Posts like this are always hard to write. When you talk about touchy subjects, you are bound to get criticism-and if you are lucky enough (wink, wink) you'll get it from both ends. You’ve been warned! Read ahead at your own risk!
I follow a LOT of international adoption blogs (check out some of my favorites on my blog role to the left!) not many people adopt, and even less adopt internationally, so it's my way of feeling a sense of community throughout this process. It helps me not feel as alone while we follow God’s plan for us.
One unfortunate thing we all share in common however is "The Post.”
What is "The Post" you ask? Well, it's a blog that is dedicated ENTIRELY to answering the #1 question people adopting outside of the U.S. get.
Why aren’t you adopting locally? Why not here? Why not our children? Don’t you care about America’s needs? WHY AFRICA?
Of course we do. A great deal actually. In fact, when we started this process we ONLY wanted to adopt locally. Because of scheduling conflicts we were, and are still, unable to attend the mandatory training classes to be a part of the foster to adopt program in NV. Our hearts were broken but we were left with a choice:
1. Wait for years and MAYBE pursue adoption when work allowed it.
2. Give up on the idea of adoption all together and have more bio kids.
3. Look into international adoption and save the idea of local adoption for the future.
After much prayer I think it’s obvious which one we chose. God began changing our hearts, giving us new eyes to see problems outside of ourselves that need addressing, and giving us willing hearts to answer His call.
Let me preface this post by saying this, if you disagree with international adoption, if you’ve told us that, or told others that, or just thought it. IT’S OKAY! It’s more than okay!! We still love you, we won’t stone you or kick you off of our little cyber space or trash talk you publicly. We just want you to understand where we are coming from. It doesn’t mean you have to agree even, but we do ask you listen with an open mind and open heart.
Imagine, for a second, that America became a 3rd world country. Imagine with me, for one awful minute, that war and disease wiped out our infrastructure. That somehow, all that remained of our beautiful home, was a weak government that was corrupt more often than not. Not corrupt like we say it is now, but literally run off of bribery, and by large drug lords. There are no jobs, no food, no hope. There is no government assistance, mostly because there is no government. AIDS and other diseases we were once able to fight off because of our medical technology began wiping out families left and right, and our children have no place to go. Imagine our children, like my sweet little Eva, being so hungry that they have to wander the streets digging through trash for food. Picture what it would be like to have to worry, as you fall asleep, about someone coming into your house and stealing your children in the middle of the night to sell them into sex trafficking, or to force them to join an illegal army regime.
If, God forbid, this ever happened to our home on our soil; what would we want for our children then? Would we be begging with, and pleading for other countries to step in and rescue our little ones?
If you were on your death bed, and there were no other family members or friends left to take your child in, would you pray for a stranger to come in and say-Yes, I'll take your daughter. Yes, I'll love your son so much I'll call him my own. Yes, I'll keep them safe. You have my word.
It seems impossible to even imagine, because it’s so far from where we are, but to so many people-it's a reality. Some people live that EVERY DAY. That should terrify us, that should outrage us, that should humble us.
But for some reason it doesn’t.
You see, for some reason we treat the safety and security of children as though it was a commodity, or politics, or the price of gasoline. We have taken the “buy local first” mission to such an extreme, that it now applies to PEOPLE. As though, they were simply another object that will either increase or decrease our economy or our bottom line.
These are CHILDREN.
Not toys with a "Made in China" sticker.
They are children; real life, living, breathing, hurting, in-need children.
I wonder, if you were to tell a child in the DRC that the reason no one wants to adopt them is because they weren't fortunate enough to be born in the US, or that they simply don't have the right color skin, what they would say. What they would feel. Confusion? Sorrow? Heartache? I mean, how could a 4 year old even wrap his head around the fact that his geographical location or the pigment of his skin makes him ineligible for the right to a family, the right to love, the right to life?
When we treat international adoption as an “anti-American” choice, we are a lot like the Pharisees of Jesus’s day who believed that only Jews should have rights to God. We are basically saying “only American children have the right to American families.” But, is that really true? Should it be true? Isn’t a person in need, simply a person in need?
(I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Thank GOD that He is for international adoption. If He wasn’t, a gentile like me wouldn’t have her very own forever home.)
The most interesting part, to me, is that many people with the “Adopt local first” stigma can also easily turn around and use children starving to death in 3rd world countries to say “Where is your God, that these children are dying? If God existed He would care, He would do something about it.”
But that’s just it. He does care. He is using families like ours to rescue these children.
You see, you can’t play both sides of this coin, it just doesn’t work. You can’t berate a family for their choice, and then blame God for doing nothing.
Why do we (and adoptive families on both sides do it too) have to divide ourselves up into groups that are pro-domestic adoption, or pro-international adoption? Why can’t we just be pro-adoption, pro-family, pro-hope, pro-Jesus?
You don’t have to go half way around the world to give a child a home, but you certainly can. You can also stay right here, not even leave your city, and add to your family. When the problem is as big as 143 million (about the population RUSSIA) is it possible we can band together, instead of against one another and be thankful for EVERY orphan who gets a new home…no matter where they originally came from?
God led us to our journey in another country. He broke our hearts by opening our eyes.
Congo has a 20% infant mortality rate, and it’s not unusual for a 5 year old to be working to help provide financially. But, despite that fact, their average salary a YEAR is still less than most people spend on groceries in one month ($300.00).
He opened us up to love by showing us deplorable conditions of orphanages outside of the U.S.
“Of all the disturbing aspects of the orphanage in which we found our boys, one stands out above all the others in its horror. It was quiet. The place was filled with an eerie silence, quieter than the Library of Congress, despite the fact that there were cribs full of babies in every room. If you listened intently enough, you could hear the sound of gentle rocking-as babies rocked themselves back and forth in their beds. They didn’t cry because no one responded to their cries. So they stopped.” –Russell D. Moore Adopted for Life
He showed us that, sometimes, in orphanages there are so many children and so little workers, that children sit covered in their own feces and urine all day long. They don’t get to play, they don’t go to school, and they don’t have any hope.
This is where God has led us.
We are excited about that, we love that we are adopting from Africa, but that fact doesn’t negate our love for children here. Why do you have to choose? This isn’t about allegiance to our country; it’s about allegiance to our God, and God doesn’t have a country, He has a people. (Thanks Stacie for that!)
Finances and Progress:
Other than that, things are the same old same around here. Our video is going viral! (Okay, that's sort of an exaggeration, but still!) We are still fundraising, still spreading adoption awareness, and still moving right along. We are starting to fill out adoption grants so keep that in your prayers! The Wheelbarrow Walk is this Saturday. Our BOAT is still for sale as is the TIGER WOODS HAT.
And we are still waiting on that SWEET, SWEET phone call. And no, in case you are wondering, I still haven't gotten much better at the "phone" thing!
Until next time, MUCH LOVE!
-TeJay, Ashleigh, Eva and Baby H.
