Adoption, Charity, and Orphan Care

Since bringing Isabella home, we have heard the inevitable comments about how good we are to have adopted. Rubbish!  Adoption is many things to our family, including love and joy, but it is not charity, and it is not orphan care.  Adoption itself is good -- good for parents, good for children, good for families -- but it is not doing good in the sense of charity, which (I think!) is an important distinction.  Let me try to explain...

Adoption is not charity.  If we were adopting in an effort to be charitable, we would not have been adopting in the true sense of the word.  Adoption made Isabella our own, every bit as much as if she were born to us.  We would go to the ends of the earth to bring Matthew home, just as we went to Ethiopia to bring Isabella home. We did not go out of charity, we went because we loved her and she is our daughter.

If we had thought that we were acting charitably by adopting, we would have set our family up for some tough struggles. First, as we considered the parameters to set on our adoption:  if we were adopting out of charity, then of course adopting an older or special needs child is more charitable than adopting a healthy infant, and we might have felt pressured to do so to self-righteously increase the charitableness of our act, despite God's calling. Second, as we tried to reconcile conflicting concepts: having a child in our home as an act of charity, yet having that child be wholly our own, equal in every respect to our biological children.  God may call us to adopt a waiting child, but it will be because that child is meant for our family, not because God wants us to be charitable.

Christ was both the begotten son of God, as well as the adopted son of Joseph.  The ultimate example of adoption, of course, is God's adoption of us: I am His adopted daughter, and He loved me so much that he sent his begotten son to die for me! John 3:16.  There is no greater love than this.  John 15:13. 
 
Another example that may make this point of view easier to understand:  food.  It is my responsibility to feed my family, and I take pleasure in doing so.  If I love you, I feed you.  If I love you a lot, I feed you pie, just ask any of my friends and family! Of all the time that I have spent in the grocery store, not once has someone patted me on the back and said "oh, you are so good to be buying food!" 

Which leads me to my next point...

Supporting another family's adoption IS charitable. Let's go back to the food analogy, because it is easy to understand and, I'll admit it, I like food.  If I help another family buy groceries, I am acting charitably. In Leviticus 19:10:  growing crops for yourself is not charitable, but permitting the needy to glean is charitable.

If God calls you to adopt, He will provide the means to do so, which may include having you accept support from others.  As Christians, we are to share our needs with one another, and support one another in times of need.  Accepting help is often tougher than providing help; there is a time for both.  In 2 Corinthians, the Macedonians begged for the privilege of helping.  See also Galatians 6:2, Galatians 6:5, Luke 3:11. 

Adoption is not orphan care.  Isabella is our daughter, she is not an orphan, so caring for her cannot count as orphan care.  Adoption is good and right, it is a way that God chose to grow our family, and it is a way that God reduces the number of orphans who need care.  Adoption meets the needs of one family and one child, blessing both by bringing them together.  Adoption does not solve the orphan crisis.  Of the over 160 million children in the world who have lost at least one parent, only a fraction are eligible for adoption:  most are living with their surviving parent or extended family, but all are vulnerable and need our prayer and support.  See e.g. Statistics post and this post by Tom Davis. 

The call to care for widows and orphans. We answer this call not by adopting, but through our prayers, personal acts of charity, and support of widow and orphan care ministries.  Our favorites include All Gods Children International, which in 2010 served 60 children and families through their family sponsorship and outreach programs for every one adoption that they completed, and Wiphan Care Ministries, which sponsors schools for orphaned and vulnerable children as well as training programs for widows in Zambia.  Give as God leads: whether He has given you a heart for orphans in Africa or the poor in your city, give accordingly, cheerfully (2 Corinthians 9:7) and sacrificially (2 Corinthians 8:2), for whosoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully (2 Corinthians 9:6).

Not everyone is called to adopt, but if you are... You are blessed among families!

Notes:

Guidestar is a free resource that is helpful in determining whether a charity is using resources wisely. Search for an organization by name and select its last IRS Form 990 filing to review its administration and other overhead expenses, including salaries.  Are they reasonable or wasteful? Will they be a good steward with that which is entrusted to them? 

As for food... did you know that "faith" is used less than three hundred times in the Bible, but the verb "to eat" apears more than 800 times?  "In the Old and New Testaments, worship does not revolve around esoteric discussion of philosophy or ascetic ritual enactments, but around a family meal." Bless This Food, 1996.  Taste and see that the Lord is good.  Psalm 34:8.