A message from Liberia for the adoption community

I was honored to have some writing of mine (about Kathryn Joyce’s new book “Child Catchers” and our Liberian adoption) posted over at Mere Orthodoxy.  Here’s a portion of it:

“. . . So I was floored by the expectations of some adoptive parents that the kids who grew up in this environment of constant fear and instability could be parented in exactly the same way they were currently parenting their biological children.  The problems some of these children brought with them were serious and severe and made complete sense in light of what they had experienced.  Adoptive parents should have been prepared for the worst, but as Joyce’s article points out, many of them were caught off guard.

While Joyce’s article may seek to be an indictment of the evangelical adoption movement, I think the story of adoptions from Liberia has value as a warning.  As much as we’d like to, we can’t sweep it under the rug, but need to learn from the mistakes that have been made by agencies and parents filled with hope and good intentions.

Absolutely Christians need to be caring for orphans.  If we believe in encouraging women to choose life, we need to match our fervor for picket lines, protests, and politics with a fervor for foster kids and adoption.  After the adoption of our son from Liberia we adopted two children through foster care and have found a tremendous need for quality foster parents to step up and love these kids.  It has been surprising to me to encounter families who are ready to take on the unknowns of an institutionalized child from another country, but are reticent to care for the child next door because of their imagined problems.  We should be concerned about the needs of the children in our community and the orphans around the world because their souls matter equally.

Our faith informs our life choices which should reflect the Gospel priority of orphan care.  For some of us, that will mean helping an orphan by adopting.  While we would desire our kids share our Christian faith, our commitment shouldn’t be just to the act of adopting as some kind of missionary endeavor.  We need to parenting our children—biological or adopted—in a loving manner that points them to Christ without looking on them as a charitable act or project.

All Christians are called to care for orphans, but we are NOT all equipped to adopt.  This is the message of Liberia.  This is what I spend a lot of time talking to potential adoptive parents about.  Not every family has the skills to adopt a child with a history and not every child is capable of safely living in your typical home environment.  I believe many of the sad stories out of Liberia could have been prevented if families had done these four things prior to adopting. . .”

To read more, head on over here.