1st Choice Adoption

Lately we’ve been very down about how uninterested the typical person is about adoption.  There have been some Sundays leading the booth at church only to find that not a just a simple majority, but literally all – ALL -  of the people have no interest in the subject. 

I’m depressed.  I don’t understand it.  If our adoption booth were offering to organize a trip to go visit some orphans (provided the orphans were rotting away in another country as opposed to a nearby suburb) the line in the church foyer would be backed up to the free coffee and donut stand with people wanting to know when it was scheduled and if a Facebook site was already setup that they could ‘Like’ to let their friends know how deeply they cared.  Maybe even raise some money to fund the visit. 

Too bad, all we were offering was information about how to adopt an orphan.  Boooorrrring.

While depressing, it doesn’t eliminate the fact that  kids are still rotting away.  A documentary I first heard of in the late 90’s which was for years literally impossible to find is now available to watch online.  It is this story that made us pursue first-choice adoption.  If every person were forced to watch this, I don’t know how anyone could walk by the adoption booth and say “not for me.” 

If you watch it, be warned.  This is not for young kids.  This is not for anyone that wants to live in blind ignorance of the plight of these kids.  This is for those that think deciding to have a child is one of the most important decisions you can make and you want to accurately weigh bringing a child into the world with the complete understanding that there are kids in desparate, desparate need of love already in the world.  There is no way you can watch this and not be forced to give careful consideration.

http://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/5073/The-Dying-Rooms

Let’s see, my last post was in October.  Wow.  I’m not very good at this.  I made one post and then never returned until today.  And today I discovered something – I read my one and only post only to discover the link I references wasn’t working. 

Maybe I did something wrong.                                                                                        

Or

Maybe it wasn’t me.  Maybe it was site I referenced.  They probably just moved the article.  Or maybe they renamed it.  So I went back to the Focus on the Family site and searched.  I searched through the original authors entire bibliography – not there.  I searched by key word “adopt” – not there.  I tired other keywords from the article – not there.  After looking every way I could – I came up empty.  

It could be that its archived, but based on the fact they seem to keep articles active forever – if forever starts in 2002, the only explanation I could come up with is that they pulled it down.  

I argued long and hard with the webmaster about pulling it down several years ago and they stuck to their guns and even told me to see counsel within my local church.  I didn’t take their advice.  Now, if they did indeed pull it down, they did it quietly – I didn’t see them actually post a redaction, that would be too official and give me too much satisfaction. 

Or, maybe I’m wrong altogether and it will appear again.  Until then, I’ll declaring victory.  One post and one redaction.  I’m batting 1.000.

 Maybe blogging more than every 3 months is actually worth the time.

The perfect example of why first-choice adoption needs to be spoken up for and defended can be found here on the Focus on the Family site Boundless.org.  This post first appeared a few years ago and is what solidified for me that first choice adopters cannot rely on the Christian community.   I’m commenting now because they are highlighting this article again on their homepage.

If you don’t read the whole thing, here is a summary - A young woman wrote seeking advice as to whether it is OK to forego biological children in order to adopt.  That seems a great example of what living a radical life looks like. 

….Could you please tell me if I have the wrong idea here? Is it wrong to want to forgo biological children in favor of adopted ones?

However, the answer given was anything but in support of living a radical life.  The instruction given was that the Bible doesn’t support adoption first because there is no mention of it being done instead of biological children, only in addition to biological children. 

….Nothing in the Bible suggests that some married couples are set apart to not have children. Never does the charge to care for orphans and widows come at the expense of natural children. The ministry of adoption is in addition to biological offspring….

When I first saw it, I thought for sure they’d modify or pull it down.  However, after exchanging several emails with their webmaster, they not only stood by their response, but backed it up and referenced other Christian leaders like Russell Moore who share their opinion (I’ll post more on that another day).  I guess they thought that if there are multiple Christian leaders with the same opinion, it must be right.  Now, years later, they have this article highlighted again on the homepage!  It’s just appauling.

I’ve wondered for years what happened to the person that sought this advice.  Did she follow through with it?  How was it that she came up with this idea?  Maybe she is one of those young people who took part in a short-term missions or poverty tour that opened her eyes to the plight of the orphan.   Tours whose advertised purpose is exactly that – to open people’s eyes so they do more when they return home.  Millions participate in these a year and they are often focused on orphans, so I think that is a reasonable guess.

If so, Focus on the Family would be better served by educating missions trip operators not to let people understand too well the plight of the orphan – otherwise they might end up like this young lady with un-Biblical ideas to adopt instead of pursuing biological children.  They might even be radical about it and want to encourage others.

In the end, this young ladies story ended in one of two ways…

• She ignored Focus on the Family, pursued first-choice adoption and at least one orphan now has a family and place to call home.

Or 

• She took their advice and a child was stripped of the chance of having a family.

I realize I’ll never know what happened, but if nothing else, perhaps exposing the outrageous opinion of Focus on the Family and other Christian leaders will force them to stop dissuading young people from first-choice adoption. Maybe they’ll even let us first-choice adopters have the chance to promote it – but I won’t hold my breath for that.

For a first post, its probably good to define for myself what I mean by first choice adoption.  I’ve been using this phrase for 14 years, a phrase synonymous with “preferential adoption.”  However, I don’t own the url to that one so I’m sticking with my preferred label.

Unfortunately, for years I’ve been telling people I’m a first choicer, only to get completely blank stares.  After I explain what to me is quite simple, I quickly realize that it is such a foreign concept that even a simple explanation results in the assumption that we’ve miscommunicated.  I know this because the reply is typically -  “you mean you’re doing this instead of pursuing fertility treatments.”  Or “oh, do you already have other biological kids?”  

So before I define what exactly it is here, I’ll state what it is not…

• It is not finding out you’re infertile and then pursuing adoption
• It is not having biological kids and then adopting later
• It is not adopting and then proceeding to have biological kids

Unfortunately, in day-to-day conversations, you can’t really start by defining something by all the things it is not.  So my best attempt to sum up first choice adoption into a defined statement would be…

First choice adoption is the intentional commitment to  pursue adoption as the first and only  means to creating a family.

There you go.  Perfectly clear.