Saving orphans without adoption

Contrary to popular belief…

• Orphan care is not synonymous with adoption.
• The Bible commands the church to look after orphans and widows…not swoop in and whisk orphans to America.
• American suburbia is not necessarily better than impoverished anywhere else.  After all, we do have cats and the streets are not paved with cheese–if you catch my drift.
• Adoption does not just save a child and create a family, it’s traumatic and grief riddled and tears another family apart.

So in a world where orphan advocacy is at an all time high and intercountry adoptions are at an all time low, what are we supposed to do and think?

I have a really hard time with folks who are spending a lot of time and energy fighting for more accessible international adoption when there are some amazing in-country, indigenous solutions for orphans that keep them in their country or even in their community.  Those projects could really use all that time and energy.  I am not naive to think that God is not using adoption in addressing the orphan crisis, or that He is not big enough to help families overcome the challenges that come with intercountry adoption.  However, the amount of effort that goes into in-country orphan solutions needs to be as great (if not greater) than the effort that goes into adoption advocacy.  And right now, it’s not.

We had the amazing privilege while in Ethiopia to visit with three amazing men who have equally amazing ministries to orphans, widows, and vulnerable children.

Disclaimer: I know there are a lot more in Ethiopia doing similar things.  These three just happen to be the ones we personally connected with while in-country.  If you know of another ministry, we could visit in or around Addis on our next trip, please let us know.  We are excited to work with these ministries and hopefully help connect local churches to them and possibly even create some trans-Atlantic partnerships.

We connected with these folks when we heard they needed some help getting a tub of donations to their day care in Ethiopia.  Since we had more room than the average travelling family, we were happy to help.

Our visit was truncated due to some scheduling snafoos on our part, but we did learn that Embracing Hope Ethiopia (EHE) has identified an acute need in the sub-city of Korah and has started working to meet it.  For cultural, health, and poverty reasons, many young women find themselves alone and pregnant with no hope of finding work let alone caring for a young child.  EHE operates a daycare where women can leave their children while they go find work.  Without EHE, these women might have been forced to reliquish their child to an orphanage.  EHE also provides some jobs for local women as well as training and supplemental healthcare.  Future dreams include a literacy center and more education opportunities.  I think it would be so neat to see churches enabling similar models to pop up in all the sub-cities of Addis and maybe even Africa.

We had hoped to stay in their new guest house, but it wasn’t ready in time.  In hindsight, I think God just lured us to them with the guest house deal.  He knows I love a good deal and has been known to hang them out as proverbial carrots from time to time.  (Let’s be honest, that’s how we got Ty).

Anyway, after a heart wrenching visit to a government orphanage where we learned that the majority of these kids would never be available for adoption, Bring Love In (BLI) was a refreshing reminder that adoption is definitely not where the buck stops.

BLI has partnered with a local Addis church to create new families out of orphans and widows.  BLI hires widows (many from the neighborhood church) to be house moms to a small house of orphans who need a mom.  Voila! A widow has a job and orphans get a family.  The coolest thing?!?  Ethiopia’s government loves the BLI model and has basically asked them to empty the government orphanage in the next couple years.  Do you get that? The government who hems and haws over intercountry adoption paperwork is all but paying BLI to create local homes for their orphans.  Why aren’t more people jumping on this bandwagon?!!?!?  We have a choice people.  We can either sit around and comiserate about all the orphans “stuck” in the red tape of intercountry adoption or we can help BLI empty the Ethiopian orphanages this year and then move on to other countries.

We were duly impressed with the cultural senstivity BLI has used while building their ministry.  Westerners aren’t even allowed to tour the project’s houses (nestled right into the community) for fear it would draw undue attention and the word would get out that the kids were not part of a family in the traditional sense.

P.S.  BLI has an acute need for well made shoes (not Crocs or flip flops).  Think sneakers.  The ones available for purchase in Addis are expensive and lacking in quality.

The AIDS Care and Treatment (ACT) Project is near and dear to us as we have a few friends who have devoted their lives to this work.  Our kids have been praying for the missionaries and beneficiaries at the ACT Project for almost 5 years.  It was so neat to go meet the people and see the places for which we’ve been praying.  We even had the privilege to visit some beneficiaries in their houses.  WOW!

Anyway, while the ACT Project started as strictly an AIDS treatment project, it has evolved into what is probably the most holistic ministries in Addis.  Besides supporting their AIDS beneficiaries physically, spiritually, and emotionally, they also have a youth program that supports the local orphans, and a TB project.  The director, who is Ethiopian, really has a heart to be where the need is.  He’s constantly evaluating where they’re working to make sure it’s where God is calling them and where they can be the most effective.  As a local man, he really understands the culture and the best ways to help without hurting.

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Please pray for these (and other similar) ministries.  Then consider where God may be calling you to be involved.  Rather than materially, think relationally.  We’ve definitely been challenged as we consider the work that these ministries are doing.