national adoption month part 2: giving.

Hi there!

I realize I’m late writing this post, and it’s not technically National Adoption Month any more. Friends, I am sorry and will try not to promise blog posts on a time frame!!!!!!!!

I love this blog and love, love writing, but life just seems so very full right now. It’s full of wonderful things and often I wish I had the creative energy to share them with you. But many days, when I reach our afternoon house quiet time or the evening, my brain feels like mush.

Thank you for faithfully reading alone with my posts, when I can post. I fervently hope that in a different season I’ll be more consistent.

I do want to finish this little series, and this post has been brewing in my heart for longer than a month. In part one, I talked about our adoption agency, and this post will be about giving toward adoption.

This one makes me so excited, because it’s relevant for everyone, even people who aren’t called to adopt themselves.

I want to make a shameless appeal to you to give money towards adoption!!

Can I tell you up front my thesis? Giving toward adoption is pleasing to the Lord, and it will make you happy.

First, it’s pleasing to the Lord.

Christian, we should be the first people to give towards adoption, because the Scriptures describe our God as a God of the fatherless and the widow. He is a God of justice, who loves and defends the oppressed. He’s a God of righteousness, who is making our broken world new.

He wants us to give time and money and for some of us, our homes, to making sure children are in families.

Yes, we should also absolutely be working to keep children in their families of origin. That’s another reason I love Bethany Christian Services, because around the world they also work to strengthen and help families in poverty, so that they don’t need to resort to adoption.

But because of sin and brokenness, this side of heaven, there will always also be a need for adoption. There will be people who can’t or shouldn’t parent. There will be children who need forever families.

Christian, if you are pro-life, I believe that one of the best ways to show it is by whole-heartedly, joyfully supporting adoption.

I’ve heard the argument that people shouldn’t ask for money for their adoption because they wouldn’t ask for money to have a biological child. They should be willing to use their own money for something that costs so much.

I see where this comes from. I do hope people are willing to use their own money, but adoption is often very expensive and most people need help beyond their own money. Besides, they will be using their own money to be caring for this child for the rest of his or her life. Adoption through an agency can cost anywhere from $20,000 to $35,000.

I don’t care how picturesque or seamless an adoption story is. A young women chooses a beautiful couple and they connect with each other and she invites them to the hospital for the birth and the baby is healthy and the adoptive parents take him home from the hospital and they have a wonderful open adoption and the child grows up loved.

As lovely as it is, that story still involves brokenness. That baby will still face challenges that biological children don’t face, and there is still a birth mother whose heart is aching that family will have to decide how to love.

And the reality is that most adoption stories are not like this. There may be missing family medical history information, or a known family history of addictions and mental illness. There may be drug or alcohol dependency or undiagnosed behavioral challenges in the child.

Adoption is hard. It’s always hard. It’s never seamless. It always involves loss for the people involved, on both sides. On three sides.

Some of my friends who are adopting have endured years of infertility and have spent thousands of dollars on treatments and are heart-broken and trying to be cautiously hopeful that God will build their family another way. They have already spent plenty of their own money. Let’s give some of ours to help them heal and have hope.

Other friends, people like David and me, have their own biological kids — or perhaps have chosen not to — and have made the choice to build their family through adoption, and are counting the costs and embracing the risks and educating themselves the best they know how as they take this leap. Let’s encourage them as they seek to obey God and provide a home for someone who needs it.

Giving towards adoption is embracing the heart of God and gives the gift of a massive boost of encouragement to your friends or family who are walking the adoption journey. It’s more than the money. It’s the knowledge that you’re on their team as they walk a very scary road.

And finally, giving to help them adopt will make you happy.

The writer of Proverbs tell us that “Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and He will repay Him for His deed.” (Prov. 19:17)

Few of us get to see tangible fruit of financial generosity toward organizations. But when you help a person or a family adopt a child, you will get to see and know and rejoice in the fact that you had a part in this story. You get to watch wide-eyed as God provided the funds from many different sources. You are supporting missions.

And for all time, you have a part in this young person’s life!

David and I regularly give money towards the adoptions of our friends and family. Our kids know this. We tell them why we love to do it. Currently, we have friends adopting from China, and we’re giving money and praying together as a family for their little girl. This is a wonderful way to talk to our boys about their own adoption and allow them a chance to love and give to others. They have a part to play in this girl’s story.

Yes, we’re motivated in part by Gabe and Noah, but even more than that, we’re motivated to give by the people who gave to us. We were humbled and amazed time and again by their generosity, their love, and their support. In that way, their gifts are continuing on today.

Please don’t think the amount of money matters. If you have a lot of money, give a lot. If you don’t, please still give. Even $25 or $50 matters to the adoptive family and will bless them, I promise you.

Give the money you can and ask God to multiply it. And then praise Him when He does!

I’ll never forget our own backyard adoption fundraiser, filled with people we know and love. Some of our friends brought a 9-year-old boy they mentor, whose dad is in prison. He learned that we were raising money for our adoption, and he told our friends that he wanted to give something too. He didn’t have any money, so he did yard work for them that afternoon and earned three dollars and brought it to us with bright, happy eyes.

It was good for this boy, who has so many needs himself, to give. I could see it in his eyes, full of dignity and hope that what he gave actually helped us. It made him happy.

It was one of those beautiful, shining moments of our story, and I hold it in my heart to tell Gabe and Noah one day. I hold in my heart the memory of that fundraiser afternoon and of the many other gifts we received — some from near strangers — before and after to make up all we needed. I can’t wait to share with our boys God’s abundant provision so that they could come be part of our family forever.

If your friends or family are adopting through foster care and don’t need money for the placement itself, I’m pretty sure they’d love a gift card to Target for diapers and formula, or to Publix for groceries or Chick-Fil-A for an easy dinner. Your support and care of them, though it seems small to you, will mean the world.

And that can continue after the child is home!

You can drop off a hot meal, or volunteer to babysit when the time is right, or ask the parent(s) how to help their child adjust to the church nursery.

On my first Mother’s Day with Gabe and Noah, I received a card in the mail with a $5 gift card to Starbucks. Another young mom wrote me a note saying she was thinking of me and happy for me, but guessed I may need a cup of coffee this Mother’s Day to have energy for my full house.

Can you imagine what a lovely gift that was to me?

Such a small thing. But as a brand new adoptive parent, it meant the world.

I’m forever inspired by people’s generous creativity when it comes to giving and loving, and can’t wait to hear your stories too.

 

(Photo credit: Ashley Nicole Photography, June 2015)