Ways to Support Adoption
1) Pray for a family considering adoption. Sometimes families are considering adoption and get so scared they can't move forward for weeks or months or even years. You think we'd be able to do this without prayer? Not a chance. It's frightening! Sometimes adoptive families get too busy with the paperwork and the next step that we forget to pray. True!
2) Help with or participate in fundraisers. Buy an adoption shirt from a family. We sold notecards. There are Facebook groups that are set up for the sole purpose of fundraising for adoptions! Seriously! Offer to host a book sale or really any kind of product. We had a friend who hosted an Usborne book fundraiser for Stella's adoption.
Side note: Can I tell you how humbling it is to have others give and support? The funny thing is that God provided financially in big ways. It was a gift to know others WANTED to help. They were looking for ways to help. It took a God-move to tear down our pride enough to ALLOW others to help us. We're so silly sometimes. Pride does a lot of bad stuff, but God chisels away at our hearts, thankfully.
3) Ask about the adoption journey. It can be one of the loneliest and most isolating times in a family's life. Sometimes I was just sad that our kids were "stuck" in another country. The steps never moved fast enough for us. I see now that God was working in the waiting, but during that wait...it's hard. Ask to see updated pictures. Ask how the paperwork is going. Ask about their marriage. Your questions might be the encouragement the adoptive parents need that day! If you're uncomfortable verbally asking a question, send a text or send a card. Just ask.
4) Take a meal or send a gift card. Any addition to the family is an adjustment. Whether it's a newborn or a teenager, adjustment is adjustment. People have to eat though!! I can speak for those suffering jet lag. Oy! Jetlag is no joke! I have never been up cooking breakfast at 2am until our adoptions. Both adoptions! With a 13 hour time difference, these kids (me included) were hungry in the middle of the night once we got home. So, that makes for a strange evening. I felt like curling up in a wooden kitchen chair for a quick nap right about dinner prep time. Russ took Melatonin to get back on schedule quickly because one of us had to go back to work and make some money. He drew the short straw on that one!! I remember a few evenings where I cooked dinner, fed the kids, left it on the stove for Russ, and was in bed by 5:30pm! If cooking isn't your think, buy a gift card for a family. I promise, they won't care which restaurant you choose as long as it serves food!
5) Never underestimate your role in adoption. Russ was just talking to our kids the other night about 1 Corinthians 12 where it talks about each person having a specific role. We talk about that a lot at our house because some people don't like to empty the trash. And we have to remind this little person that we each have a role in this family. That goes for the adoption community too. Not everyone is called to adopt. That's ok. Some are called to adopt twice or three times or even more. You don't have to share the last name with a waiting child to support adoption. And you don't have to give thousands of dollars either.
I have to brag on my "Paper Person". I was in charge of taking pictures and documenting our adoptions, hence the many books I've made and the blog posts. Russ did the big stuff. He did the really important stuff, the legal stuff that actually helped bring our kids home. Russ filled out multiple forms that required the same information over and over. He kept it all neatly organized. He responded to emails and checked the status of our adoption on-line. He stayed up late and got up early to get these steps taken care of quickly. I got the fluff part of the adoption. Russ did the serious stuff that actually brought our kids home. If not for him, we'd have a few nice books of our adoption process, but not one child would be home yet!
This is one of my favorites of my Paper Person just being a
dad...something he's really really good at doing!
Beach picture 2017
The list of ways to help could go on and on, but you get the idea. There's room for everyone to be a foot or a hand or even a paper person!
"There is one body, but it has many parts. But all its many parts make up
one body. It is the same with Christ. We were all baptized by one Holy Spirit.
And so we are formed into one body. It didn’t matter whether we
were Jews or Gentiles, slaves or free people. We were all given the same Spirit to drink. So the body is not made up of just one part. It has many parts."
1 Corinthians 12:12-14
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