It was after a Focus on the Family broadcast during Adoption Awareness Month four or five years ago about Antioch Adoptions that God first started tugging us toward orphan ministry. We had decided we couldn’t afford to adopt but perhaps God was calling us to help others instead. Antioch Adoptions provides fee-free services in Washington state in an effort to get kids into homes. We figured that if they could do it so could we. That was just the tip of the iceberg. Years later, God has opened our eyes and hearts to a much bigger picture than adoption.

Over the past couple years, we’ve taken in hundreds of hours of conference audio, webinars, and books that basically led us to this conclusion–Everyone is called to orphan care (not adoption, orphan care). Orphan care comes in all shapes and sizes.
As you read the story, see if you can pick out all the different people and ways they helped orphans.

About 3 years ago, Patrick and I had a vision to see an Ethiopian orphan hosting program come to our church–these programs bring eligible orphans (usually ages 8 to 15) to the U. S. to spend 4 to 8 weeks for a “cultural experience.” Many of these children are able to find forever families. The problem was no programs to that country existed, and we were not equipped to start one.

We had all but forgotten about it when an old friend called and said, “I’ve just been hired by AWAA to start an Ethiopian hosting program in Maryland, do you want to help?” Um-mm…yeah!

Ten months later, 5 families (coincidentally all acquaintances of ours) welcomed Ethiopian children into their homes for a month. Throughout that month, the community came together to provide lots of American experiences to the kids from a trip to the zoo to an old-fashioned, American birthday party. Generous donations from the community allowed us to send an extra suitcase back with each child packed chock full of stuff for their orphanage.

By God’s grace, each of the 5 children have families (either their host family, a family they met while here, or a family who was able to connect to their host family some other way).

Recently, one of the families traveled for their court date in Ethiopia. They needed someone to watch their kids while they traveled. We volunteered but needed someone to watch our dog since the kids were allergic. Another host family volunteered.

It may seem trivial as you read it, but from where we watch, the beauty of the community working together to bring these 5 children home is astounding…

it’s the Gospel in action.

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Melissa Corkum

Patrick and Melissa, who was adopted from Korea as an infant, have two biological children and a son adopted at age 2 1/2 from Korea. In May they, started a paper chase for a sibling group from Ethiopia. They reside in Maryland where they started a ministry called Grafted Families. Its goal is to serve Gospel-centered churches as they care for orphans and vulnerable children. Melissa also has a photography business that specializes in adoption homecoming and foster family photography. You can get to know Melissa better on her personal blog and Patrick on his personal blog.

For a while now, my dreams have been of paperwork and notaries. Every night. This was one of many reasons why I was so grateful to turn over the paperwork and start the wait.

I’ve been having a new dream: A tiny bright light in the distance, beaming with an intensity that pulses like a heartbeat. It’s beautiful.

But there are thoughts you have in the darkness that no one prepares you for.

Right now, adoption is literally under attack. There is much concern about trafficking and adoption abuse. When you begin the adoption journey, these facts hit you in the face and chase you in the night.

What if my child could have remained with their parents for a few dollars a month? What if there is a mother crying in the night for the child she just gave up due to poverty?

It’s enough to make you quit. Or take the entire adoption loan and donate it to a mother, or a family, or a village.

Dr. Jane Aronson responded to the recent adoption concerns in the Huffington Post yesterday: “Why did we create such a marvelous bureaucracy to improve international adoption practices and not pour some of that money into the welfare of mothers in these countries?”

The reality is that if we feed the mothers, we feed the children. If we educate the mothers, we save the children. If we give parents access to antiretroviral medications for HIV/AIDS, lives are saved and families remain intact.

I have noticed that parents of internationally adopted children naturally fall into a common stream of charities or causes. You would think it would be “Adopt! We did it! It’s great!” It is; but it’s not. The causes are AIDS, poverty, and clean water. It is a natural progression to care for these things when you care for a child affected by AIDS, poverty, and famine. Promoting these issues are promoting orphan care.

There is a major dilemna that we all must face as Christians at some point. As Americans, we are ALL wealthy in comparison to the rest of this world. As Americans, we are known to the rest of this world as a “Christian nation.”

Americans give to the hungry at a low percentage of their GNP (gross national product) in comparison to other nations. What are we, as individual wealthy Christian Americans, telling the poverty-stricken world around us about Jesus Christ? What are we telling the world about the Gospels?

We are NOT the widow giving up her two coins.
We are the rich, making a big show of our tiny gifts.

Our adoption is not fixing any large problem. It is just an act of obedience. You may not feel called to adopt, but I will tell you that you can still do something to impact the orphan crisis in a huge way…you can sponsor a child. You can be an active voice for the hungry and the poor, putting action behind your voice. You can be aware that “if you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep, you are richer than seventy five percent of the people in the world.”

We can raise our children to understand that our wealth is determined by what we give to Jesus, not what we keep for ourselves. We can give until it hurts; the essense of “sacrificial giving.” It’s a lesson that I think I will have to spend the rest of my life learning, as I struggle to un-learn the American Dream and realign myself with the words of Jesus Christ.

When I get caught up in the ethics of adoption, I remember the waiting children in the videos. Waiting in cribs that are lined up like kennels. Waiting in beds lined with chicken wire, crying for their loss of everything, waiting for us to figure out what to do with them, while we argue over pie charts about how to do it.

Paul and I have been called to carry one of these children, maybe more than one, as our own. I don’t know why. I don’t have to. It’s just The Plan. What happens after that point will be our mission and responsibility for the rest of our lives; to care for and promote that child’s country, to bring to the attention of other Christians the poverty and disease that is swallowing children and people whole. I am grateful for this burden.

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Missy Roepnack

Missy and Paul Roepnack live in Cary, NC, with their two daughters Lilly and Daisy.  After two children, six years of marriage, and a lifetime of lukewarm to room-temperature faith, they met Jesus. They quickly realized that there were two more little people missing from their family, and found them in Ethiopia. Join in on the ”fun” as they seek the sanity and strength that will be needed to outrun four children under four years old at The Oasis.

Eden

Published on September 26, 2010 on We Are Grafted In…

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This is our daughter, just after she arrived at the orphanage. Taken by a doctor who wanted to show us the extent of her malnourishment.

Yes, the orphan crisis is one of the few things that keeps me up at night. Children not only abandoned to AIDS, poverty, and war but then subject to exploitation at the hands of traffickers in their own hometowns . . . and in my hometown. The lump in my throat comes not at the vast numbers of children orphaned throughout the world but at the mental image of one single child. Cracked lips, hair matted from sweat, dirt caked fingernails, and bloodshot eyes from yet another night of poor sleep on the street.

Millions of little cross-bearers fill our earth without someone to help carry their load. I have yet to hear a story of an orphan enfolded into a home that didn’t reek of pain. The weight of my own personal pain has seemed unbearable at times, but it doesn’t hold a candle to what some of these 6 and 7 year-old orphans have faced. Alone. Their tolerance for pain stretched thin and at an age where I didn’t have one “ouchie” go unkissed.

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Eden’s ballet class is tomorrow. She dances around the room in a flurry of African hip-jerks and pirouette attempts. In her leotard and tights, the only thing that distinguishes her from her classmates (also learning to harness their energy into beauty) is her size. I sometimes forget that her petite frame didn’t come because God intended her to be pint-sized but because, as an infant, she spent her days laying alone next to the field where her father worked. No breast to feed this little ballerina.

As I futilely try to wrap my mind around how I see one of the world’s greatest crises—a child plodding through life parentless—there is one conclusion, however, that I keep coming back to.

God doesn’t need me.

I have to admit there are times when I’ve approached this crisis (and even our own adoption as an answer) with a virulent pride, albeit subtle. On the surface, it comes in the form of seeing myself orchestrating a rescue mission. But, a few layers deep reveals a fissure in my understanding of God. He did not create this crisis—but that does not mean He is powerless to fix it. And, when the catalyst for my actions is the belief that God needs me to respond, He is relegated to a copilot. I become the healer; He becomes my helper as I heal.

The end result of this line of thinking or an intimate peak into the things God cares about can look the same: zealous passion for the things on God’s heart. But, the source of that passion is everything.

As we move forward with our next adoption, I wrestle with pride about how I am responding to (what I perceive to be) one of the world’s greatest crises. And, when I’m there, I am usually furiously chasing paperwork and breathing down my social worker’s neck to see if we could possibly speed things up and get these children home sooner.

And, at times, I rest my head on His chest, like I used to do with my dad when I was a child, and I hear His heartbeat for these little ones. And, I ache with the pain that He allows me to feel from His heart. And, when I’m there . . . I am usually furiously chasing paperwork and breathing down my social worker’s neck to see if we could possibly speed things up and get these children home sooner.

I believe God cares more about the source of my passion than the reach of its output. My invitation to participate is less about meeting a need than it is about walking more deeply with the Father. And, this hard-won truth has come after years of zealous pride in my “work.”

I know now that there are two rescue missions going on in this adoption. He’s rescuing my heart, even more still. He’s giving me a window into how He feels about orphans. His heartbeat. His plan. And He’s tenderly letting me in on His work, in the same way I allow my little Caleb to help me cook. He’s drawing me in deeper into Himself by using me in the life of a child He could so easily save without me.

And He’s putting the lonely—two of them, in this case—in a family. Even under our roof and in our arms, they will still need Jesus. Clean water, soft skin, and big comfy beds are what He lets me provide, among other things. But, the power to save rests not in my hands.

He likes it when we respond to His heart, and the world is brought more deeply in line with His kingdom when we do so. It’s just that, actually, God doesn’t need me.

He chooses to invite me.

Eden before her first ballet class, 17 months later

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Sara Hagerty

Sara and her husband, Nate, have been married for nine years and brought home their two children from Ethiopia last year and just recently brought home two more from Uganda! They have a heart for prayer and to see people touched by the love of Jesus. What started as a blog chronicling the ups and downs of adoption has become a passion for Sara. You can read more of her musings on orphans, walking with God through pain and perplexity . . . and spinach juice at Every Bitter Thing Is Sweet.