let me try to explain…

let me try to explain a tension that c.c. and i feel as international adoptive parents. in order for this to make sense at all, you have to know that our daughter was adopted from China.

okay, first i’ll put it simply and then you can decide if you want to read further…

the tension is between our heart to live out our faith tangibly by “looking after widows and orphans in their distress… ,” and our desire for our daughter never to feel as if she is a charity case.

let me take it farther….

on the one hand,

our hearts go out to every child in the world who has been orphaned. more and more, we find ourselves wanting to do whatever we can do to raise awareness and try to point people in the direction of supporting and reaching out to orphans everywhere. there are over 143 million of them worldwide, so it’s no small task!! my mind wanders off every day to dreams about what my specific role will be.

to give you an idea of the situation in china, which will from now on always have part of our heart - only a small percentage of the orphanages in the country are set up to adopt their children out internationally. this means that many, many, many children in the country have no real hope of ever being adopted. the conditions of the orphanages vary widely as well. the government, understandably, funnels more resources into the orphanages that are set up for international adoption - these are the kids that will “represent” china in the world. the other side of this coin is that the kids who have the least chance of having a family are also raised in tougher conditions. the reasons behind this situation are many and complicated. there’s lots of information available online. maybe i’ll write specifically about this in the future…

now, on the other hand,

we adopted our daughter, darby, because we wanted a daughter - plain and simple. the thought that she would ever feel like we were obligated to give her a home because of our religious beliefs, or out of a sense of guilt is unbearable.

in a way that only adoptive parents can fully understand, darby is our daughter, and we believe with everything in us that God planned all along for her to be our daughter. as i tell darby in her nightly bedtime “story” - a family is God’s idea. he decides which boys and girls go with which mommies and daddies to make a family. and sometimes he has to go all the way around the world to make a perfect match!

so there’s the tension. i hope that it’s in some way beneficial to someone. if you try to encourage an adoptive parent by admiring how they’ve done a noble thing and you sense a bit of defensiveness pop up in them, now you know a bit about why this may be the case.

and knowing is half the battle.

sorry, my inner G.I. Joe came out there.

peace!