A Journey Toward Ethical Orphan Care Part II: Education is Key
While the red flags we saw led us to close our adoption file, that path is certainly NOT the answer here. There are many children in this world whose BEST and ONLY option is to be adopted by a loving family. When we closed our file, we did not have the resources to discern between the children genuinely needed family and the children whose mommas just needed help keeping food on the table. This distinction can be more difficult than you might think.
When we made the decision to close our file, we clearly sensed our personal responsibility to ethical adoption, and we also set out to understand the role of the Church in ethical adoption. Both of these roles require prayer, patience and education on our part both as potential adoptive parents and as the Church.
Education and knowledge is crucial to our involvement in orphan care. We need to know the “why’s” and the root causes that lead to orphanhood. To act without understanding the deeply rooted causes is irresponsible at best. This takes time and work to dig into the culture of a developing country. We need to understand the terminology and the vocabulary used by organizations and adoption agencies. We need to understand specifics like what “relinquishment” means and the circumstances that can lead to this painful decision for a mother.
Personal role in orphan care and ethical adoption
I believe that our role in ethical adoption is to assume the responsibility for our adoption process in the sense that we alone will be ultimately accountable for the decisions that are made on behalf of our family. By the nature of adoption, our family will intersect with the life of another child.
I believe that before entering into an adoption process, we must have determined to demand integrity and transparency from everyone involved in the adoption. This means we must expect answers to objective questions at every step of the journey. One of the first sentences that our agency case worker spoke to me was, “We are a hand-holding agency.” In the moment her words brought a great deal of relief. But as we began to learn, the truth was that someone was guiding us to where THEY wanted us to go, not necessarily where my husband and I expected to go. We allowed them to make objective decisions for our family that may or may NOT be in our best interest or in the best interest of the adopted children. We were not being given all of the information that we needed to make responsible, independent decisions in our family’s best interest. We knew that we needed to slow down, to pray for wisdom, and to be patient as we waited on the Lord to give the wisdom.
When we began to think seriously about adoption, all that should be objective (the stages of the process, purposes of documents, reasons for the fees, etc.) was nebulous at best, and far from transparent. We began to ask questions like, “Who counted all of the orphans worldwide? How do we know that there are 147 million orphans in the world?” A quick Google search will bring you quickly to the Unicef site where you will learn that not all children considered “orphans” have actually lost BOTH parents. Only 15 million children worldwide are “double orphans” and have lost both parents. That leaves around 130 million orphans with a LIVING parent! This reshapes the entire conversation around orphan care. Educating ourselves on the realities that impact children’s lives is critical (see LEARN link for more).
The Church’s role in orphan care and ethical adoption
For us as Christian believers, we feel that one’s role in ethical orphan care isn’t limited to the individual adoptive family; the Church's role in adoption should and can be multifaceted. First, what and how the church communicates about adoption is vital. An “all in” approach, that Christians should “adopt with no questions asked” is dangerous. The Church cannot assume that every member will be introspective and independently wise in their decision making. If the church itself is calling members to adopt and participate in orphan care, then the church itself must work to educate its members in these areas as well. As important, the Church must support its members’ decision to adopt ethically OR to support ethical orphan care in other critical ways.
The Church should and can support organizations who prioritize family preservation, reunification and best practices within ethical orphan care--training indigenous employees, avoiding voluntourism and committing to see long-term stability for vulnerable families around the world.
This journey of education will lead to important questions we must wrestle with:
Is adoption the always the only and best option?
How can organizations work towards alleviating these root causes of orphanhood?
How can the Church work towards supporting the widow in her plight BEFORE she reaches a point of desperation and thus creates more orphans?
For our family, we knew that we MUST be involved in this work of preserving family before we could entertain an adoption.
—Anna Harvey