I’m very honored to share this powerful response to The Child Catchers by Caleb David, an evangelical adoptive father whose family was featured in the book. Read the entire piece at Kingdom in the Midst.
“A year and a half ago I told Kathryn, that our family’s views and the approach of One Child Campaign would not be widely embraced in the mainstream evangelical adoption movement. However, now I believe that the Church and the adoption movement cannot ignore these issues any longer. The time to start discussing this emotionally-charged issue is now. We are doing ourselves, and the world, a great disservice if we focus only on what we disagree upon and push it off as one more “attack” on our faith. Too many organizations and ministries focus on “just wanting to love on people” without doing the due diligence necessary to truly affect any kind of lasting change.
…
I have heard and seen trafficking of children with families with my own ears and eyes. Some of this was done as a lack of knowledge, but some of it was done blatantly. In our eyes, we can’t imagine a Christian agency knowingly trafficking children under the guise of ‘they will be better off in the US anyway,’ but it happens way more frequently than we could have ever imagined. If we truly say that we are people of justice, then these ethical and illegal issues MUST stop and be addressed. We cannot empower the stealing of children from their cultures any longer. We cannot allow children to be a commodity. We can, however, empower the nationals in so many different ways to restore hope, dignity, create jobs, sponsor by going and learning first hand what beauty and resources are in each community. In doing this, though it will be even harder than it sounds, those who are true orphans, and not adoptable in their home country, can be identified for international adoption. The problem for our Western mindsets with this is that it takes way more time, way more money without us receiving much, if any, credit. But if we say that we care about orphans and justice, then we must set aside our savior complex and hero mentality. This is the ONLY responsible, holistic, and sustainable way to move forward.
We have placed band-aids on the face of poverty, but never cared or were too ignorant to realize the much deeper issues beyond the inflated marketing numbers used for orphans. I quoted these numbers too, we even put them in a video. Not any longer.”
