Uncovered

Recently we had to review and sign our placement agency's contract. All in all, it probably required us to sign in fifty to sixty different places. The information and what we were agreeing to was daunting. We were bargaining for a life...maybe two. It felt weird to reduce the addition of a family member down to a business transaction. It reminds me a lot of when we bought our house or our last car. But this is a life being transferred with a series of documents and signatures. A little life.

I think the part of the contract that intrigued me the most was where we had to state what the physical, emotional and intellectual parameters were that we desired of our potential child(ren). It started out very easy. Complexion? Who cares. But then the questions got harder and we realized that some of our desires left a multitude of children out. It felt intrinsically out of place to order a child like a Big Mac from Mc. D's. In my opinion, I think it's wrong to be able to choose a gender. We don't do that in utero....why would we want to do it elsewhere? (The strong desire for girls and infants has, in many areas, turned adoption in to child trafficking. Here is a good article talking of this very issue: http://www.slate.com/id/2093899/ ).

Yes, we are open to imperfection, but it was very sobering to see and realize that there are some conditions that we felt we either couldn't (or didn't want to) handle. I pray for the children we ruled out. Every child deserves a home with a family to which they belong. I pray that those children are chosen by parents that see their challenges worth taking on. Lord forgive us for our limitations on this issue. HIV+ is where our tiny bit of courage is now. Prepare us in the future to be even more courageous than we are presently.

What is it with adoption that you feel that your hunger to "help" is never satiated? I don't know that we will ever feel we are doing enough....we have opened Pandora's box by even considering, learning about and pursuing adoption. I know that when we go over to the country from which we will be adopting, that we will see all these children that need homes......we will be stupefied with the magnitude of how little our one adoption is doing. We are doing all we can as a family. But dear friends, dear Christians, we are not doing enough. Following are some interesting statistics I gained through another blogger by the name of Tiffany Dahlman (http://www.lighted-path.net/article2_DarkestClouds.html) :

I was reading some adoption blogs lately and came across an interesting fact in a post that is circulating. I looked it up, did the math myself (risky, I know....) and found it to be true.

Here it is:

-There are 143 million orphans in the world, according to UNICEF.

-There are 2 billion people who consider themselves Christian in the world, according to government censuses.

-All of these Christians are adopted, according to the Bible:

14For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. 15For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba! Father!" 16The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, 17and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. Romans 8:14-17

However, less than half of the 143 million orphans are adoptable because of insufficient paperwork (birth and death records, for example), religious laws forbidding adoption to Christian families (Muslim orphans), poor relations between the US and the orphan's government (Burma), or lack of a transparent adoption system in place to guarantee ethical adoption (Cambodia).

Therefore, if only 7% of the 2 billion people who claim to believe in their adoption into God’s family through Christ -7% of those people- chose to adopt ONE child, all 143 million of the world's orphans would have a permanent safe home and a family to call their own! And since this is unrealistic because of the above listed reasons, if only THREE-yes- 3% of the world's Christians adopted ONE child- ALL adoptable orphans would have a permanent safe home and a forever family.

WHAT?! That's all it would take?!

Disclaimer: I firmly believe that not everyone is called to adopt, Christian or not. But I also firmly believe that, at the very least, 3% of 2 billion Christians have been given this calling, especially since scripture defines the mark of pure Christianity as caring for orphans (see below)! It's simply a matter of obeying the call and returning the enormous gift of adoption that God has given us to a child who needs a home.

Turns out some of the world's problems are easily fixed. Peace in the middle east? I have no idea. But the orphan crisis??? This one should be easy.

27Religion 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.