Why We Are Adopting

After speaking about our adoption at chapel recently, a woman came up to me and said, “I’m struck by how generous a thing it is that you and your husband are adopting this child. It’s just such a generous thing to do.”

I know this comment was meant as a compliment, but ask any adoptive parent and we will tell you that “generosity” makes us feel like martyrs, and adopting a child is something else entirely.

There’s no moment in time when Aaron and I heard the voice of God telling us to adopt or just knew deep in our hearts that it was what we wanted or needed to do. I suppose it started as a long process of realizing that the world is broken, that there are millions of children without families all around the world, and that our family of four had love and resources enough to be a family of five.

Our Christian faith motivates us to stretch outside our tidy lives and care in radical ways for the world around us. We try to make sure each act of our living honors humankind and the natural world, and when we knew that we really wanted three children, we realized that we could add to our family by adopting a child who was already in the world—a child who had no family. We could BE family for that child.

Having grown up in an adoptive family myself, I already knew that we’re not family to each other because of some genetic or blood connection, but being someone’s mama or sister is about intentionality, about shared experiences, and about a deep sense of community. My sister, who happens to be adopted, is as much an Eklund as I am. We share a common sense of humor, shared history, and a deep love for each other. Her story is her own, and I’d never want to minimize her history or tell you that somehow it’s not important, because it’s very important. But perhaps just as important are the almost three decades that she’s been in our family, the way we are all knit together as if we were blood-related, and the fact that family is about choice and commitment most of all.

I can’t speak for Aaron, so I won’t, but for me, the love I have for my sister is a huge part of why I wanted to start this journey of international adoption. It’s not about generosity, although perhaps it is somewhat about living intentionally, about letting our family reflect our values of inclusivity, community and a sort of counter-culture living.

But we also anticipate (perhaps selfishly) the gift that Matthew will be to all of us—the way he will change and shape us, make us more patient and loving, teach us how to love him and each other even better than we already do.

A recent UNICEF study estimated that there are 132 million orphans in the world right now. That’s 132,000,000 children who have no parents or family members to care for them. That’s an astounding number to me, a number that leaves me feeling helpless and small.

But just as I can’t solve the problems of global pollution or consumption but I can recycle and live gently and use fewer resources, so too our family can have a third child not through birth but through adoption, lowering that ghastly statistic by one child, one special child, our son Matthew.

Who also comes home to all of you, by the way—his extended family and community—who have supported us through the journey of the past many months, and who wait with us to welcome this boy home. And for this, we are so very thankful.

Here is Matthew at 16 months in his orphanage, with a little friend at his side.