Miracles Happen

I realize it may seem silly to have a blog and then post other people’s writing, but when someone says what needs to be said so well, why not? Here’s another awesome post about giving: not just giving, but how giving a little can make a huge difference.

Miracles Happen When You Speak Up

A Big Brother’s Perspective

One of the issues I hear prospective adoptive parents dealing with is what the older kids in the family will feel if/when an adoptive child is brought into the family. Of course, a lot will depend on how the parents discuss it with their kids, but I thought you might like to read the heart of an 18 year old brother toward his little sister. His name is Jackson Bohlender, and he wrote this post about his adopted sister Zoe’s 4th birthday. Take a minute to read it. You won’t be sorry! Happy Birthday, Zoe

“Secret” Adoption Army

If you read the previous post about the adoption movement, you are already familiar with the new breed of adoptive parents arising in the church.  As with any new movement, there is a need for the front-line soldiers, in this case the adoptive families. Just as important, however, are the support troops: those behind-the-scenes people that stand in the roles that make it possible for the front-liners to keep their focus on the main objective, in this case providing loving, godly homes. This, too, requires a new paradigm.

In the old paradigm, we give to the work of a/the church. This includes money for the pastor’s salary and maintenance of the building, donating our cast-offs to the church rummage sale, and volunteering in the church nursery and Sunday school. All of that is good, and should be continued. In this new movement, though, the main ministry is not happening within the structure of the church, so the support roles must move to where the action is: in homes. This requires our giving, financial as well as time, be expanded to include not just the ministry of the established church, but to include the ministry that happens in adoptive homes, as well.

To make this happen, we have to shift from seeing just the church to seeing the Kingdom of God. I can’t say how it is for everyone, but for us, it has been a shift in priorities. Years ago I used to daydream about what we’d do if we had more money. The list included things like getting a bigger house, maybe take a nice vacation now and then, eat something besides hamburger… I still daydream about what we’d do if we had more money, but the list has changed. Now it includes paying for some adoptions, buying Tracie Loux a van, donating to The Josiah Fund to help build a house for 50 kids, donate to The Zoe Foundation to help build their database of adoption-ready families and support for birth mothers, and donate to the Orphan Justice Center.

On a practical, day-to-day level, what does this look like? Some work done on the outside of our house left the lawn kind of pitiful.  We could get it fixed, but the cost to have it done is about that of getting a h0mestudy. Hmm… Beautiful lawn vs. beautiful family able to rescue an orphan? That’s an easy choice!  What about vacations? Well, we go visit our grown children in another state, but outside of that, not so much. Bahamas or baby? I choose the baby! It also looks like having total strangers stay in our home while waiting for local paperwork to get approved for an adoption. (They became a permanent part of our family, by the way!)

Don’t get me wrong; we’re not martyrs. We don’t live in poverty, and we have fun. We have hobbies, go to movies and museums, and, living near New York City, take in an occasional Broadway show. Our lives are full and happy. We have just made the decision we don’t need everything society says we do. Our clothes are simple, our cars ordinary, and our house average. Instead of amassing a bunch of material things we can live without, we have chosen to invest in the kind of treasure that lasts: the Kingdom kind.

A New Paradigm

I witnessed a conversation on Facebook the other day about adoption that got a little uncomfortable. It started when someone posted a link to a family that was fundraising to pay for the adoption of their next child. Most women were saying, “Thanks for letting me know! I’ll go check it out!” One woman, however, asked a very honest question: “Why should I pay for someone else’s child?” Most people were shocked, because they get it. Women tried to lovingly explain to “Confused” why it was appropriate to ask for help in adopting, but she was having none of it. To her, it was an issue of parents not planning well. With good planning, time, and patience, anyone would be able to pay for adoption, and that was that.

As I observed the conversation, I saw the real issue was one of paradigm. Confused still viewed adoption in the old paradigm. This is the school of thought that says adoption is what you do when you are unable to conceive. It says, “Our family isn’t complete because we have no children. We’ll adopt 2.5 kids, get the dog and the picket fence, and then we’ll have it all.” There’s certainly nothing wrong with this line of thinking; it makes sense for couples who can’t conceive to adopt the child another has conceived but can’t raise. However, there is a new paradigm of adoption that  brings with it a different motivation to adopt.

This new adoption paradigm (some are calling it an adoption revolution) doesn’t view adoption as primarily a way to fill a couple’s desire for children. Rather, it is a means to provide for and protect the estimated 137 million orphans in the world. Some of these orphans have lost both parents (or the only parent they’ve ever known) to disease, war, or some other tragedy. Some of them have living parents, but are orphans in the sense that the parents have turned them over to orphanages or agencies because they can no longer meet the needs of the child. In this country, most are “orphans” because their parents lost custody due to inability to care for them, or the parents relinquished their rights to the child at birth. No matter how they come to be known as orphans, they are children in need of someone to step up to the plate and say, “I will parent this child.”

This new paradigm has brought with it a new breed of adoptive parents. They are not people out to fulfill their needs, desires, or dreams. They are people who are out to fulfill the call of James 1:27, which says that pure religion (meaning your faith is unselfish,  and your life is offered as service to God) is to take care of orphans and widows. The families I personally know that are part of this adoption movement have willingly laid down the “American dream”  of having a big house with lots of extra room, fancy cars, and fancy vacations in order to bring some of these children into their homes. Their lives are busy, their houses are full, and their children are blossoming beyond belief! They have traded comfort and ease for smiling faces and full hearts.

To Confused, I would say, you are under no pressure to pay for someone else’s child. But if you stop to think about it, wouldn’t you like to help pay for Jesus’ child? For his children? Wouldn’t you like to join the behind-the-scenes army that, while not necessarily equipped to bring orphans into their own homes, have been equipped to help bring them into a permanent home, with a permanent family, where they will be raised with love and dignity, in the knowledge of the Lord? Because in reality, that’s the bottom line of what the adoption movement is all about.

For Confused, and anyone else that is now curious about what it looks like to be part of this “secret” army, I’ll write more on that in a couple days. For now, let the truth sink in that adoption isn’t always what it used to be. It’s about the children, not the parents. It’s about little beauties like this, that without parents willing to put aside their own comfort for her sake, would have begun her life in foster care, where it is unknown when or even if she would have found a permanent home. Selah…

A Worthwhile Read

Here’s a great post written by a mom about happiness, kids, and Kingdom priorities:

I don’t want my children to be happy

Even a Hero Needs Heroes

It is no secret Tracie Loux is amazing. I’m guessing everyone who has ever met her realizes she’s amazing. Who else could champion the cause of a newborn with Down’s Syndrome to the extent that not only did he have adoptive parents before he was discharged from the hospital, but the whole bill for his adoption was paid for by an army of total strangers? Who else would spend the night at a hospital to pray for and love on a newborn baby girl so that she wouldn’t feel alone until her adoptive parents arrived the next day? Who else could have a newborn found for a homestudy ready family even before the family has completed their paperwork? Yeah, she’s like that, and we all know it.

You probably know that Tracie and her husband John, along with their three children, moved to Kansas City, Missouri a few years ago to be part of the International House of Prayer. (This means that, rather than having a full-time, well paying job, complete with benefits, they have a full-time ministry job and live on missionary support, which they raise themselves.) You probably also know that three years ago they adopted a newborn baby girl domestically, and then adopted two special needs toddlers from Ukraine a year and half ago. You may even know that while she was busy adopting three little ones herself, she was helping 37 families complete their own adoptions, and has several more families in process, including three that are already matched and waiting for their babies to be born.

What you may not know about Tracie is what kind of vehicle she drives: a ’99 minivan with almost 140,000 miles on it. Yep, a minivan with seating for seven, for a family of eight. Being ever resourceful, Tracie and John ditched the middle two-seater seat and replaced it with a three seater seat, and now they are able to squeeze three teenagers and three toddlers in car seats into the back of their minivan. I can only imagine how fun it is to climb over the middle seat  to get to the back, either to sit or to buckle a toddler into a car seat, realizing that the aisle the manufacturer left to access that back seat is now occupied by seat #8! You probably don’t know the condition of this poor, overworked minivan, either. To be honest, I don’t know any specifics, but I heard how it sounded last year, and even I know a car isn’t supposed to sound like that!

So why am I telling you this? Because this family has been praying for a larger, more appropriate van ever since they became a family of eight, and I believe it’s time. They don’t just WANT a new van; they truly NEED a new van. As I wrote in my last post, so much good be done when we all get together and give even small amounts. Let’s join forces and get this family the van they so desperately need! What they really need is a 15 passenger van because, not surprisingly, they hope to rescue more orphans. When the right van becomes available it will be important to act fast, so I’m starting the money end of things right away. Our initial goal is to raise $10,000, but the more we raise the better van we will be able to get them.

There are a couple ways you can give to the Loux van fund. The first is to use the PayPal button on Tracie’s blog. The second, in case you need your gift to be tax deductible, a check made out to “Tekoa 211” can be sent to: Tracie Loux, 12312 Askew St., Grandview, MO 64030. Attach a note to the check (don’t write ON the check) that the check is for “Loux Van”. Whichever way you choose to donate please contact me with the amount you gave so we know when we know what we have to work with. You can contact me on Facebook (Dorean Beattie) or through email (dorcb@yahoo.com).

Tracie has been such a hero to so many of us, and this time she is the one that needs some heroes. Together we can do this!

John, Tracie, the Teens and the Toddlers 2009

Stone Soup Babies

It’s common knowledge that there are many children who have no permanent home and no “forever family”. Worldwide the estimates are in the millions. In the United States, numbers run upwards of 100,000. Like many Christians, I want to be part of the solution for these little ones, but have found it a daunting task to figure out how to help. The need is so big, and what we are equipped to do seems so small. While costs vary widely, the average range for an adoption in the U.S. is about $20,000-$40,000.

In the last week, I witnessed a financial “miracle” which enabled a family to do an emergency adoption. There was no wealthy benefactor that paid for the adoption; there were 182 heroes. These people gave anywhere from $5-$1200, with about half of them giving less than $30. All together, it was enough to fully ransom this little life, saving him from a life potentially spent in foster homes. Watching the Facebook updates posted by the amazing Tracie Loux over the course of a week, and seeing just how quickly we all could find money when properly motivated was amazing. (Click to visit Tracie’s personal blog here , and click here to see her adoption blog, where you can find information on newborns needing familes.)

All this got me thinking. Sure, $40,000 is a ton of money, but if we all consistently did a small part, we could make a major difference. For instance, the community at the Intertnational House of Prayer in Kansas City is made up of about 4000 people. This  includes IHOP-KC staff, IHOPU students, and FCF congregants. Sure, the missionaries don’t have piles of money, and the students don’t either. But, I’m guessing nearly everyone would find an extra $10 a month to throw in the adoption pot. Do you realize, if all 4000 of us gave $10 a month that would be $40,000, or one adoption a month fully paid for? When you add in the fact that some adoptions are closer to $20,000, just this one community could fully fund anywhere from 12-24 adoptions a year!

I realize that when you’re living on a tight budget even $10 can be a stretch, but think of it this way: The following are all about $10. Make one of these sacrifices in your monthly budget, and you could be part of a couple dozen kids having homes this year.

Things that cost about $10

a trip to Chipotle
two trips to Starbucks
a movie ticket
a sale price pizza
an everyday Tshirt
a cheap seat at a Royals (or other team) game
a car wash (with wax)
1/3 of getting highlights in your hair
1/2 a pedicure

Things $10 is less than

a  CD
 a bargain video game
a cheap haircut
a DVD
a trip to the zoo
a monthly gym membership
a shirt from American Eagle

So, what do you say? Can you spare a pizza to give a kid a home?