Today
is an important day in the lives of our two sons, Josiah and Gideon. As you
read this, a private investigator is interviewing their biological fathers
in Eastern Congo. We set up this investigation for several reasons- to hear
their father’s hearts, to get details of the boys’ history, & to confirm
that the boys are, indeed, true orphans. We feel it is critical (& our
responsibility) to know that the best effort has been made to keep the boys in
their own country & international adoption is the last
hope for these boys (without them remaining in an orphanage until adulthood).
But
this has not always been my approach to orphans and adoption. The story of our
adoption of Solomon from Ethiopia almost two years ago might help explain this
transformation…
When
we met the 21 year old, she showed us where she found him. “It was early in the
morning & I was on my way to a funeral. I heard crying & I found him
here.” H confirmed the details in our paperwork & as she recounted the day
she found Solomon she was able to give us extra insights that were not in our
paperwork. It was a sweet, sobering day but we now had the truth confirmed
& could rest assured that we had enough of his story to share with him
someday.
It’s
been almost 2 years since we brought Solomon home from Ethiopia. You can watch his story here.
A year ago when I tried writing Solomon’s story I
remember thinking, “I wish we had met his birth mom & that she had given us
her blessing to take her son away. I wish she had expressed to us how much she
loved her son but simply didn’t have the means to care for him. If all that
were true then writing his story would be
easy- he’d always know that his first mom loved him.” I hated the fact that
one day we’d tell Solomon he was found abandoned.
This year as I try writing Solomon’s story I now
think, “I’m so very grateful I didn’t
have to look into the eyes of an impoverished mother who loved her child but
was making the hardest decision of her life by handing him over to us. I don’t
have to tell my son that I took him away from a mother who loved him.”
The
truth is, I will never know if Solomon’s birthmother loved him well or not. I
don’t know why she (or his father) relinquished him.
Why
am I writing all of this & where am I going with this? With all my heart, I’ve
come to believe the world doesn’t need more orphanages. We need more families! Ironically,
if we try to solve the problem through adoption, we can make things worse. If we
apply our energy and resources toward preventing children from becoming orphans
and international adoption as a last resort, we might move in the right
direction.
More
to Come…
