focus on this family

In 1999 Reverend Greg Stewart preached about the dire need in Los Angeles County for foster and adoptive parents. Soon after, he and Stillman White, his partner of more than 20 years, opened their home to some of these children. Their priority was to keep siblings together, regardless of age, gender, or chance for success. Over the next three years, the men fostered and then adopted five foster children considered “at risk”.

Before coming to live with Greg and Stillman, Arthur (at age 7) had endured fifteen homes, three failed adoptions, and every major category of abuse. Biological brothers Allen (placed with the men at age 3) and David (2 weeks) started life as alcohol and crack addicts, born five years apart to a mother who could neither shake her demons nor care for her children. Brothers Javonte (7) and Dionte (5), careened from foster home to foster home six times in three years, learning such survival skills as food hoarding and predator resistance, but not how to use a fork.

Each of the boys, except for David, is or has been on psychiatric medications. They have received diagnoses such as Autism and Oppositional Defiant Disorder; and for each of those four boys, this home was their last chance. The next placement for any of them would most likely have been an institution, as they were all suffering serious effects of abuse and neglect. In fact, state social workers seem to have given the dads these particular children because there seemed so little to lose by placing them with homosexuals.

When we started filming, Greg – a Unitarian Universalist minister – and Stillman – a former social worker who specialized in troubled children – had become foster parents to these five children and had already adopted Arthur and Allen; but the family was still new and fragile. Then it felt like an experiment. Now it is a full-fledged family. Preacher’s Sons captures the thrilling and bumpy ride of the past five years and condenses the journey into an intimate, lively, and deeply moving portrait of seven people becoming one family. Sometimes this story is hard to look at, but it is even harder to look away.