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Remember when I said that you could advocate for the fatherless in multiple ways?This week, until Monday the 20th, sevenly is supporting and raising money for Love Without Boundarieswhich…
I began to think earlier yesterday about Mother’s Day and all that mothers do for their children. They guide us, they correct us, they teach us, they picked us up when we fell down, and held us while we cried. They give us words of encouragement and…
New Paraklētos Post: Justice Included
The great need for orphaned children to be adopted into loving homes demonstrates a humanitarian perspective. Even to the Christian, social justice, while not the only factor, is still an important reason to engage in orphan care and adoption. Many places…
New Paraklētos Post: Fundraising for Adoption
Asking family and friends for money is not on my top 10 or even 1,000 things to do. “Are you prideful?” you might say. In a way, I might be. However, while taking baby steps in the adoption process, I am learning I HAVE to let go of that. Before entering…
“Part of Who I Am” - The final piece in the Wheeler Family’s story.
To wrap up the interview series with the Wheeler family, we close with hearing from Jacob Wheeler. When he was four years old, he was adopted from Nepal. Even though he didn’t know why he had been put up for adoption at first, he grew up knowing he was…
New Paraklētos Post: Her Small World: An adoption story from a sibling perspective.
Last week, we posted an adoption story from the lens of the adoptive parents. Today, we’re sharing the same story as experienced by their biological daughter. This is an amazing perspective to hear, because this view does not often get shared. However,…
The Grace that Reached Halfway Around the World: An adoption story told 19 years later -
After coming off of our When Adoption Goes Wrong series, we knew it was imperative to show the hope and joy that is present when an adoption experience is done well and with the right purpose.
The Wheelers are a family we would like to introduce you to.…
Growing up, I had preconceived ideas of adoption. One of these ideas originated from the well-known and loved movie, Annie. Annie was an orphan chosen to spend time with a billionaire, Oliver Warbucks, and through her adventure, she ends up finding her forever home. The classic line, “I love you, Daddy Warbucks,” and the strong embrace of father and newly adopted daughter is a moment engrained in my mind and my first, but not last, false impression of adoption. These false ideas continued as I met more adoptive families and followed their journeys. There were smiles, love, laughter, and everything else that points to an easy and rewarding journey to adoption.
As a student with a social work mindset, when I think of foster care adoption I think of uniting families in spite of difficult circumstances, placing children into families that care for them, and connecting children with families that will love and care for them. As I read through articles and stories online about foster care adoptions gone wrong I was shocked to find as many true stories as I did. One of the shocking results I found was this: as of 2011, there were 500,000 children in the United States that were still waiting to get accepted into a home.
One of the main problems that can occur through foster care adoption is the relocation of a child. When a child is put into a foster care home, this child may be moved to another city, another state or clear across the country. This creates a difficult environment for making and keeping friends and doesn’t allow for the normalcy and routine that children of a young age need. According to Childtrends.org, children in foster care homes are at a 2 times higher risk for performing poorly in school than non-foster home children. Another source indicates that about 70 % of foster care children experience MORE than seven school changes between Kindergarten and 12th grade.
Another major concern creating issues for foster care adoption is new budget cuts that are being instated in the US. In Texas, in particular, The Department of Family and Protective Services is experiencing severe cuts to budgets. This deficit affects hundreds of children who may not be placed into loving homes but into agency offices and back into the system. President Obama has identified how important it is to provide support to these children and has indicated part of his budget as monies that will go to foster care and adoptive services.
President Obama deemed November as national adoption month to help raise the awareness about foster care, and the importance of foster and adoptive parents all over the country. While November has long since passed, let’s still continue to remember those children who in the foster care system waiting… just waiting to be adopted into a stable, consistent and loving family.
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Leslie is from Fort Wayne, IN. In addition to student jobs on campus, Leslie is a full time student. She will be a college graduate this spring with a BS in both Social Work and Psychology. Five of her favorite things are coffee, worship music, camp, sunshine, and the color purple, and she is very passionate about people, relationship-building, and children.
It has recently been brought to my attention that a recent post was not clear on a point it was explaining and thus resulted in the assumption that we at Parakletos see physical appearances as a legitimate reason to pass over a child.
We do not believe that avoiding the adoption of a child due to physical appearance is a legitimate reason; in fact, we find the idea a horrific excuse to not adopt a child. However, the question posed in the post, When Adoption Goes Wrong: Emotional Abuse, is included to show that some people do think about it and need to realize that potential parents need to stop thinking solely about their preferences at the expense of the welfare of the child.
I, Anna, the editor of Parakletos and author of said post, apologize for any confusion and hope this brings clarity. Thanks to those of you who brought the confusion to my attention. I will use more caution in the future.
On a personal note, I very much wish to adopt and would be happy to adopt a child with even physical deformities or mental disabilities to love as my very own.
Anna
When we think about the potential negatives associated with adoption, we tend to automatically think of how things could result badly for potential parents: Will I love her enough? Will they turn into delinquents I don’t want to deal with? Will he pose any kind of physical harm to me? What if she end up with expensive health problems? What if they aren’t attractive when they’re older*?
When we think of the words adoption & abuse we often associate the two through stories where a child has been abused, taken out of their home, and then has been adopted into a loving home or has been placed into the foster care system. However, what I found when looking into abuse and adoption is that there are actually a lot of cases of abuse that occur AFTER the child has been adopted into a home.
Those of us who are passionate about adoption always talk about the beauty of it, the hope in it, the joy it brings to many and the lives it saves. We get caught up in the excitement of the potential greatness it contains in the art of family-making in this unconventional way. Christian advocates take it a step further, often experiencing a level of spiritual significance and fulfillment by taking part this demonstration to the world of how God the Father loves them and has taken them into His own family.
A new year brings new things. Many people are making lists of various things including how they might become a better person or how they plan to lose more weight. A new year brings a feeling of freshness, but what I also know is that we definitely need not wait until the beginning of a new year to start afresh. Jesus is willing to meet with us at any moment, on any day, in any circumstance. This year as this realization set in for me on a whole new level I really decided that my only desire this year is to know Jesus more. I have been pursuing that over the past couple of days as well as reading the Chronicles of Narnia. There is a part that plays over in my mind vividly. In The Magician’s Nephew, Diggory is in pain over the thought of losing his mother. He looks straight into the lion’s eyes, brimmed with tears, and can feel throughout himself just how deeply He cares. Aslan sees the pain Diggory feels at the thought of losing his mother when he knows that there is a way his mother can become well again.
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