If you aren't an adoptive parent, you may not be aware that there is a huge online adoptive community. Adoption blogs and web boards abound. I read them. I post to them. I find great support in them since there aren't too many families in my immediate area that look like mine or were formed in quite the same way. Though, now that I think about it, there are two families like mine in my little homeschool co-op in my rural southern county. How's that for you?
But still I mean, we don't exactly run into them a lot outside of the homeschool co-op, so usually we're that sort of weird Christian homeschool family with the black kid. And I'm perfectly OK with that. 'Cause it's always been OK with me to be a little (or a lot) different. You can blame my dad for that.
On the web board I'm part of for families with Ethiopian children, someone posted this link to another blog by a fellow adoptive parent.
http://wehaveroom.blogspot.com/2011/05/lest-orphan-care-become-our-lowercase-g.html
I wanted to share it because it makes a huge point, and it was extremely well said.
I can honestly say that when we adopted Malachi I didn't know much about the huge orphan crises. I guess I knew there was one, but it was only after bringing Malachi home and getting plugged into these online circles that I learned so much more about it. Our motivation for bringing Malachi home was mainly to enlarge our family. We wanted more children. We chose international adoption because there were risks involved in domestic adoption that we weren't ready to accept at the time. We researched countries. Ethiopia was a fairly easy place from which to adopt and we weren't scared of adopting transracially. We saw pictures of Ethiopian children and my heart shouted, "Those are my children!" So, away we went on the 18 month process of becoming parents again.
This go 'round is a little different. I can honestly say that it has largely been my involvement in the online adoptive community that God has used to bring us to the adoption of a child with Down Syndrome. Sure a huge part of our decision to adopt again is that we believe we have more room in our hearts and lives for more kids. And if you want to know the truth, I don't think we'll stop at three boys. Because the need is great, and we ARE willing. But, this time I'm aware of the crises. This time I've read the articles, seen the posts and heard the stories. It's true that adopting an orphaned child will change your life and make you aware of things you never thought about before. And God does say that, "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." (James 1:27 NIV)
But that blog article. Well, it just hits the nail on the head. Orphan care is absolutely something the church should be passionate about. Heaven knows, Christians, particularly American ones, should wake up and follow God into the hard places and do the hard things. Adoption and orphan care are two of those things. But adopting children doesn't save anybody. And as we grow our families, we adoptive parents should be doing a heart check, and a heart re-check to make sure that our passion for orphans and seeing the lonely set in families, isn't really self-righteous service in the name of our Savior.
I, for one, am thankful to see that perspective in black and white. Now, if you'll excuse me. I'm off to examine my heart.
Heather
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