The Winners: Donna and W.C. Martin

The eleven-year-old girl is soft-spoken and almost shy. She's in sixth grade, she says, and she likes English, reading and art best of all. She enjoys coloring and doing crafts. Her favorite Christmas present was a pair of warm, black boots. "Before you came to your new home, were you in foster care?" I ask.

"No, ma'am," she says softly. "I was in a mental hospital. Because I was hurting myself."

The home from which she was removed was one of abuse and pain. When asked how her new family is different, she replies without hesitation, "They love me."

Terri is one of the 70 children who have been removed from the rolls of the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services by the 200-member Bennett Chapel Missionary Baptist Church in tiny Possum Trot, Texas.

According to her new father, Rev. W. C. Martin, the congregation isn't just trying to save souls. "We're saving a generation," he says.

They are taking their job seriously. Back in 1997, W.C.'s wife Donna was praying for an end to the grief she felt over the death of her beloved mother, Murtha Cartwright. The unexpected answer to her prayer was one word: Foster.

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