Adoption Resources

The Lord has been changing my heart toward adoption this year.  Close friends are adopting a child from China and our family is learning more about God’s heart for the fatherless as we seek to pray for and support our friends.  Here are some of the resources I have found most helpful.

Rescued: The Heart of Adoption and Caring for Orphans

Rescued: The Heart of Adoption and Caring for Orphans – Trailer from Rescued The Movie on Vimeo.

What would Christ’s church look like if we acted upon James 1:27 which states that “Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world”? How can the church come alongside families who have chosen to adopt? Do adoption and missions have a common thread? 

We invited our church and other family friends to watch the movie in our home and join in a time of prayer for our friends who are adopting.  This film is available through Freedom Web Store.

Interview with Lisa Winton:  In this interview, Andrea Schwartz speaks with Lisa Winton about her journey from being the mother of two to adding to her family by means of adoption. Her family made the documentary film Rescued, referenced above.  Lisa shares openly in this podcast about how the Lord led them to adopt two special needs children from the foster care system.  Her testimony of God’s grace in the life of her family is powerful and encouraging.

Adoption sermon by Voddie Baucham

Voddie Baucham is the teaching pastor at Grace Family Baptist Church, and one of my favorite speakers.  He is bold, biblical, and he pulls no punches.  He and his wife have adopted several children and in this free sermon he presents compelling biblical truth regarding how the church should think about adoption.

Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families and Churches by Russell D. Moore

Three of my friends who have adopted told me this is one of the best books out there regarding our adoption in Christ and its ramifications on Christian adoption.  I decided to read it myself, and I could hardly put it down.  It is encouraging, touching, and theologically rich.  I literally laughed out loud and wept while reading this book.  Most importantly, I gained new insights into the beauty of the Gospel, and began to see that adoption is a thread that runs through the Bible, much more prominently than I had ever realized.  Moore challenges the church that our adoption in Christ should cause us to be at the forefront of the adoption of orphans in this country and around the world.  He demonstrates why adoption is part of the Great Commission mandate and tells how the culture of the church should reflect that.

Over Land and Sea by Steven Layne, illustrated by Jan Bower

This beautifully illustrated children’s book tells a story of international adoption.  This makes a beautiful gift for an adoptive family.

Could My Child Be Dyslexic?

I always knew one of my children was a little different.  At age two, he could quickly complete complicated puzzles that his six-year-old brother struggled to put together.  His mind just saw the way it had to be!  He was incredibly smart and continually amazed us with his mechanical mind and ingenuity.

When I began teaching him to read, though, he struggled.  He changed b’s into d’s and 9′s into 6′s.  More telling, though, was the fact that he couldn’t remember little words.  If he was reading “Tim and Tom and Mary and Jan” he would have to sound out the word “and” every single time.  He could not remember it from one second to the next.  I had him informally tested, and he “passed.”  We were told he was not dyslexic.  That put my mind at ease for a short while, but not for long.  Signs which could not be explained any other way continued to crop up.

He skipped words or even lines while reading, as if they weren’t there.  He read words backwards.  He added letters that weren’t there or deleted ones that were.  He ignored punctuation marks.  Reading and spelling became a horrible chore.  We had him tested again by a trained psychiatrist and found out that he was, indeed, dyslexic.

At first I was stunned.  I had feared this was true.  I had known it somehow, deep down.  Yet the truth still felt like a punch in the gut.  How would this affect him?  What would this mean for his long-term future?  Could we handle this?

Although it did not feel like it at the time, receiving that diagnosis was a blessing.  We could finally begin to understand what we were dealing with and address it in ways that are making a difference.  My patience increased exponentially overnight, as I realized that he really was doing his very best, and as I began to see school through my son’s eyes.

I am grateful that I found some excellent programs for him, even before I knew for sure that he was dyslexic.  The psychiatrist was shocked that our son was less than a full grade level behind in his reading and spelling, and he attributed that to the strength of the programs we were using.

Dyslexia is not diagnosed only by a child being behind. It has to do with the discrepancy between the level he is working at when reading and writing versus the level he is able to work at when those components are removed and he is listening and speaking.  There were eight grade levels of discrepancy between those two points for our son, so although he wasn’t very far behind his grade level, he was miles away from living up to his potential academically.

It has been almost four years since he was diagnosed.  We’ve kept the good and improved on the rest, and each school year has been better and better.  Our son is thriving and is actually up to grade level now in his reading.  His spelling is coming right along, and he is achieving spelling success every week rather than constant failure.  Our family built the website My Audio School to address his core content needs through the auditory pathway.  My Audio School provides the auditory learner with access to hundreds of recorded classic books, educational old time radio theater and historic news broadcasts.  We are using Writing with Ease and Institutes for Excellence in Writing to help our son learn to communicate on paper.

If any of this rings a bell, I encourage you to check out this article from All About Spelling about Symptoms of Dyslexia and this one I wrote about Helping Dyslexics Help Themselves.  I didn’t want to face the truth, but it has truly set us free.  Now we are working with our son’s strengths and helping him learn how to accommodate for his weaknesses.

Don’t Despise the Small Things

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Galatians 6:9

Reading. Writing. Arithmetic. More Reading.

The children sometimes find this work tedious and wonder why we have to do it. But this is the foundation that will enable them to achieve their goals later on. And it is good for them to learn to persevere cheerfully with work that must be done, even though it isn’t always enjoyable.

Some weeks it feels like we’re just spinning our wheels. Will we ever get off of this plateau and reach new heights? I have to remind myself that we’ve been in this situation before, and we did see progress. But rarely was it by leaps and bounds. Usually it was the result of faithfulness in the little things, over time.

When I get discouraged, I remember other times in my life when I despaired of ever making progress. I think of all the days spent teaching phonics to a child I was convinced would never learn to read, or the years spent coaxing a fearful child to learn to ride a bike. Often I felt discouraged, yet in both cases–and in many others–I eventually saw the fruit of my labors.

That’s why we keep on doing the same ‘ol, same ‘ol. Reading. Writing. Arithmetic. More Reading.

“The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this temple; his hands will also complete it. Then you will know that the LORD Almighty has sent me to you. Who despises the day of small things? Men will rejoice when they see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel.” Zechariah 4: 9-10

Affair Proof Your Marriage

1 Corinthians 7:1-5

This week I had someone contact me and ask me to pray for a lady with two children whose husband deceived her and left her.  He told the family that they were moving for his job. They sold their home, packed all of their belongings, moved in with her parents until their new home was ready.  He left and called a few days later to tell her he was not coming back.

My heart fell when I heard their story.  How could someone be so cruel and calculated to rip a mother and children from their home only to leave?  Stories like this one are common these days.  Everything from renewing old friendships on facebook to just growing apart dot not just our world but our churches as well.  That is why I felt so compelled to choose this scripture.  When you say, “I do,” to your spouse it is also “I do,” to God’s plan for your life and marriage.  It is saying no to any physical or emotional relationship with anyone who is not your husband.  Here are some guidelines that can affair proof your marriage if both spouses follow them.

*Do not text, call for social reasons, or chat on a computer with anyone who is not your spouse.  If your business compels you to speak to someone of the opposite sex, keep it business and hang up when business is complete.

* Allow your spouse to have access to your phone and computer.  Accountability is a good deterrent.

* Do not get into a vehicle alone with a person of the opposite sex.

*Do not go into a house or out to eat alone with someone who is not your spouse.

* Maintain a healthy physical relationship with your spouse.

Please share these easy steps with your mate.  Talk about them and make a commitment to each other to stay pure in your marriage.

Audio Books: Listening and Learning

For years I viewed audio books as a nice supplement, to be enjoyed only as a treat, when we had inclination or money to do so.  It wasn’t until I started regularly using audio books with our dyslexic son that I realized how their widespread, daily use could benefit all our children!  Here are some ways we’re using audio books in our home:

With our preschooler:

• Audio books develop a love of literature.  Our preschooler listens every day during his rest time.  Sometimes he listens to a special book again and again, while other days he discovers a new favorite.
• I love reading to my preschooler, but sometimes he wants to hear so many books that it is hard to satisfy his thirst!  Audio books give him some measure of control; he can listen when he wants to, rather than waiting until mom is available.

With our emerging reader:

• Our emerging reader likes listening to a book and then trying to read it.  Pre-listening before reading makes it easier for him to decipher names and tricky vocabulary.
• When the text is not too difficult, our emerging reader can read along while listening.  This develops reading fluency, and helps him progress through a book even when some words are beyond his reading level.  Bear in mind that it’s important to have access to the pause button for this activity, as sometimes the narrator gets ahead of the emerging reader and he may lose his place.
• I have spurred each of my three older boys to overcome a lack of reading confidence through the initial use of audio.  We start out listening to a book that is within their ability to read.  After a few chapters (when it starts to get really interesting!) I make the switch to text.  The boys are excited enough to see what happens that they are willing to take a stab at reading the text.  Excitement gives way to surprise as they see it isn’t as hard as they feared it would be.  Voila!  The gateway to chapter books has opened!

With our special needs child:

• Audio books have opened a whole new world for our dyslexic son.  Through the use of audio books, he can work independently, at or above grade level.  His interest in school has blossomed for the first time, and he is finally able to take personal responsibility for completing assignments, rather than waiting until mom can help him decipher his history book.
• Before we started regularly using audio books, our son thought that he hated books.  Now, he has discovered that he loves them!  He can finally sit down with a good book and actually enjoy “reading” it, an experience which many of us take for granted.
• Our dyslexic son’s reading level has grown over the years, but so has the difficulty of his schoolwork.  Audio books enable him to keep up with a rigorous load of assignments.

With our high school student:

• Our high school student listens to audio books over the summer to get a jump start on the new school year.  He enjoys listening, and the advance preparation lightens his load in the fall.
• Some high school level books are really long!  Audio books are a welcome break.
• Audio books help our busy high school son kill two birds with one stone.  He listens while cleaning his room, working in the yard, and exercising.

As a break from family read-aloud time:

• We enjoy listening as a family during meals or in the evening.  Everyone is gathered together and quiet.
• We “redeem the time” daily by listening while driving to and from sports practices as well as whenever we take long road trips.
• Our children often crawl into bed a half hour early so they can listen before falling asleep.

In the Fullness of Time

I can’t believe I started this journey more than two years ago. Two years and I’m still not finished. But I’m closer—much closer.

From the time I was little girl, I knew I wanted to adopt. That desire has grown stronger as I’ve grown. Two years ago as a single young woman, I took the first step and signed up for adoption classes. Every week, I looked online for children to adopt. I read bio after bio and flagged the ones I thought would be a good match. After several months, I successfully completed all the requirements.

Surely I would be matched with a prospective child in no time! Not so.

In fact, I waited and watched as the children I was interested in were no longer available. Such great news for them!

As for me, I waited.

God brought the man into my life whom I would later marry. Actually, he had been there all along; I just hadn’t noticed him. As we got to know each other, we quickly learned that each of us had considered adoption well before meeting each other. Only God can bring two people together who are equally passionate about adoption. Later that year, he proposed, and our attention turned to wedding planning.

We attended additional adoption and positive parenting classes and even took the adoption class again—this time as husband and wife.

We waited.

During our adoption classes, we saw a photo of five beautiful children who needed a forever family. Four brothers and one sister.  At that very moment, we looked at each other and knew that God had chosen them for us and us for them. They even look like us!

Once again, we successfully completed the adoption classes and all other requirements and were ready to have the sibling group visit with us for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

We waited.

The New Year began and still no news.

One morning I received a call from an unknown number. I rarely answer when I don’t know who is calling, but this time, I clicked “Talk.” It was the call we had been waiting for: we were a great match, and they wanted us to meet the children.

The past three weeks have moved at lightning speed. We’ve visited with the children every weekend and had them for an overnight visit this past weekend. Lord willing, we will have them in our home permanently in mid-March, with finalization in June. Yes, June.

I would have wanted it to be sooner, but my time is not God’s time. This is the time He had planned. This is the time He wanted to bring us all together. This is the fullness of time!

I don’t know what you’ve been waiting for—or how long. It might seem that time is dragging on—and sometimes it does. But in the fullness of time, God’s plan unfolds. It was so in the years, months, weeks, and days before Jesus (Galatians 4:4-5), and it is so today.

Daphne Tarango is a freelance writer and speaker who comforts others with the comfort she herself has received from God (2 Corinthians 1:3-4). She lives in the Southeastern U.S., where she is a leader in a Bible-based recovery program. Visit Daphne’s blog at http://blog.daphnewrites.com/.

Rescued: The Heart of Adoption and Caring for Orphans

We recently showed the movie Rescued: The Heart of Adoption and Caring for Orphans (Wintons Motion Pictures and Hedrick Brothers Productions) in our home during a night of encouragement and prayer for friends who are adopting.  I knew the movie would be a great blessing to them as they embark on a new chapter in their lives, but I did not expect to be so powerfully impacted myself.

The movie combines interviews with several adoptive families and teaching about “caring for orphans and widows in their distress”, the definition of true religion in James 1:27.  I was challenged in three ways as I watched the movie.

First, I realized as I watched Rescued that adoption is a valid way to participate in the Great Commission.  Jesus said to “Go and make disciples, baptizing them….and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you.”  When Jesus gave that command, he never said that we couldn’t bring the nations home to us!  As a former missionary, this was a profound revelation for me.

Next, I was challenged that adoption is not an act of charity, but an act of spiritual warfare.  Many orphans will never hear the Gospel, nor even meet a Christian.  This is particularly true in foreign lands, where Christians are few and far between.  Orphans want homes, love, families, medical care, and other earthly needs met, but their greatest need—like ours—is salvation.  Their temporal losses will be nothing compared to their eternal suffering  if they don’t put their trust in Christ.  And “how can they believe in Him of whom they have never heard?” (Romans 10: 14).  When purposeful Christian families adopt, they invade the enemy’s territory, and that is an act of war.

Finally, I grasped for the first time that adoption is something Christians do out of their love for others and their love for Christ—not in order to fulfill their own needs.  As a mother of five children, I have no sense of “felt need” to adopt a child for my own sake.  However, our family has many spiritual, emotional, and material resources to offer.  If true religion is caring for orphans and widows in their distress, what am I doing about that?  As a Christian, I know that children are a blessing from the Lord, be they adopted or flesh of my flesh.  When Christians adopt, the Lord blesses both the child and the family in unforeseen ways.

This film makes it clear that not all Christians are called to adopt, just as all Christians won’t be called to the mission field.  All Christians must be involved in the missionary cause, however, and likewise we should all be involved in caring for orphans through prayer, giving, and offering support to other Christians who are adopting.

My calling to the mission field was not an overly-emotional experience of “sensing God’s Will.”  I simply heard someone preach about fields white unto harvest and the great need for workers to go out into the harvest field.  I offered myself to God with Isaiah’s words:  “Here am I.  Send me.”  If the Lord had a use for me, I was willing to go.  Rescued opened my heart to see adoption in a similar light.  That must always be our attitude as Christians:  to ask what the Lord would have us do and to be willing to do it for the sake of the Gospel.

Rescuedreceived 5 stars from the Dove Foundation and is a semi-finalist in the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival, competing for a $101,000 “Best of Festival” award alongside other high profile films including “Courageous” and Ray Comfort’s  “180 Movie.”  You can be a part of the nationwide premiere of this important film in your community by signing up to host a movie night for Rescued in your home, church, or other venue.  A project of Freedom Film Distributors, National Movie Night provides Movie Night Hosts with planning and promotional tools to set up and promote their movie night and with discounts for the DVD.

 

Rescued: The Heart of Adoption and Caring for Orphans – Trailer from Rescued The Movie on Vimeo.

If you are reading this in an email and do not see a video, click here to watch the Rescued trailer.

Letting Go

In the 15^th chapter of Luke, Jesus tells a parable about a father and his two sons. Usually, those verses are under a heading titled, “The Prodigal Son” and the focus of numerous lessons I’ve heard preached through the years typically seems to be on the wayward younger son.  However, these days as I move to a different side of motherhood, the side where I have to start letting go, where I no longer choose who my child can hang out with or how his time is spent,  this parable is teaching me something new.  I feel a connection with the father and can only imagine how the experience would have felt from his perspective.

Initially when his son asked for a portion of the inheritance, it had to hurt his heart. In that day’s culture to have asked for an inheritance from the living was like saying, “I wish you were dead.”  Then upon deciding to give the money and let his son do whatever he pleased, the father had to have assumed it might end badly.  Don’t you wonder if people came to this dad while his son was away to share the latest news and gossip of his exploits?  I can just imagine someone telling him about the rumored booze and prostitutes.  Later on when the money was gone, maybe a well-intentioned neighbor told him how his boy was now slopping pigs to earn a living.  Don’t you suppose that in knowing, he would want to march right into that town and yank him back home?

How about if he never heard a thing about his son? In this era in which we live, this time of cell phones and texting, I have panic attacks when I don’t hear from my kids several times a day. Can you imagine if he had no idea whether his child was alive or dead? If it were you, wouldn’t you want to hire a private investigator, or go yourself and look?  I have no doubt that this dad worried, that he cried out to God, that he wondered where he went wrong, but he also put aside all those feelings and he waited, patiently. Then when the wait was over, he welcomed his son home eagerly and with great joy.

If, like me, you have concerns over choices your child is making but need to let go as the father in Scripture did, take heart in the waiting–for God gives us hope.

Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Proverbs 12:7 The wicked are destroyed and are no more, but the family of the righteous  will endure. 

Proverbs 11:21 The evil person will surely not go unpunished, but the children of the righteous will escape.

 

 

Alpha, Beginning–Omega, the End

I hit the snooze button up to three times. My husband asks, “Why not set it right the first time?”

We put on our sneakers for our morning walk. We ask, “How’d you sleep?” and tell tales of our dreams.

We walk several blocks. We walk, we talk.

Heading back home, we reflect on the day and stop to pray.

Jesus is our Alpha—the beginning to our day.

I get ready for work. At the sink, I pray.

As I do my hair, I read God’s word.

Jesus is my Alpha.

My husband sits, coffee in hand, Bible in lap—bowing his head.

I walk by and smile. Thank you, God.

Jesus is his Alpha.

I go to work. My husband—he works from home.

Throughout our day, Jesus is our Alpha.

As our day nears its end, we lock all the doors and climb into bed.

I open my Bible. He opens his.

We each read a chapter.

Our Jesus, Omega—our end He is.

We lay face to face and discuss what we’ve read.

We pray for the day, say, “I love you.” We kiss.

Alpha, Omega—Jesus is.

Although this year ends, another begins.

My prayer, my heart: Jesus, please stay

Our Alpha, Omega.

Amen and Amen.

 

Daphne Tarango

 

Daphne’s post today is part of Mentoring Moment’2012 theme called Jesus Is. Feel free to share via email, Facebook, or Twitter.

Fulfilling the Great Commission Through Adoption

Our dear friends are adopting a child from China next month.  They already have four biological children, but the Lord has moved them to express our adoption in Christ in a tangible way.

Their adoption will be a visible testimony to all who know them of God’s  pursuing love for His children.  As the old hymn proclaims, “Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God.  He, to rescue me from danger, interposed His precious blood.”  Our friends will bring a stranger into their home and confer on him all the rights of a son.

This adoption will also be a daily preaching of the Gospel to their own hearts and to their other children, as each will see in a new way what a profound thing the Lord has done for us.  It won’t be an easy road, but raising a child never is.

And what about the little boy? A precious soul will be brought out of a pagan nation, taught the Scriptures, and raised to follow Christ.  By God’s grace, I trust this little orphan will one day know the joy of two adoptions: first, into an earthly family and later as a child of God and fellow heir with  Christ.

Adoption is a picture of the Gospel to the world, to the church, to the family, and to the child.  When Christians adopt, they go as workers into the harvest field.

“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” Luke 10:2 (ESV)

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