ORPHANS IN NEED

When Amy and I started adopting kids earlier this decade, it wasn’t out of a burning desire to save the world, or even to save one kid; it was simply our way of starting a family. But I do appreciate the sentiment in this article about evangelical Christians taking up international adoption as an important spiritual cause: "Defend the Orphan: An Age-Old Christian Lesson Gets a New Lease on Life".

The fact of the matter is that there are millions of children who become orphaned every year for a variety of reasons. Many of those reasons tear at your heart, like abandonment, addiction, famine, natural disaster, and war. If we in America have in our national DNA that “all men are created equal,” it sure is hard to fathom how unlevel of a playing field many of the children in this world have to face before they’ve even reached their first birthday.

And if we as Christians adhere to Biblical exhortations to defend the orphan, adoption should become part of our congregational DNA as well. Here’s a telling quote from Russell Moore, dean of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and the author of a forthcoming book called "Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families and Churches": "In any given church, you rarely see only one family who has adopted. . . . It becomes part of the culture of the congregation."

So I’m all for national policies that make it easier for families to adopt children from other countries; and here’s hoping that Christian policymakers contribute to this effort. And here's hoping that Christian families respond in kind and step forward to bear the emotional and financial cost of raising a child as their own.