boy that there was a family interested in adopting him, he was understandably skeptical. “I didn’t believe them,” Alex said. “This is not going to happen, you guys are just trying to fool me.”
Alex’s life before meeting Jenny and Stephen was difficult — to say the least. He shared, “It was a really big struggle to (think) ‘OK, I’m going from this home, in two weeks I’m going to another home.’”
Aware of the shortage of homes for foster children in Oregon, the Madkours knew they wanted to adopt an older child. It wasn’t until they saw Alex that they knew they found the right match. “We had been looking for a very long time,” Jenny said.
After spending time getting to know Alex, the couple invited him to move into their home and be part of their family. “I said, ‘We have an extra bedroom,’” Stephen said. Now that the boy is in their lives, the Madkour family is not letting go.
Now, Alex couldn’t be happier with his life. He told the news crew, “I didn’t think I was going to find a forever home this good.”
Did this story touch your heart? Would you ever foster or adopt a child? Let us know what you think, and be sure to pass this story along to your friends and family.