NYT religion beat journalist Erik Eckholm covers the Christian adoption movement in today’s New York Times, including an appearance by David Smolin and a mention of The Child Catchers.
As a girl, Danna Hopkins dreamed of having 20 children. Today, she and her husband, Brian, the pastor of an evangelical church here, are building a large family, but not in the way she had imagined.
Ms. Hopkins gave birth to four children, now ages 7 to 11. A few years ago, inspired by compassion and a biblical mandate to aid “widows and orphans,” the couple adopted two teenage boys and a young girl from Ethiopia. Then in 2012, they adopted another girl from Ethiopia.
Last year, when they read about the dismal orphanages in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, they started adoption proceedings for four young sisters whose parents, an agency said, had died of malaria and typhus.
“I believe it’s what God called us to do,” said Ms. Hopkins, 34.
