‘My goal is to love them, to take care of them (and) teach them about Jesus’
June 7, 2019
Over the past 25 years, over 200 children have taken up residence in Anna Scheid’s home — some for a short period and others for years.
For 29 years, Scheid ran a restaurant. It wasn’t until she went to Bible college that she felt called to become a foster parent.
During her time in school, Scheid met a woman whose parents fostered children with a variety of disabilities, and the woman would share her experiences with Scheid.
At the end of the course, each student was tasked with teaching a sermon, and Scheid’s friend chose to focus on her families’ story.
“When she got up to give her sermon she was talking about them, and I just started crying, and I couldn’t stop crying through the whole thing. I couldn’t stop crying,” Scheid said. “And I think that was the first time that God was kind of tugging at my heart.”
Shortly after her experience in Bible college, a member of the church Scheid attended hosted an informational meeting about fostering children. Scheid attended the meeting, went through the training and never looked back.
“My goal is to love them, to take care of them, teach them about Jesus — I take them to church, you know, get them involved in things until they get a forever home, and then I think they’ve got a foundation to fall back on no matter where they go,” she said.
With three children of her own and six children that she has adopted over the years, Scheid has served as a loving caregiver to many other people’s children for a quarter of a century.
Throughout her time as a foster parent, Scheid has volunteered to accept some of the toughest children that have come into the State’s care. Serving as a saving grace for Muskingum County Child Services, Director David Boyer described Scheid as an “archangel” among foster parents.
“It’s almost like she’s Lady Liberty standing out there, give me your tired, your poor, yearning to be free. She takes the tough ones, and she is a miracle worker,” Boyer said.
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One of the biggest challenges of fostering children is sending them away when the time comes. But, Scheid said, it fills her with joy to see children integrate into loving, forever families — whether that be their biological family or an adoptive family.
“My thinking is love them, give them their chance, give them a good home and take them to church, teach them about Jesus, show them your love until they can get a forever home, which hoping it’s their family, but that’s not always the best thing,” Scheid, who is currently fostering four children, said.
Over the past 25 years, Scheid has cared for many different children. She told a story of a little girl that has come through her home four different times over the course of her young life. The last time the child needed a home, Scheid didn’t have space in her house for another girl, so she had a carpenter build another room in her home.
“‘Cause I said, ‘don’t let her go somewhere else,’ because I think it’s terrible when they have to go to all these different homes because they change schools, they change friends, they change everything,” Scheid said. “So I said, whatever you do, let me have her.”
That child has since been relocated to a family that is hoping to adopt her.
Being a single-foster mother, Scheid is limited to fostering five or six children at a time, and she aims to keep all of her beds full.
“I like to have all my beds full just because, if you’re going to have three, it takes just as much of your time as if you have six,” Scheid said.
Over the years, some of Scheid’s friends have retired from their roles as foster parents, but she said she never plans to retire. As many children nowadays are being raised by their grandparents, Scheid said she fits right in at elementary school pick-up with many other children’s caregivers.
“I’m just going to do it ‘til I die,” she said. “I just plan on it, not planning on retiring.”
As years of fostering have gone by for Scheid, who ran a daycare for 15 years in order to allow her to stay at home with the children, she has started to become more involved with her foster children’s biological families.
One mother whose child was staying with Scheid began going to Scheid’s church and has since regained custody of her child and is soon to-be married.
Scheid said if she can help a child’s parents get their lives back on track in order to regain custody of their children, then it’s all worth it.
“And at least make them think, you know, I’m not trying to take your child, I’m just going to love this baby until you can take (them) back,” Scheid said. “It makes me feel good when they go to a good home.”
After years of hard work, bad behaviors and a lot of love, Scheid said the strength she has to parent other people’s children is solely from God.
“It keeps me very close to God because without God, I could not do any of this,” Scheid said as she chuckled.
