"home"

Have you heard the song by Phillip Phillips?
But before we go any further - is that his real name? WHY, parents? WHY.

So, this song "Home." I googled it to see what the meaning of it is. And I didn't find much. Just that it was written for American Idol, PhilPhil didn't originally love it, blah blah blah.

Anyway, though I'm fairly confident after watching the video that it was not written for adoption...
But I like to pretend it's an adoption song.

Hold on to me as we go

As we roll down this unfamiliar road

And although this wave is stringing us along

Just know you're not alone

'Cause I'm gonna make this place your home.

Settle down, it'll all be clear

Don't pay no mind to the demons

They fill you with fear

The trouble it might drag you down

If you get lost, you can always be found

Just know you're not alone

'Cause I'm gonna this place your home

thinking...

"I think that even for those not familiar with adoption, this idea of culture trumping family just seems wrong." - Kristen of Rage Against the Minivan - context here and more of Kristen's thoughts on orphan culture here

sunday evening.

I'm reading There is No Me Without You, by Melissa Fay Greene.
I started reading last night, and could only read 2 chapters because I was crying the entire time.
--
Greene writes about how in 2000, she read in the New York Times that 12 million children had been orphaned because of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa:

Human being are not wired to absorb twelve million [...] bits of information [...] 

For a person who is not a mathematician, epidemiologist, demographer, geographer, social scientist, medical anthropologist, or economist - for a person, say, who barely knows anyone with on of those jobs [...] numbers with so many zeroes are hard to fathom. 

Presumably you can make a variety of calculations and graphs with numbers like [12 million], 

but hats off to anyone who can begin to imagine what this really looks like, what this means.

Who was going to raise twelve million children? That's what I suddenly wanted to know...

Who was teaching twelve million children how to swim? 

Who was signing twelve million permission slips for school field trips? 

Who packed twelve million school lunches? 

Who cheered at twelve million soccer games? 

Who was going to buy twelve million pairs of sneakers that light up when you jump? 

Backpacks? Toothbrushes? Twelve million pairs of socks? 

Who will tell twelve million bedtime stories? 

Who will quiz twelve million children on Thursday nights for their Friday-morning spelling tests?

 Twelve million trips to the dentist? 

Twelve million birthday parties?

Who will wake up in the the night in response to twelve million nightmares?

Who will offer grief counseling to twelve million children? 

Who will help them avoid lives of servitude or prostitution? 

Who will pass on to them the traditions of culture and religion, 

of history and government, of craft and profession? 

Who will help them grow up, choose the right person to marry, 

find work and learn to parent their own children?

Well, as it turns out, no one. Or very few.

There aren't enough adults to go around...

The ridiculous numbers wash over us. This is happening in our time?

We, who have read the histories of the Armenian genocide and of the Holocaust

and of Stalin's Gulag, who have lived in the epoch of the killings in Cambodia, Bosnia, and Rwanda,

 find ourselves once again safely tucked away.

We may feel a vague sad tug of common cause with human misery on the far side of the Tropic of Cancer, but we are disconnected from it by a thousand degrees of space and time...

The Berlin Wall is down, the Iron Curtain has fallen, 

but it is as if a pulsating wall of strobe lights, televised celebrities, and amplified music 

has gone up mid-Atlantic or mid-Mediterranean Sea.

It is hard to look past the simulated docudramas, television "newsmagazines," and mock-reality

memoirs designed to distract us in a thousand ways while making us feel engaged with true stories.

America wrestles with its obesity crisis to such an extent that  Americans forget 

there are worse weight problems on earth than obesity...

How can the rest of us - normal citizens, steering along our paved streets between home and school, work and playground, mall and hardware store, holding open the front door with a foot while maneuvering inside with the mail, the grocery sacks, the purse, a paperback, the children's backpacks - 

how can the rest of us break through?

- There is No Me Without You

--

Please do not misunderstand my intentions in sharing this.

I am not trying to set up adoptive parents as heroes. 

I am not trying to say that adoption is the answer to this crisis.

Yes, adoption is one tiny way to intervene, but I do wish that international adoption was unnecessary. 

I share this because I'm grappling. 

We are called to be Christ to a hurting world.

How can we best do this? 

How do we help alleviate the physical, emotional and spiritual pain across the globe?

Christian brothers and sisters, we need to get outside of ourselves.

We need to pray for God to open our eyes to suffering and reveal the ways we can use our talents, our passions, our money, our homes, our influence, our lives to impact a world that so desperately needs
His love.

we are not adopting... (4)

To make adoption our banner.
Yes, we are passionate about adoption and orphan care. Yes, we realize that becoming a transracial family is going to change some dynamics and be [let's face it, a huge] part of how people identify us. At the same time, we are not finding our identity in international adoption.

We ARE adopting...

Because our banner and identity is Jesus Christ.
Again - "this grace that we've received, we want to show you" (adaptation of Mandi Mapes). The Cross of Christ has transformed our lives and our desire is to glorify Him in all we do. Caring for orphans is just one way.

we are not adopting... (3)

To make a point about race.
We're not adopting an African child to prove that skin color doesn't matter to us. Skin color does matter! It's another aspect of what makes humans unique! We won't be seen as a Caucasian family anymore, but as a "transracial family." However, we're not adopting a black child to show that we're able to look past differences and love all types of people...

We are adopting...

Because we love Ethiopia.

After visiting the country, there's a part of us that will be there forever. We're excited to welcome a small portion of that culture into our family.

we are not adopting... (2)

Because we are unable to have biological children. 
Adoption is not the "second best" way to start a family. Having biological children is not the "second best" way to start a family. They're both the best!

We ARE adopting...

To love a child.
We're beyond thankful that God has called us to be a part of a child's life. We are completely humbled that this particular child will not be our biological child, but that we get to experience forming a family in such a fun, beautiful way!

we are not adopting... (1)

To rescue an orphan.
Yes, there are over 143 million orphans in the world, which is a tragic reality. Yes, we pray that a child will be better off raised in our home than raised without a family. However, we don't see adoption as swooping down and saving a child from poverty. We are not the heroes in this situation, and we wouldn't want to raise a child with that idea, because frankly, that's a lot to live up to. We absolutely hope that the cycle of poverty can be broken, and we believe that caring for orphans is one aspect of that, but to carry around this notion that we are responsible for saving someone is ridiculous.

We ARE adopting...

To glorify and obey God.
His command is to care for the fatherless and oppressed. We have been shown abundant grace in our own adoption as sons of God and co-heirs with Christ (read more here). Our response needs to be to extend that grace to others.