Our History

For 60 years, Christian Homes has provided residential and community-based care for young women with unplanned pregnancies. About 50% of the time, the care culminates in the woman placing her child for adoption with a Christian couple that has been vetted and trained and is eager to adopt her precious baby.   

When a young woman with an unplanned pregnancy reaches out to Christian Homes for maternity care, our goal is that through the ministry, her life, as well as the life of her child, will be transformed. We arrange for her housing, either in our safe, comfortable apartments in Abilene or in her hometown, and we also provide her food, clothing, medical care, legal services, moral support, counseling, educational and employment opportunities. The free maternity services are provided so young women do not feel forced into an abortion because they fear they will not have the support they need through their pregnancy.  

For young children who have been removed by the State from the home they likely shared with biological parents or relatives but where they were abused or neglected, our goal is a Christian Homes & Family Services foster family will be the last foster home they ever need. Our ministry is to identify, train and prepare loving, Christian couples to welcome young foster children into their home and to ultimately make them a forever member of their family through adoption.  

Christian Homes & Family Services is governed by a 21-member Board of Trustees. The ministry is served by a 28-member team of dedicated employees; two of whom have worked for the agency more than 35 years. All Trustees and employees are faithful and committed Christians. The agency is licensed by the State of Texas to provide maternity care and foster care, and in both Texas and Oklahoma to provide adoption services.   

Christian Homes & Family Services was known for decades as two separate organizations: Christian Services of East Texas, a ministry given life in 1985 by the Glenwood Church of Christ in Tyler to provide foster care for children rescued from neglect and abuse; and Christian Homes of Abilene, a ministry originally conceived by the Highland Church of Christ in 1962 to maternity services to women with unplanned pregnancies. 

About half of the agency’s $3 million budget is funded by adoption fees and foster care reimbursements from the State of Texas. For the balance, the agency relies on the generosity of individuals, churches, businesses and foundations, and sound investment of the ministry’s endowment fund.  The ministry is located on the web at www.ChristianHomes.com. 

 Since 1962 Christian Homes & Family Services has placed almost 2300 precious babies and children into loving adoptive homes, provided maternity care for more than 2900 women, and cared for more than 2700 foster children.