A couple weeks ago, I felt a heavy burden in the area of adoption and orphan care.
My burden resulted in my last post, "Orphan Justice: How Adoption Only Scratches the Surface". This post led to a great conversation with like-minded people on the subject, and also led me to writer/ speaker/pastor's wife Jen Hatmaker's blog series - "Examining Adoption Ethics."
When I read her third installment, I kept thinking, "Yes! Amen! Hallelujah!" Because I didn't realize I'd been echoing her sentiments in my own blog.
I'll pull out a few highlights and notable quotes for you:
"...Let's get our numbers straight... There are an estimated 153 million kids who've lost only one parent, so the term "orphan" is somewhat misleading... Unicef estimates around 2 million children in institutional care..."
My tidbit: Folks we've got to get our numbers right when we cite the number of "orphans" in the world. Although 2 million is a very large number (and UNICEF admits that this number is low due to underreporting in certain countries), it's a lot lower than 153 million!
Another thing I'm learning from my friends and co-laborers in the Arkansas Department of Children and Family Services... The word "orphan" is a misnomer for the 500,000 children in US foster care. These children almost always have a living parent, so they are nobody's orphans. As Christians, we understand the biblical mandate to "Care for Orphans," but we have to know in our hearts that we are oftentimes not dealing with a true "orphan."
"If we are truly concerned about orphan care, international adoption simply cannot be where we concentrate all our efforts. It leaves too many children behind."
My tidbit: I wholeheartedly agree with my Sister. And I'm the mother of a son adopted internationally. We've got to find strategies to encourage Russians to adopt Russian children, Ethiopians to adopt Ethiopian children and South Koreans to adopt South Korean children.
In his book Orphan Justice, Johnny Carr emphatically agrees, and works diligently towards that end. But I blogged about that last time...
My last Hatmaker quote:
"It is unacceptable that poverty makes orphans. That is a gross injustice at the root of these astronomical numbers. If you must relinquish your child because you cannot feed, educate, or care for him, the international community should rise up and wage war against that inequity. Every family deserves basic human rights, and I should not get to raise your child simply because I can feed him and you can't.
"To that end, what better response than working to preserve (or reunite) first families where poverty or disempowerment is an orphan-maker?"
My tidbit: Amen! Amen! Amen!
For the last six months or so, God's been doing a transformational work on my heart. I am feeling a draw to support efforts that not only serve and benefit children displaced from their birth families, but to support the efforts that take a step backwards in this process.
How amazing would it be to not only care for orphans, but to care for disadvantaged families, with the hope and prayer that maybe their children will never become orphans?
This is no small undertaking. This is no minor calling. And this isn't as cute as adopting that adorable brown-eyed nine-month-old from Ethiopia.
No, this is a calling to get into the dirt and grime of material and spiritual poverty.
This is a calling to go where Jesus went.
It's a calling to go where He already is.
Let's go, Family.
Love,
Carla
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