Archive for the Adoption
Thursday, April 29th, 2010
Orphan Summit VI
Most of today and tomorrow I will be at most of Orphan Summit VI sponsored by Christian Alliance for Orphans.
I plan to be tweeting in case you want to follow that way.
Here’s a taste from one of the organizations that will be there.
Tuesday, April 20th, 2010
Love is not enough . . .
. . . or a better way to say it: Real love is not just sweet and easy. Look at what Jesus’s love for us cost him.
An easy, sweet love is not enough to raise any child, whether born or adopted into a family. And the love that some adopted children need is gritty, painful, agonizing, uncertain, and maybe a lot like death.
Jason Kovacs at The Abba Fund writes:
While more and more churches are calling their people to step out in faith to adopt and foster there is just as much need for them to call their people to count the cost and to provide the care they need when the child is home.
I see this included in the very passage we use to call people to adopt – James 1:27 says that “pure and undefiled religion before God the father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction.”
We do a disservice to adoptive and foster families if we are not helping them understand what that “affliction” means. We further disservice them by not doing everything we can to learn and understand and support them in entering that “affliction.” They cannot do it alone.
I hope you will read it all. And don’t overlook Jason’s links to a series of very helpful, thoughtful short videos for anyone who has adopted from a difficult place or is considering it.
Thursday, April 15th, 2010
Adoption may be grueling, but it is good
I’m not going to defend the woman who put her adopted son and an airplane and sent him back where he came from.
But I’ve known enough tragically difficult adoption situations to make me wonder if more knowledge of the situation might not make it easier to have a little empathy with her. Not that what she did was right, but that we might see how she felt driven to an extreme solution.
What we can say for sure is that she got in over her head and made a very bad decision.
This video gives a helpful overview of the situation and beginning at about minute 3:45 asks most of the questions that are at the front of my mind:
- Did this woman not receive adequate information about the child?
- Did this child receive good treatment in the orphanage?
- Did this woman get properly vetted ahead of time?
- Did the agency examine her home study and other information carefully enough to make sure this was a good fit?
- Did she receive training?
- Was there ongoing support?
I’d also ask:
- Was there adequate professional help available when she needed it, including from the adoption agency?
- Was thought given to the difficulty of single parenting, especially with the adoption of an older child, which everyone knows is likely to be more stressful?
- Were there a church and friends who were part of a personal, unofficial support network?
- Was there sufficient language translation help so mother and son could communicate and to help the child make the difficult transition into another culture and language?
In an ideal world, every child would have a loving home. In an ideal world, raising children would be easy.
In the world we live in, parents and children in a loving home–whether born into the family or adopted– may have the “just the normal” stresses and joys. Or they may face the realities that one friend writes about, regarding children with attachment disorder or other disabilities, including fetal alcohol syndrome.
The Joint Council On International Children’s Services has asked that bloggers talk about the truth–that adoption is a good thing. Here’s a list of some families that are posting thoughts about their adoption stories.
Our own adoption story begins here and each post links to the next.
Sunday, April 11th, 2010
Beach family: follow-up
In order to find and tell the story of the testimony of Larry and Melissa Beach, I had to search all around the Internet to get details.
Then I discovered more of the story right here at home. When Jenny (who lives in our downstairs apartment) read what I’d written, she came straight up to tell me a follow-up story.
Jenny is from Houston. Sagemont Church is her home church there. Sagemont learned that there was still $30,000 lacking to pay off the mortgage on the Beach’s original house–the one that was ruined by the hurricane and was razed to make way for their new house. So they passed buckets for the Beaches on a Wednesday night.
$30,000 was the amount that would complete the mortgage payment. Want to guess how much was put into those buckets?
$30,000.25.
So God used the testimony and need of the Beaches to build the faith of people who didn’t even know them personally, by providing exactly what would bless the Beaches.
(Here’s an article published today, listing of donations toward the Home Makeover for the Beaches. Sagemont Church’s gift is in the 3rd bullet near the end of the article.)
Saturday, April 10th, 2010
The heart of the Beach family’s story
I expect some of you saw the story of the Beach Family on Extreme Makeover Home Edition , Part 1 and Part 2. (I’m not sure how long these links will remain available.)
Talitha and I watched online and we were thrilled with the blatant pro-adoption and pro-life lives of Larry and Melissa Beach and their 13 children, several of them with severe disabilities. Over the years, they also have fostered dozens of children.
They were chosen for a home makeover because their Kemah, Texas, house had been destroyed by a hurricane, so they were living in a medium-sized travel trailer. Despite living conditions that would seem unbearable to most of us, the family was overflowing with words and spirit and attitude that said, “We love each other and what better thing could we be doing?”
I sensed Christ in their lives, but never heard or saw anything specific that would confirm it. The closest was this–and it was powerful. As Melissa lay one of the most severely disabled children down in the crib, she said something like, “Every child has a purpose. If that purpose is just to smile, then that is his purpose.”
I guessed editing might have removed the heart of their heart. So here’s some follow-up that helps complete the picture of who the Beaches are. They are an active, integral part of their church. And they give testimony to God’s power and strength in their lives upon the death of their youngest child.
I can’t remember ever recommending a TV program, but I hope you might catch those Home Makeover episodes to hear Larry and Melissa’s–and their children’s–passion for adoption, especially for adopting children who most would consider unadoptable.
One caveat: Adoptive parents, we have to grit our teeth and bear it when there are several mentions of the Beaches’ “own” children and adopted children–not by the Beaches, though. I put my arm around Talitha and said, “You are my own child.”
Monday, January 25th, 2010
What you need to adopt from Haiti
Many of you have asked about how to go about adopting from Haiti. Dan Cruver of Together for Adoption asks a question in return:
The day will come when the adoption process will open back up in Haiti; and when it does, what Haiti’s orphans will need is Christians who imitate the patience of their Father in heaven. How many of us who are now interested in adopting a child from Haiti will still be interested when the adoption process finally opens back up?
Please read the rest of his article. You may find it discouraging. Or you may discover that God is using Haiti to awaken desires in you and that now he wants to redirect those desires toward other children in need.
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010
Adoption or orphanage?
There is no easy solution to the orphan crisis in Haiti. It would be wonderful if every child could be placed in a loving, godly family. But until that day–which may never arrive–each child needs loving, caring people who care for him or her. That would probably be in an orphanage.
Orphan’s Matchbox is the blog of the Christian Alliance for Orphans. A recent post there expands on the thoughts I was trying to express about care and family.
No matter how else God is inclining you to be involved, please pray for these children.
Thursday, January 21st, 2010
What is an orphan in Haiti?
In a country like Haiti, that even in the best of times has so many needs, some of the children in orphanages do actually have parents. But for many reason the desperate parents are not able to care for their children.
Now the earthquake has created a multitude of new orphans, children whose family is nowhere in sight and no one knows yet who they are. Some children will be reunited with parents or other family members, but others are truly orphans with no surviving family members.
The latter are the ones we should be thinking about when we encourage adoption. It would not be right to whisk children away from their own language and culture without making a tremendous effort to locate their family. Imagine yourself the mother or father or grandparent of a child who just disappears. Is he dead? Has she been sold as a prostitute? Think of the grief and agony for the rest of your life, not knowing.
One category of Haitian orphans are children who were in the process of being adopted. Secretary of State Clinton says,“[We will] do all we can to expedite the travel of children who were in the line for adoption who have a legal permanent home, guardianship, waiting for them.” These are children who had already been cleared for adoption before the earthquake.
Now we should pray:
1. for a network of able people striving to reconnect “lost” children with their parents.
2. for loving care for the children as they wait and then perhaps discover that their family is dead.
3. godly homes and loving hearts open to adopting those who prove to be true orphans.
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010
Some Haitian Orphans to come to the US
We have prayed about the plight of orphans in Haiti, made so much worse by the chaos of the earthquake.
Yesterday the US Department of Homeland Security announced:
. . . a humanitarian parole policy allowing orphaned children from Haiti to enter the United States temporarily on an individual basis to ensure that they receive the care they need . . .
“We are committed to doing everything we can to help reunite families in Haiti during this very difficult time,” said Secretary Napolitano. “While we remain focused on family reunification in Haiti, authorizing the use of humanitarian parole for orphans who are eligible for adoption in the United States will allow them to receive the care they need here.”
Read the rest of the press release to understand more about humanitarian parole and to learn which children are eligible.
Sunday, January 17th, 2010
Church-centered initiative to serve Haiti’s Orphans
Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. (James 1:27)
This is a high calling, to turn our hearts toward orphans. I find the Together for Adoption (T4A) website helpful for staying tuned in. I encourage you to subscribe to it.
Some of us have been wondering how to make a difference for orphans in Haiti. Today T4A makes a hopeful announcement:
We are actively working on an initiative to mobilize the U.S. church to be the hands and feet of the Haitian church to care for its orphans. We want to serve our Haitian brothers and sisters in Christ by coming alongside them and doing for them what they cannot do themselves: care for their orphans in crisis.
Please read the whole thing and pray about how to be involved.
Saturday, January 16th, 2010
US State Department re orphans
I already asked the question: How can we help orphans in Haiti? Here’s some more information, this time from the US State Department.
Intercountry Adoption–main page
Saturday, January 16th, 2010
How can we help orphans in Haiti?
I turned to Jason Kovacs with the questions some of you have been asking
1. Can we bring some of the orphans to the US?
2. If not, how are ways that we can help now?
He responded:
I wish I knew the answer to the first question. Dan Cruver and I are following up on some leads and trying to gather the best and most reliable info so we can act as quickly as possible. We can keep you posted.
As for organizations helping orphans, the ones that I have been recommending are:
REAL HOPE FOR HAITI (there’s a second site too)
First two are small but doing BIG things in the lives of women & children. Friends of ours and others in the church here in Austin have worked with all these ministries and trust them.
