Also, I may be in the running for queen of the understatement.
It's not that I mean to run away from this blog but sometimes the thoughts in my head outrun the rest of me and I need time to think, time to process, and time to let my heart find it's pace.
This year I've encountered a lot of talk about adoption and advocacy and not all of it has been positive. There are questions why one would advocate to take a child out of their home country, why don't people support change overseas, why not be happy with the family that is given?
Thanks to my tendency to either have a severe case of silence or word vomit (one day I will find a happy medium, in the meantime be patient with me) and the fact that there isn't a clean, clear answer the answers to those questions can be messy so please bear with me as I stumble through my thoughts.
We advocate adoption, be it local or international, because lives are on the line and those lives are precious. The sanctity of human life is reason enough and if reading stories and seeing families is what it takes to drive home the humanity of these children and the need that is out there, then that is a reflection on our society and advocate we will.
Sometimes the need is obvious, when you see the stories of children who have been institutionalized - starving and injured or wasting away under lack of resources or treatable conditions- the urgency cannot be denied the reality is accepted or turned off our screens as we move to more comfortable things.
Yes, it would be wonderful if there were the resources, the supports, the acceptance for these children to remain in their own countries but the fact is, in most cases, that support network has not been established. There are some wonderful organizations working the front lines supporting families and making new inroads with children who are in their local systems. They need support too. Change, sustainable change, takes time though, especially when it needs to shift at legal and cultural levels and the hard truth is most and more likely all of the children currently listed will age out, die, or live their lives in institutions before these changes can be made. Change cannot come quickly enough to make a difference for them, but a family can.
Adoption is expensive though, in each and every way. With changing laws, financial requirements, travel times, not to mention the adjustment afterward - the grief, the trauma (oh complex trauma, there's a class I wanted to weep through), the catch up on medical care that has long been left aside. Adoption is messy because it is lived out in every aspect. Life and love are messy business.
So we advocate through the mess. We advocate for change for the parents who wish they could have kept their family together, we advocate for orphans who could literally face life or death based on that choice, and we advocate for families who live out a messy reality of family born out of grief and trauma.
This year Reece's Rainbow marks another round of MACC the Miracle of Adoption Christmas Campaign. Families select one child to advocate for who's already waiting and for who local change will not come quickly enough. The goal being to help families learn about adoption, raise money to grow the grants of 105 children, and help these kids find families willing to step up.
Each year RR asks volunteers to select three children for MACC assigning the top choice of the three who are eligible.
These were my three choices out of hundreds Cadence, Clair, and Marissa (not their real names). One is mine to advocate for but the reality is they are all worthy. In the end debates will always remain. Let's face it, humanity loves to disagree. These children and others like them are fighting a clock though and, debates aside, they deserve so much more out of their futures.
Not everyone can adopt, not everyone can donate, not everyone can pray but everyone can do something and as someone pointed out to me this week, we never know the ripples are actions will make.
