The Forever Family @ Jabez

Forever Family @ Jabez House is a multi-racial children’s home for abandoned, neglected and/or abused children, situated in Rayton, Gauteng. Shawn and Chantal Alexander are the house parents of the home and have four biological children.

Having meditated on the scripture in James 1:27 which states that: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress,” Shawn and Chantal felt stirred to open up their home to children in need.

In 2011 they took an abandoned baby into their home and later adopted him. Since then they have adopted another child and have taken an additional 6 children into their foster care. So they have a total of 12 children in the home, ranging in age from 17 months to 16 years old.

The children’s home is called Forever Family @ Jabez House, because Shawn and Chantal desire to create a FOREVER FAMILY for the children placed in their care, whereby children can feel a sense of belonging and have a home to which they can always return.  As far as possible, they would like to adopt the children who come into their care, as they believe that by sharing their surname with the children in their care, the children have a greater sense of belonging and know that they will forever be a part of the family.

Once a child has been adopted, Shawn and Chantal are no longer able to receive financial support from SASSA, in the form of a foster care grant, but they believe that what they gain in having a child feel that they belong forever to the family, is of far greater value than the financial support that they could have received.