The Visible Gospel

I have heard a lot of talk about abortion recently (specifically in the faith-based community). It is, of course, a very prevalent issue for pro-lifers when it comes to electing a new (or re-electing a current) president.

Now the last thing I want to do (which I know I will) is spark outrage among readers. But I feel this needs to be talked about. I will, however, preface this by stating firmly that Clayton and I are 100% pro-life. This leads me to my question, though.

How can people say they are pro-life and yet show no (or little) support for adoption?

Last year (2011) there were over 1.2 million abortions performed in the United States alone. Some of you may be surprised by this, while to others this could be old news. Now, let's say that these women decided to give the child life, while knowing all along that they could not (or would not) care for it. 

Now let's look at the foster system. There are currently more than 500 thousand children in the US Foster system. 129,000 of them are legal orphans and waiting for a “forever” home. Now let's do the math: If there are already 129,000 children who are unable to find permanent homes, what would we do with 1.2 million more “unwanted” children?

So what happens to these children who remain “unwanted”? Approximately 20,000 children age 16 and older emancipate from the system every year. Nearly 40% of these youth will be homeless within 18 months of discharge. Girls who emancipate from foster care are 3x more likely than non-foster youth to have a child by age 19... Keep in mind those are just the girls who choose to have the child.

How can we so easily justify picketing abortion clinics, attending pro-life rallies, or willingly condemn our neighbor who is pro-choice, and yet so readily ignore the “unwanted” children who we already have even in our own communities?

It seems easy enough to mark the “right” box on the voting ballot, or to throw rotten tomatoes at Planned Parenthood events, but is that really where our responsibility lies? Even if you feel these things are important (which you may or may not), does it stop there?

How long will the Christian community refuse to share God's heart for orphans? How long can we get away with feeling “righteous” because we voted for a pro-life, Republican candidate? How long can we avoid our responsibility to the less fortunate by distracting ourselves with petty politics or excuses?

There are over 300,000 “Christian” churches in the United States. Let's say even half of them are true Bible-believing churches. That's 150,000 churches nationwide. This includes mega churches (tens of thousands of members). How is it even remotely possible that we still have 129,000 children awaiting families in our own country? Something must change.

Galatians 4:4-6 states: “But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, "Abba, Father." We were adopted into God's family. Is adoption not the most beautiful picture of redemption?

Isaiah 1:17 calls us to “Defend the cause of orphans.” How much longer can we neglect and ignore the 47 places in scripture where it talks about God's heart for orphans? How much longer can we refuse to live out the gospel in the most visible way? How much longer can we sit back with our American comforts and convince ourselves that we do “enough”?

I'll end with the following quote by Derek Loux. Derek spent most of his adult life at the forefront of adoption and orphan care. He and his wife adopted seven children and were in the process of creating a therapeutic home for thirty orphans when he was killed in a car crash in 2009. He wrote this about his extremely frustrating time in Ukraine in 2008 while adopting his three little boys (two of whom have Down Syndrome).

“On the drive home that night, the Lord whispered in my ear, “This is Redemption. Derek, do you know how far I traveled to get you and bring you back? I had to be separated from my Son in order to get you, just like you are separated from your children in order to get these boys. Do you know how expensive it was for Me to purchase you? It cost Me everything. Do you know how broken, sick, damaged, twisted, dirty, smelly, and hopeless you were? And at the end of it all, you had nothing to give Me or add to Me. I did it for you. I emptied myself and became nothing so that you could have it all. This is redemption.”

Why Not?

Well, I'd planned to continue our last blog, but much has happened in the last two weeks!

On Saturday March 24th we got a call from the same caseworker who worked on T & C's case in December. He was wondering if we'd be interested in adopting a sibling group...a sibling group of FIVE. Yes, five. He asked if we'd like to hear more. I paused then said..."Sure..." After explaining the situation, and describing each of the kids, the caseworker asked if we'd be interested in learning more, in which case he could drive up that afternoon. I asked Clayton and he said "Sure!" The caseworker was excited and explained that they were not yet legally freed for adoption, but would be in June and he really wanted this to be the kids' last move. They had no other foster-adopt families who would take all five of them, and the department really hoped to keep them all together. After talking to the caseworker in person and getting additional information on each of the kids, we told him that we would have an answer for him by Monday morning.
After he left, Clayton and I went to Palisades for dinner. Clayton was being very quiet, so finally after getting our drinks, I asked him "So...how are you feeling? Do you think it's something we should do?" He immediately responded "Yeah, why not?"

Why Not?

The human part of me could have raddled off about a million answers to that question.

 - Because it's FIVE (plus little "Tato"), when we only agreed to take three or four total.
 - Because half of the kids were out of our original age range.
 - Because we will have adopted five children by our second wedding anniversary.
 - Because we're 24 and 25 years old.
 - Because we've never met these children.
 - Because we're living off one law enforcement officer's salary.
 - Because we have a 3 bedroom house and have nowhere to put everyone.
 - Because people already think we're crazy...what will they think now?
 - Because we will have gone from a family of 2 to a family of 8 in about four months. 
 - Because, by golly, we're American and that's just not how people do things.

But then again, God often asks his people to do what society tells us is "crazy". We've learned not to view anything as impossible. God is SO faithful and he always provides a way for his people to do his work. Maybe that's why we got that unexpected call on a Saturday afternoon amid our Spring cleaning. Maybe that's why Clayton, who is probably one of the most cautious people I've ever met with big decisions, responded to the task of raising five children with an uncharacteristic "why not?"

Whatever the reason, we got to meet two of our future beautiful daughters last Friday. K(12) and M(10) stayed the weekend with us, and will be coming permanently this Friday April 7th. P(7) and L(7) will be moving in when school is out in late May, and V(11) will be transitioned in after that. We still don't know exactly how we're going to fit everyone, nor have we even met V, L or P. BUT we trust that God will figure out the details because, well, he always does!

"Sometimes I would like to ask God why He allows poverty, famine and injustice in the world, when He could do something about it...but I'm afraid He may ask me the same question." (Anonymous)

Hello All,
We have, once again, been neglecting our little blog. Oops! Well, since our last post we celebrated our one year anniversary which was very exciting (and a little creepy....we ended up at a bed & breakfast that I swear had to be straight out of a horror film)! But it gave us plenty of memories, to say the least.

Date Night

Pictures of random people on the wall surrounding our bed....

The creepy faded wedding dress that was hanging on our wall may have been the eeriest part....

We are also currently on our second foster placement. We got our first placement the week before finals which was not ideal timing, but it was an incredible experience. (Sidenote: It did work out and I graduated the next week, which is another big thing since our last post - FINALLY). Anyway, back to the important stuff: The kids were 11 and (almost) 9. Boy and girl. We were a little nervous when we got the call because they were on the upper end of our age spectrum, and from a pretty sketchy background. We just kept praying that God would shut the door if he didn't want us to get them. We got the call at 2:30 in the afternoon. (This was after I had pulled an all-nighter finishing my senior project/portfolio). At 5:15 I was on my way to pick them up. By 5:45 I had completely lost my heart to these kids. They came with issues, yes. Plenty of them. But don't we all? They were dirty, smelly, constantly quoted South Park (so appropriate) and "C" had a knot in her hair the size of an infant's head. They clearly hadn't been groomed in days, and they had nothing more than the clothes on their backs. Clayton was at work, but thankfully my wonderful parents had done a quick clean-up at our house and picked up some PJs from Wal-Mart while I was on my way to get these little strangers.

After I'd gotten them fed (McDonalds - Healthy start, I know) and they'd been showered, I started to see their personalities coming through. They were so much more than just "foster kids": The title given to anyone under 18 who can't live safely at home. The title that our society tends to use hand-in-hand with "troubled youth", "high risk kids" or, in the most common (albeit ignorant) terms, "Screw-ups". These kids were beautiful. Yes, "T" enjoyed antagonizing his sister, he may have struggled with honesty, stealing, and often tested the waters to see what he could get away with. "C" was very 'parentified' (which comes with its own set of issues), she would tattle on "T" often, and was starved for attention. But their hearts were beautiful. These kids had been trampled on, neglected, abused, suffered all different kinds of abandonment, and had experienced far too much of the world at far too young of an age.
But despite their numerous issues; not being able to sit together for more than five seconds without someone getting hurt (hit, shoved, bit, hair pulled, etc), their constant bickering, "T"s defiance, "C"s whining, and the list goes on......These kids showed us what it means to not only be a parent, but to be a Christian. God accepts us even when we are beat down, filthy, defiant, and bitter. He accepts us because he sees our heart. He knows where we've been and the poor decisions we've made, but he loves us regardless. How crazy comforting is that? 

What it comes down to, is that all these kids want is to be loved. We've gotten lucky to be placed with kids who were easy to love (at least in our opinion). But even if they're prickly and argumentative and rip-off-your-ears annoying, that's ultimately what it comes down to. We are all born with that innate desire. So why is it so hard for some to find? Why aren't there more people out there willing to love on these kids (or adults) who have never truly known love? It's really easy to talk about, but why don't more people do something about it? So many people have said "Wow. That's so great that you're foster parents. I just know there's no way I could do that". Wanna bet? We have just as many issues as the next family. If you have ever been that person who sits in a coffee shop somewhere and says "oh those poor kids" or "there are just so many injustices in the world..sigh" and you are capable of loving another human being, then why not? Why "can't" you do it? More importantly, if you won't, then who will?


To finish the "T" & "C" story, after five days of loving on these kids, a friend of their Mom was located and agreed to take the kids. They were both devastated at first, begging us not to "make" them go (which only added to our difficulty in letting them go). But thankfully we've been able to stay in touch, and their caretaker truly does love them and is doing her best to get them the services and support they need. We still love getting to talk to them on occasion, and we got to buy some girl scout cookies from "C" last month, which is always exciting:) They'll always be the kids who welcomed us into the foster world. They taught us (in a brief five days) what is means to be parents, and helped purify our view of what it means to be a Christian.


We are now on our second foster placement, who we've had about a month. "Tato" is now ten months old, and the MOST BEAUTIFUL child. Since we have to protect privacy and can't post pictures publicly, you'll just have to trust us on that:) He'll likely be with us at least another 4 or 5 months, which is scary because we're already head-over-heels in love with him, and can't imagine him leaving! BUT the cycle continues....

TO BE CONTINUED

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