I use to think that Adoption was a choice that a family made....
But I have learned that Adoption is a calling....
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"Adopting in God's mind was not Plan B. He predestined us for adoption before the creation of the world. Plan A was not lots of children who never sin and never need to be redeemed. Plan A was creation, fall, redemption, adoption so that the full range of God's glory and mercy and grace could be known by His adopted children. Adoption was not second best. Its was planned from the beginning." John Piper
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Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy. Psalm 82:3
Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. James 1:27
There are an estimated 143 million orphans in the developing world.
It's a gross understatement to say there are more children than adoptive families. Statistics from the US State Department show that in 2009 there were a total of less than 13,000 international adoptions completed in the US.
The numbers are crushing:
*15 million children have lost both mother and father.
*Tens of millions more are fatherless.
In the US alone 514,000 children live in our foster care system, and approximately 115,000 of them are waiting to be adopted right now.
*There are 18 million street children in India alone.
But a single statistics matters more than any other:
--It only takes one caring individual to make a lifelong difference for an orphan
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What can I say? What can you do? I can't rescue all the children in the world! I can't fix all the social and legal problems. I can't get all the children adopted into loving and caring family's, I can't even get them all into loving and caring orphanages! I use to think of adopting as a choice, a family might chose to do this. if they can't have children, if they have the money and want to help an orphan, or if they simply want to help a help out an orphan. But when I stood in a room full of orphans, when I heard a girl with autism ask, where is my mom? When I seen children ask for a family, when I was surrounded by children that were full of behavioural issues and trapped with no way out....adoption and orphans took on a whole new meaning.....
Does it make sense to adopt a 9th child? Does it make sense to adopt a child that is blind or deaf? Does it make sense to adopt a child that has severe special needs? Does it make sense to spend countless hours, waiting, praying, and fundraising? Does it make sense to bring a foreign child across language, cultural and physical differences? Does it make sense to go through the pain, the adjustments, and the heartaches that adoption costs?
No, no, no, I think it sounds absurd, I think it sounds like a lot of work, I think it sounds like we should all just forget about it....
But wait...does it make sense that countless children are waiting for families? Does it make sense that just because they have a physical or mental handicap they shouldn't enjoy a family life? Does it make sense that we shouldn't because we have a large family....when they have no one? Does it make sense that we should give up because we can't afford it, when God has promised to provide, watch over, care for and protect these children that are so precious to Him?
Can not God provide a way?
For my family we never would have embarked on this journey if it hadn't come as a calling....if it hadn't required faith....if we hadn't stopped to say, "Your will be done, dear Lord". So God is moving mountains and we have the privilege of watching, participating and seeing what God will do.
