Poster Child

One day you sit back and take a good look at your life, and you are overcome with gratitude.  You suddenly realize that everything is almost picture-perfect.   Your home is orderly and organized, the clutter under control.  Your children are well-behaved and happy, not perfect of course, but generally manageable.  You are happy.  You have a predictable routine, wonderful friends, enjoyable hobbies, big dreams.  You are the poster child for a comfortable, cozy life.

And so you ask yourself, innocently enough, why not?  Why not share this beautiful life with a child in need?  There are so many forgotten children who do not have a family to call their own, why not share yours?  After all, you reason, you have a lot of love in your heart.  Wouldn’t it be amazing to be able to make a difference in someone else’s life?  To give someone else an opportunity to thrive?  To give someone else hope for the future?

It is not an easy decision.  You know, in the corners of your heart, that it will be difficult.  Life-changing, even.  Of course there will be an adjustment period.  Some getting used to.  But, you tell yourself, you are a fairly intelligent, competent, confident person.  How hard could it really be? 

And secretly you think, maybe you can become the poster child for this brave new thing.  If you can do it, maybe other people - your friends, others in your church, your contacts on social media – maybe they will follow your example and be inspired to do it too!

Invisible Orphans

Most likely it  is not any of the children at the birthday party.  She wasn’t invited.  How can a child learn how to make friends when she doesn’t stay in one place long enough?¹

It’s probably not the kid on the soccer team.  How can a child learn how to play a sport when he doesn’t have a dad who will kick a ball with him?  A mom who will drive him to practice every week?

But maybe it’s the young girl who sits next to your daughter at school.  The girl with the slumped shoulders who never makes eye contact.  The one who shuffles her feet a little bit when she walks, a result of growing up with shoes that never fit quite right.  Or the one who, when the teacher asks her to read out loud and she stumbles over the words, gets teased and laughed at by the other students.²

Perhaps it’s the little boy you see when you go to the store.  The boy who keeps touching everything within his reach, and who has a tantrum when he hears the word “no.”  Or the one who bats his eyelashes at everyone he meets, knowing that they will inevitably say, “Ah, he is so cute!”

It could be the kid on the swings at the park.  Or the one in the Sunday School class that you teach every week.  Or the one who visited Vacation Bible School last summer.   

They are all around you, and yet they remain invisible.  They are foster children in our own community – in our schools and neighborhoods and playgrounds - who are waiting to be adopted.  They are our country’s invisible orphans.

Impossible

It was never supposed to happen.  From start to finish, every trail of your parents’ journey to reach you was stamped with a signpost marked “Impossible.”  The terrain was rocky and steep, filled with roadblocks, the view around each corner completely obstructed.

They did not qualify to adopt from the country where you were born.  Their finances were woefully inadequate, and they could never afford the adoption expenses.  Their spiritual leaders, the ones they respected and from whom they sought counsel, advised them against it.  She had serious health issues that prevented her from traveling.  And perhaps the most obvious Impossible sign:  another family had already begun the process to adopt you.

Common sense said no.  The list of reasons to quit just kept growing.  The obstacles seemed insurmountable.  Their efforts and prayer seemed futile.  And yet . . . they dared to hope.