Is international adoption a good thing?

[Choosethisday]

Our church is looking at getting more involved with an international adoption (IA) agency/ministry. I am an elder at our church and I usually end up doing the background research as we look at which agencies we will support as a church. At first I thought IA was a good thing. However, as I have researched I have been exposed to some new ways of looking at the whole idea of how best to care for orphans. There are many sites and other sources for what at least for me is a new way of looking at this subject and a good summation is found at the website voiceofthefatherless org At first these new principles seemed counterintuitive but now I am beginning to embrace them. However, some of the other elders are having trouble with these ideas. Can I get some other wisdom on this subject? Am I in left field or what? Thanks
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[for_his_glory]

I am sure you have a list of agencies you are considering and first pray and ask for the Holy Spirits guidance and also have them provide you with credentials as there are many orphan scams out there, especially on the internet, that call themselves a ministry. You might even want to consider orphanages here in the USA, but the important thing is to pray first before you do anything.

 

[handy]

There are a lot of scams regarding adoptions, especially international adoptions. Horror stories ranging from people being scammed out of tens of thousands of dollars all the way to babies being kidnapped from loving families in order to be sold.

However, there are many who do a great service getting at risk children to a loving home and a better life.

It takes a lot of homework and a lot of prayer.

I did read through the Voiceofthefatherless website and I have to admit they bring up some very good points. I think that the whole idea of how to take better care of the world's orphans...an imperative directive of the church...should undergo some examination. It's too easy for churches to move a few kids into America and feel good about that...leaving vast amounts of children to hunger, homelessness, exploitation, war, disease etc.

Children who have special needs, born in a country ill equipped to care for those needs, adoption to a nation that has better care is a good thing. The adoptive parents of my daughter's brother have adopted 3 children from the Ukraine that have Down's Syndrome and other disabilities and they can get better care for these needs here in the States.

But, if churches can and would expend the resources to provide a healthy stable environment for the orphans in their own country, causing them to grow up to be godly and well equipped to bring change in those countries...that sounds pretty good!

Myself, my kids are adopted and both were adopted out of the foster care program right here in the states. I often wish that more Christian adoption agencies would put a higher priority on helping these at risk kids, who might not be adorable babies, but nonetheless need loving homes.

 

[Choosethisday]

Thanks for getting back to me, both of you. As to the scam thing I did look up a few of the references on the website and it does appear to be a big problem. The particular agency we ae looking at is likely not a scam however. They are a multi million dollar a year organization in several parts of the world. They are one of the biggest agencies and are located in Portland Oregon. So I don't think they are overtly dishonest. However, I did uncover some things they do that is of concern. In at least one of their orphanges and possibly more than that, they only keep the kids until about the age of 12 because older than that and the children are too difficult to adopt out. They were unclear what would become of the kids once forced out of the orphanage. That bothers me. Also, because they really push the adoption thing they do spend hundreds of dollars per month per child to get them more adoptable which seems like bad stewardship with so many orphans in need.

As to the prayer, thanks for the reminder. I have spent a great deal of my time lately thinking and praying about this but I can also tend to try to resolve issues without God's help which usually doesn't work well. I do need to go to prayer first and then do my own best from there.