Why We Adopt – Part Two

This past week was an emotional whirlwind with a very important adoption-related event right in the middle.  We received word on Wednesday afternoon, January 26th, 2011, that we had our “matching approval”.  Someone in Hong Kong had finally ruled that Man Yu Chen of Hong Kong would soon become our youngest son.  The months of uneasy confidence and trembling faith had given way to certainty.  Something concrete had finally happened.

When we adopted Eliot, we completed all the paperwork up front and sent the “dossier” – all the information intended to convince the government of Guatemala that Thom and Jill Inglin were the best choice for taking over the parenthood of one of their orphans – to Guatemala BEFORE we even set our eyes upon him.  In fact, he had not even been born.  We sent our paperwork knowing that we would eventually have a son, but with no idea who it would be.  We were fortunate – blessed, in fact – to receive a “referral” in a very short time.  We are convinced that God made our process with Eliot’s adoption nearly effortless so that we would not shrink from doing it a second time.

In Hong Kong, all of the children are considered “waiting children” – children who for whatever reason are no longer in the care of their birth parents.  Most if not all of these children have some sort of physical, medical or mental “imperfection” that in many cases makes it difficult to find adoptive parents for them.  Thus their classification as “waiting children”.  This is one of the things that made this second adoption different – we have gone through the “paperwork stage” of the adoption process with an actual picture of a real little boy before our eyes.  It has made it seem longer and more emotionally taxing than our previous adoption.  Moreover, this little boy is older and more aware than Eliot was.  Every day that went by was a day that WE were not holding our son, WE were not caring for his needs, WE were not reading him stories and playing games with him.  Every day was a day that this little boy, who through a face in a photograph had become an object of our affection, was unaware that he NEEDED a family and that he HAD a family that already loved him.

Which in a way brings me to the explanation of what I asserted to be the second reason why people adopt.  There are SO MANY MORE children who are waiting than this one to whom our family has been drawn.  And the gospel of Jesus Christ has a tendency to act on people in such a way that causes them to look beyond themselves to care for others, whether they be widows or orphans or your next door neighbor who is battling cancer or the family member whose marriage is falling apart or the guy on the street who just lost his job and his home and doesn’t know where his next meal is coming from.  ONE orphan is one too many.  1,000 orphans is an epidemic.  There are a number of estimates of how many orphans there are in the world, and it is difficult if not impossible to determine which statistic is the accurate one.  BUT, I submit it is safe to say that whether there is one, or one thousand, or one million, or 147 million, there are TOO MANY ORPHANS in the world for ANY of us to turn a blind or indifferent eye.  Thank God for the people who are willing to welcome these least into their lives and families – I know personally that it is only God’s grace that provokes such empathy and compassion.  And this is true whether adoption is impelled by the gospel or by some other motivation.  The compassionate grace of God must be behind it no matter what.  Only God loves like that.

So through this process of adopting a little boy who has been “waiting” our family has not only fallen in love with Man Yu Chen - “Peter Inglin” – but we have fallen in love with adoption.  For when we were unaware of our orphaned state, God adopted us and welcomed us into HIS family.  And through being part of our family, Peter will have an opportunity to become part of God’s family.  And there is nothing that compares with that!

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’”
(Galatians 4:4-6 ESV)