Diversity Day

This weekend we went to our first course for the required education part of the adoption. The social worker was an excellent presenter and has 35 years of experience working with adoptive families. She had a lot of great stories to tell and the course was really great.

We talked about everything from giving your child pictures of you so they know what to expect to cultural differences like why it’s important for an African American to have healthy skin and frequent trips to the barber shop.

My least/most favorite part was 3 hours in, sitting in a big circle with 6 families representing many ethnic groups. The instructor put up a presentation slide titled “Stereotypes.” The activity was to start naming as many stereotypes as possible for all of the groups represented.

Awkward. I thought she was joking.

For the first few seconds (which felt like an hour) everyone was silent. By the end of it people were throwing out words like

“manual laborers”

“bad drivers”

“lazy”

“criminals”

“elitists”

“drunks”

“crazy smart!”

It was SO much fun!

Rather than getting upset or defensive and hating these new friends we made 3 hours ago, we were all laughing at the stereotypes associated with cultures of people who are all around us every day.

It looked a little bit like this, but less ridiculous

This diversity (stereotype) exercise was a great way to introduce the idea of cultural sensitivity to families like us who are adopting a child of another race. We talked about strategies for answering (or avoiding answering) questions from strangers when they see our colorful family. We talked about how to model some ways for our child to answer questions from his friends. We talked about ways to help our child process identity in a positive way so he doesn’t feel like he’s being disloyal to us. We talked about how to have the topic of adoption and family part of every day life. We talked and talked . . . and I feel like it was all just the tip of the iceberg.

It was informative and educational, but also really emotional.

One exercise asked us to list (+) and (-) for three columns:

Adoptive Parent/Birth Mother/Adoptee

We were to list the pros and cons of adoption from the perspective of each of these people. The first one was easy. I know why we’re adopting and I know the cons of the decision, too. Filling out the next two columns was  not as easy. I can guess and assume why adoption is positive and negative for these two people, but I will never know what it feels like from either perspective.

We are one corner of a love triangle. All we know is that there is a child in an orphanage, it is better for him to have a family than to stay there, and someday we will have to do our best to explain why the people he was born to chose not to raise him.

And then help him process that.

Probably for the rest of his life.

Without knowing what that feels like.

Lord help us. Give us wisdom to know his questions and fears when he can’t specifically say them. Give us strength to let him ask questions and search for answers even when it might be painful. Give us love to guide him through it and point him back to You for his true identity. I think of all the broken families and the hurt they face every day, and all of the adopted kids and their parents who are wrestling with these issues.

On the other hand, we do think we can handle the learning curve for adopting trans-racially. After the course Tye asked his stylish black friend, Ethan, to help us out. We want to make sure our kid has awesome hair, nice shoes and no ashy elbows. If it’s important to his culture, it’s important to us. He said yes, so we’re good.

And in our neighborhood white people are actually the minority sooooo, bonus.

Prayers for the Orphans

We received an email last week from our adoption agency with some news about foreign adoption in Ethiopia. Without knowing much about who wrote the article or how it all started, I’ll give you the basics with some quotes:

“The House of Peoples’ Representatives and the Ministry of Women, Children and Youth urged stakeholders and the public to undertake integrated work to totally stop adoption of Ethiopian children by foreign families.

In a press conference, House Speaker Abadula Gemeda and the Minister Zenebu Tadesse told journalists that stakeholders should work closely to end foreign adoption.

Abadula urged the importance to give priority to use local means to raise orphaned children rather than giving them away to foreign families.

He suggested the importance to establish and support local NGOs which raise orphaned children with the close collaboration of the public.

Our agency told us about this as a heads up. Ethiopian adoptions are not closing today, but by the sounds of it people are pretty anxious to make it happen.

Our reaction:

Terrific!

Communities should be taking care of orphans. Countries should have facilities and programs in place that will allow orphaned children to not only survive, but to thrive.  We think facilities and programs that will allow children to feel loved as a family will love them and cared for as a family would care for them, to grow up in the country and culture in which they were born, is the best option.

Until these things can be established, we will pray for the children who are waiting. Waiting for parents who love them, for a safe place to grow and develop, to have dreams and live them out, to know that they are valued and have a purpose on this earth. We know the authorities making these decisions have the orphans in their best interest. Therefore, we pray foreign adoptions do not close until there is a plan for orphan care.

We aren’t worried about what this will mean for us. We know God has plans for us to adopt some child, somewhere. If He didn’t, this wouldn’t be on our hearts. Whether the child comes from Ethiopia, we don’t know.

We will continue the adoption process knowing one day we will have the kid in our home who was waiting for us as we were waiting for them.

Our update on the process:

First meeting with our social worker for the home study is this week!

Meanwhile, here is a super cute picture of Uncle Roger with his new puppy cousin, Cauliflower. Jan and I like to call her La Fleur.