Two days after Christmas in 1994, Joe and Linda Wroblewski of Atoka got a telephone call that changed their lives.

After reading an article about Youth Villages' need for foster parents, the two had signed up and gone through orientation. Now, a child needed them.

The Wroblewskis knew that most of the children served by the Youth Villages foster care program are school age - usually between ages 12 and 17. But their call was about a baby.

Zachary had weighed only two pounds when he was born three months premature. Now, he was ready to go home, but the state had determined that the birth parents could not care for the baby. Would the Wroblewskis help?

"We were so excited," Mrs. Wroblewski remembers. In the next few weeks, she and her husband went back and forth to the hospital to learn how to give special care to Zachary. He was medically fragile and would often quit breathing. He was also developmentally delayed and didn't sit up until he was 11 months old.

Four years later, Zachary is still small - weighing only 28 pounds, but fortunately, he has no physical problems from his rough start in life.

His birth parents were never able to care for him. When parental rights eventually were severed by the state, the Wroblewskis adopted the little boy they had raised.

Since then, they have taken two other Youth Villages' foster children into their lives. They are foster parents now to four-year-old "Sarah," who came to them when she was just a toddler. She also entered foster care with developmental delays. "She's just done wonderfully in an early intervention program," Mrs. Wroblewski says. "She's just a joy to have."

Mrs. Wroblewski recommends foster parenting to others, but says that it does involve commitment and dedication.

"It's a job and a challenge," she says. "It's great to know that you're doing something to help these children. Many of them have been in such bad situations. It's very fulfilling."

It is a job that the Wroblewskis do well. "Joe and Linda are a tremendous asset to our program," says Mavis Snyder, the foster care director for Youth Villages in the Memphis area.

"They are a shining example of the skills and attitude necessary to be a successful foster family. They really understand that children need love and much more to succeed in life," she says. "They do an excellent job of providing not only a loving home, but a structured, safe environment."