.Let's Revisit Orphan Care.

This was published as two separate posts several months ago, but all of this continues to marinate in my heart today. This weekend we brought a boy into our home. He originally came from Ethiopia and was adopted by a family in America, for reasons that are not mine to share, the family decided the adoption was not working out, and he was sent to a residential facility for troubled children. He has been there for years now, and it is all he knows. His childhood was stolen from him due to poverty in Ethiopia, and it has been years since he has been inside of a family. As I cooked meals for him and loved on him the best that I knew how, my heart broke over the injustice of this all. So much of his story could have been different. So much of it should have been different. I am NOT attacking the family that adopted this child, because I know the trenches of adoption. I have been in the dark valley, and I know how hard it all truly is. There is no way that I can point a finger, when I have seen and experienced what I have, because there have been moments, except for the grace and mercy of God, that I may have been tempted to throw in the towel. However, with as much grace as I can muster and humility, as I am not involved in this situation, I can honestly say that international adoption was not the best choice for his boy, and it should not have happened. He should not be here in America - in an institution. There could have been another way.

We, as the Church, must keep dialoguing about this hard stuff. And again, I am NOT against international adoption, it has its place, but it is not the solution for the orphan crisis. It's just not.

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Part One:
Today marks three years since we brought Jamesy into our permanent care. Three years ago we landed once again on Ethiopian soil, and for the first time in months my heart slowed and beat out a new rhythm that felt like home. It was adoption that drew us to that country - that continent. God opened our eyes to orphan care, and we became obedient. But now after three years in, we realize that our eyes were just beginning to open back then. Our lives are always changing and growing - emerging as we learn and grow and do better when we finally know better. And we have learned a lot along the way. Where at one time, as we were learning and growing, you read this blog and you read passion and devotion for international adoption in my words. And some of you read dogma and pride and self-righteousness and forcefulness as well I am sure, and I apologize. Truly I am sorry. It is part of why this space has grown silent on these matters. I am a quiet girl who turns fiery when I am passionate about something. Writing is one of my only outlets and how I process what is in my head and my heart, and so this blog received the brunt of my growing pains.

Yes, I've been quiet for awhile now in my advocating for international adoption. I still love adoption. I still believe in it, value it, champion it, but I also have seen the other dark side of it, and now even question whether it is truly a top solution in orphan care. I still whole-heartedly believe that every Jesus follower is called to orphan care - nothing has changed that view. I still am very convicted by James 1:27 Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you. I am an orphan advocate and a justice advocate, and I strongly believe that so was my Jesus. Something in my heart broke, though, when I began to understand that orphan care is way bigger and more complicated than I originally thought, and that to find the solution we really have to go so much deeper than international adoption - because the problem as a whole is just too big for that. 

I am going to be very careful here in what I write, because I have two precious children from Ethiopia who I am responsible to protect. However, after living with Jamesy for three years and with Habi for almost two, I can honestly say that in a perfect world, the world in which God originally intended us to live in, adoption was never His plan for these children. Adoption was never God's original plan. Adoption springs from great, horrifying tragedy that should never be. The suffering and overwhelming devastation that flows from all that these two children have lost was not part of God's original plan. I now firmly believe in my heart that God's original plan was for Jamesy and Habi to grow up in a loving, nurturing home with their birth parents - not with us. It is only because we live in a broken, messed up world that they are now in our family, and don't get me wrong, God can and does redeem the mess. But the mess leaves deep scars, and we experience that reality every single day in the brokenness, trauma, guilt, shame, and grief that accompanies our two boys.

Bringing these boys to America and into our family didn't automatically heal them or {flinch} fix them. It doesn't tackle the core. My heart is broken and bruised realizing the tragedy that is the fact that my sons cannot grow up inside their birth families. As much as it hurts to write this, because of how fiercely I love my boys and now see them as my 100% sons, if I could give them anything in this world, I would give them their birth families - whole, healthy, and thriving. But I can't give them that. So, we all do the best that we can with the grace of God pouring down over us. It was not God's first choice for these boys to grow up in our family. Please read carefully, this does not negate the beauty that has occurred inside our family because of adoption, the way the gospel has taken on life to us, or the amazing way in which God redeems, restores, and renews our boys. It doesn't take away from the amazing work that God did inside of my husband and I because of adoption. But knowing what we now know, without going into personal details, we have come to the conclusion that orphan care has to be less about international adoption - it should never start there - it should never be the first plan of action in tackling this need.

So God has been opening our eyes to family preservation. This is huge and hard and not as romantic or as flashy looking as adoption. I now think that when it comes to orphan care, and when we feel the call (as I believe all Jesus followers will), this should be our first priority - keeping families together, discipling them, nurturing them, sharing Jesus and the gospel with them, extending mercy wherever and whenever needed, helping them sustain a living and giving them the life-skills to pass on a hope and a future to the generations behind them. I believe that our number one priority in orphan care should be keeping families together - not advocating for international adoption. I have heard it said before, and now I get it and believe it, international adoption is just a bandaid slapped over a bleeding, oozing, gaping wound. 

We've got to do better. This is too big, too deep, too mammoth of a problem for a quick patch-job, and we've got to get to the core of the tragedy that ultimately places children in situations where they are orphaned, abandoned, living in institutions and waiting for international adoption. The core begins with family - birth families. So, let us start delving into orphan care right there - we have to.

Let me stop here and shout that I do not think that international adoptions should end, and I do not believe that they are wrong. So if you are reading this post and are inside an international adoption, please, please hear my heart - I am not anti-international adoption. Remember that I call two Ethiopian boys my sons. Don't hear me say anything like that. I just firmly believe that it is not and cannot be the the answer to orphan care - it is one small teeny-tiny bandaid fix - a necessary one at times, yes, but we must, must, must look beyond that and move deeper inside the root of the problem to find a real solution. Adoption is a teeny part of the solution, but it should not be the main or only focus. The core tragedy will never see justice, healing, or a sustainable solution if we only focus on that one minuscule piece. Yes, we need Jesus followers to respond to the tragedy that has forced children into the need for international adoption - absolutely these children need to grow up in loving families, BUT at the exact same time we need to be tackling the core and fighting for family preservation.

This is where God has opened our eyes and is drawing our hearts with Mercy Branch Inc. We know better now than we did four years ago, so we are begging God to help us to do better. We are obeying God's call to extend the mercy of Jesus to street kids - kids that are not viable for international adoption but still very much fall under the umbrella of orphan care. And we are learning more and more about the importance of working toward birth family reunification with these kids - because many of them do still have families. Yes. they have been abandoned by their families for so many devastating reasons (reasons that I whole-heartedly believe have solutions and can be stopped as the Church would step up and out), and most live as orphans. But stop for a moment and think what God could do if someone would step in and disciple these children and their families into beautiful, redemptive reunification. What would happen if someone even stepped into a family's life and helped prevent that family from feeling as if their only choice was to abandon their child to the street? How might a generation in Ethiopia be changed by this? And for those kids who have no remaining family or where reunification is impossible and international adoption is just not viable, what then? What if godly, whole Ethiopian families stepped in and brought these children in as their own sons or daughters in domestic adoption? What if these children, who undergo the tragedy of losing their birth family, could still remain inside their continent, country, city, culture? Would the trauma scars not run quite so deep if they were not removed from every single thing that they know?

We don't have all of the answers. We do not want to pretend to be an authority on this. We are just beginning this journey of asking God how He wants us to attack the core. We are just beginning to see how much bigger the solution is than international adoption. We will probably make mistakes along the way, but we have to try to tackle this from the inside out. We need to be part of the fore-runners in fighting the core tragedy that causes the need for international adoption. We hope that our ministry with Mercy Branch Inc. will be a small part in that. We are determined to pour our lives into helping birth families stay together and giving them tools to raise their children well, and when that doesn't work fostering domestic adoption, so these children can stay where they are. Ethiopia needs them - its future depends on a generation of godly men and women that are also involved in tackling the core tragedy.

We realize, even this, is a drop in the bucket, and we are praying to keep our hearts open and sensitive to the Spirit's leading. But this is the direction our hearts are beating. Here is a small taste of that heart beat.

Part Two:

I have received several messages regarding yesterdays post, which I was prepared to receive. I responded to each, but I think there were enough questions to warrant a small follow up post for those of you who have the same questions.

I tried to tackle this subject delicately, because it is polarizing. I do not want this space to be a place for conflict, inflammatory statements or judgment, however, I do want it to be a safe place to dialogue with the ability to be open and transparent. I may have been too delicate in my approach yesterday, and it appears that it left some people questioning whether or not I am even for international adoption at all any more.

For the record - I am.

Yesterday, I wrote about tackling the core tragedy in orphan care by focusing on family preservation. This is so important. But please hear me say this - there really are children who need familes to step up and adopt because it is too late for family preservation for them - for whatever reason. The answer is not for these children to grow up and languish in an institution, and that is where adopting families step into the orphan care paradigm. What I was trying to explain yesterday, though, is that international adoption is not enough to solve the orphan crisis. It is too big for that. The orphan crisis is just going to perpetuate for generations, unless people simultaneously adopt the children who are already past the point of family preservation, while at the same time tackle the core tragedy of why children are being orphaned in the first place.

I think orphan care is as much about orphan prevention as anything else, and that all goes back to family preservation, as I talked about yesterday. When we step up and take care of families, we are taking care of these at-risk children, who without intervention, could potentially end up orphaned in the future. I am very passionate about this need of tackling the core tragedy - not just the ramifications of the core tragedy.

Not too long ago, I believed that international adoption was possibly the best solution for the orphan crisis, but now I understand that is most likely not true. I understand it because I have lived it with my two Ethiopian sons. I have held their grief racked bodies as they sobbed and raged. I have listened to heart breaking questions with no answers. I have witnessed the depth of the loss that they have encountered, and I see the way it impacts so much of their lives. It is a deep pain that I have never witnessed or experienced before this. International adoption is a good solution for a lot of children who no longer have the option of family preservation. However, there is so, so much loss that occurs for these children when they are stripped of everything that they have ever known - including country and culture. It is much more complicated and muddied then I first naively thought when we began the adoption process four years ago. I still think it is viable and necessary for some children, but now I see just how much of a loss there really is for them. So, I yearn for more children to be able to stay inside their birth country, through domestic adoption, in order to ease the loss for them a little more. I am also adamantly not saying that the loss is too devastating for internationally adopted children that God cannot redeem it. He can and does. I have also witnessed huge healing and redemption in my boys.

You see, all of this is complicated. We live in a complicated and broken world. Nothing is as it was intended, so we will continue to flounder and fight for solutions only to find better solutions that we first missed. I don't think the messiness of this should scare us away, though. There is a time and a place for us in building His Kingdom, and it is now. Our generation is needed and has been specially hand picked by God to be right here, right now for a great purpose. So let us have open, honest dialogue about this. Let us be united for these children - for these families. I honestly believe there is a beautiful hope for the future of orphan care, and I want to be part of it.

What do you think?