I’d like to talk to you a little bit today about a very important subject, a subject that is very close to me and my family – adoption. One of the most important things that we can do for all children is to put them in an environment where they have loving parents and are in a loving home.
My wife and I had the great privilege of adopting two children from another country, Russia, a little over five years ago. It was something that I really wasn’t planning on doing in the beginning. My wife encouraged me and we talked a lot about it, prayed about it, and ultimately came to the conclusion that we needed to add to our family. We had three children already, but now we have five. We felt that we needed to bring those two children, who were 12 and 9 years old at the time, to our country and into our home. We wanted to train, instruct, and encourage them; and we wanted to help them to grow in wisdom, and in stature, and in favor with God and man. So that’s what we did.
There are so many kids right here in our country, and other countries as well, who don’t have a loving home and a loving family to be with and to confide in. I want to encourage you today to not just look at that young baby that is cute and cuddly that you want to adopt, although that’s a wonderful thing, but I also want you to think about kids that have special needs. Special needs doesn’t just mean some kind of physical, emotional, or mental disability; it means children that are older as well. So many of the older kids will never be adopted if you don’t adopt them. Also, high on the list are African American children. There are so many African American kids out there and not enough families to adopt them.
For more help, here’s a great article on How to Prepare to Adopt.
I would encourage you, today, to really consider exploring the adoption option for your family. And if you’ve adopted kids, I’d love to hear your thoughts on how adoption has affected your family, too.
