Adoption Prayer

As I searched the internet, reading articles on Ethiopian adoption, I was struck by what I found. I saw many articles that told of children being adopted that had families who could care for them in Ethiopia. I saw stories of children talking about their parents getting paid to give them up for adoption, of adoption agency workers going into villages asking parents to give their children up for adoption. This brings tears to my eyes. As international adoption has become much more common, it brings in a lot of money to both the Ethiopian government and also international adoption agencies. This leads me to pray, to pray that our child will in fact be an orphan. I pray that our child will not be torn away from his family for money. I pray that my child will be a child who is in NEED of a family, he has no one to care for him, no one to kiss him or hold him, no one to pick him up when he cries, no one to teach him about Jesus, love, hurt, pain.

As we are waiting for the day to bring home our little boy from Ethiopia, I can't forget the tragedy that is happening. Our child, who is either a newborn or has not even been born yet, will become an orphan very soon. He will be either losing one or more of his parents, or his parents will abandon him. As I get excited to see his face someday, I am saddened to think of how he won't get the chance to be with his birth parents. I would never wish adoption on a child, but the reality is that children become orphans. We have chosen to adopt NOT because we want a child to have a "better life" or to be popular and have an international child in our home. We have chosen to adopt because we want to love on a child who does not have someone to love him, we want to provide for a child because he has no one to provide for him.

My prayer would be that there would be no more children to adopt, but this is a fallen world. There is a great number of orphans in Africa, and my prayer is that each of them will find a home. I would prefer each child in Ethiopia to have a home in Ethiopia, and when this can't happen is when people like us want to step in. I pray that the government, judges, MOWA, adoption agencies, and all adoption workers will put the children first. They will follow all laws and do the best that they can to make the best decision for these children. I open my home to the orphan, the one who needs a mommy and daddy, the one who needs love and provision, the one who needs a home.