from hope to reality

One of our families informs us:

We are going to have our second annual gathering of adoptive families this October. It is going to be in Myrtle Beach, SC, the second week of October.

Our fun filled weekend event is called Guatoberfest, but is open to ALL adoptive families, those who have adopted internationally and domestically.

Updates will be posted at www.Guatoberfest.com.

:: posted by josh ::

Heritage Books is preparing to release a new title on theological adoption: Heirs with Christ: The Puritans on Adoption by Dr. Joel R. Beeke, pastor of Heritage Netherlands Reformed Congregation in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and President and Professor of Systematic Theology and Homiletics at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary.

Dan Cruver, a regular blogger here at From Hope to Reality on the topic of Theological Adoption, wrote the foreword to the book. You can read Dan’s Forward over at his blog, Eucatastrophe.

Below is additional information about the book from the publisher’s promotional materials.

Description from the Publisher:

The Puritans have gotten bad press for their supposed lack of teaching on the doctrine of spiritual adoption. In Heirs with Christ, Joel R. Beeke dispels this caricature and

(more…)

I just returned from attending the Christian Alliance for Orphans SUMMIT IV. It was a very encouraging event. Paul Pennington (Director of FamilyLife’s Hope for Orphans) and Maridel Sandberg (pictured at right, President of Christian Alliance for Orphans’ board) did a great job of introducing the emphasis of SUMMIT IV and stressing the centrality of the Church in orphan care and the importance of serving orphans in the name of Jesus. I particularly enjoyed the main sessions of Dennis Rainey, Kay Warren, and Jedd Medefind. The emphasis upon Christ’s Church as the answer to our world’s orphan crisis was very refreshing and absolutely needed. The call to radical, “gloriously ruined” service to our world’s orphans in the name of Jesus was really powerful as well. I was very appreciative and encouraged by this emphasis.

If you can attend next year’s SUMMIT, let me strongly encourage you to do so. Here’s one more photo from this year’s SUMMIT:

This evening (May 6) from 7 to 9 there will be a workshop at the office of Carolina Hope Christian Adoption Agency (address and map here) covering introductory topics related to international and domestic adoptions. If you wish to attend, please contact us by 5 pm today. Here is the announcement from Carolina Hope’s workshop page:

Monthly Carolina Hope Adoption Education

Introducing Domestic and International Adoption
    Tuesday, May 6, 2008 (7-9pm)

At this adoption workshop, Carolina Hope Christian Adoption Agency and the Law Office of Raymond W. Godwin will present basic information about international and domestic adoptions. Topics will include understanding the advantages of different adoption programs, preparing for the adoption home study, and educating yourself about adoption.

The workshop will be held at Carolina Hope’s office:

    1527 Wade Hampton Blvd.
    Greenville, SC 29609

There is no cost. Please register by contacting us sometime between now and the day of the workshop at 5 p.m.

Carolina Hope plans to conduct a workshop like the one described above every month on the first Tuesday of the month, from 7-9pm. Here are dates for the next few: June 3, July 1, August 5.

:: posted by josh ::

From FamilyLife.com: “The First Annual National Foster Care Prayer Vigil has been created to help believers slow down, gather together with other believers in their community, and go before God, petitioning Him on behalf of the half million children living in our nation’s foster care system. In doing so, we are aligning our hearts and minds with His. He has demonstrated throughout Scripture his love for vulnerable children, and His desire that we join with Him in reaching out to those who have the least.

“We have created a simple PDF strategy guide to help you know how to set it up. We have also created a foster care prayer guide for the night of the event entitled City by City, Church by Church, Child by Child that will walk prayer vigil participants through an evening of intercession for foster children, their families, and the workers who serve them (for Order or PDF Download).

“If you feel led to take part in leading a foster care prayer vigil in your city and have confirmed a time and place to do so during the week of May 19-25, please register your event here. The information you provide will be added to our list so that others in your area can find you.

“If you find an event already registered in your city, please feel free to contact the point person and join in.”

For more information on this important prayer vigil opportunity, go here.

When we began adopting transracially, our families were very alarmed, and they didn’t hesitate to tell us. They were concerned about us being naive and unrealistic. About our ‘perfect’ one-boy-one-girl family being rocked so hard that it would be destroyed. They pointed out that with college expenses rising we couldn’t educate more than two — and most of all they stressed the fact that we were not black and therefore couldn’t parent kids who were! Not everyone was actually against us adopting, but there were sure a lot of concerns being voiced and it made me sad and unsure for a season.

That was 8 years, 6 adoptions and one pregnancy ago. Now when we talk about adopting again they shake their heads and say “I don’t understand you,” or “aren’t there other families waiting?” Or the one that makes my teeth grate “You know, you are exasperating the problem by adopting them.” Really? So not adopting will solve the situation? (Notice the amazing restraint I am showing here by not going into a personal tirade even as I type those last few words.)

My husband and I have been hinting for the past few months that we are looking forward to updating our homestudy soon. This provides another opportunity for the negative comments to flare up, as well as a chance for the positive to surface. I am the mom of kids from three different ethnic heritages, and I want to encourage you who are getting the negative from the world: I want to tell you that the positive from God is stronger. My children are beautiful; from lightest to darkest they are exactly who and what and where God has planned them to be. For those of you who are being harmed by negative words today, may you be blessed with a thick skin against the comments based on others’ fears — and a thin and tender skin to receive the blessings and encouragements that will also come. Welcome to the journey!

:: posted by dorothy ::

Back in October we announced our new Ethiopia Adoption Program — which we believed would start in December 2007. It was just a matter of finishing up the paperwork and getting the final approvals. Unfortunately, because of changes in Ethiopia’s approval process, the timeline we had estimated became a parable about “the unforeseen” in international adoptions.

But now we’re ready for the announcement: Carolina Hope has entered into a partnership that allows us to offer a full-service Ethiopia Adoption Program. Because this is very fresh news, you’ll find that it will take a week or two for all the program details to find their way to our website or our Ethiopia Program booklet. But if you’re anxious to know more now, just contact our office.

We’re excited that we can continue to be part of something really big: helping orphans in need of homes, and helping families who desire to adopt. And even bigger than those things: taking part in a process that provides a picture of God’s adoptive love for us.

:: posted by josh ::

Carolina Hope Christian Adoption Agency is pleased to announce our official status as Hague Accredited through the Counsel on Accreditation. More specifically, we have achieved 1-Year Temporary Accreditation, which gives us the same legal status as agencies that are fully accredited (but is slightly less costly on the front end). Carolina Hope will pursue Full Hague Accreditation during this year.

Why does Hague Accreditation matter? Well, only Hague Accredited agencies can help families adopt from other countries that have signed the Hague Adoption Treaty (countries like China and Guatemala, for example).

This has been a long and expensive process (as anyone who’s been involved in any kind of accreditation well knows!). We are pleased to be recognized in this way.

For more information, go to our Hague Accreditation page.

:: posted by josh ::

Carolina Hope is conducting a 1-hour transracial adoption education course on Tuesday, April 22, at 7 p.m. The cost is $15.

The course will be conducted online as a webinar, so participation will require an internet connection faster than dial-up. (Other than that, nothing is required. For more details, see the course page.)

This webinar is open to all, not just Carolina Hope clients. The information presented will be useful to anyone considering or pursuing an adoption that will create a racially blended family.

To find out more and to sign up, go to the Transracial Adoption Online Education page at our Domestic Site.

:: posted by josh ::

The following is an informal book review by Claudia-Jacqueline Semar, M.Ed. She has granted us permission to reprint it here.

Ms. Semar is the Executive Director of International Child Foundation. She has worked in adoptions for more than 15 years, and as an adoptive mother, she has first-hand experience in the things she writes about.

I’ve been reading a book called The Connected Child. It’s recommended often by families on the listservs. This is a bit that you may consider more relative to older children, but in fact it has deep significance for babies and toddlers, too.

Children who have been neglected or abused - and let’s redefine this as children who have had their needs ignored, their cries unanswered, their food inadequate, and children who have been repeatedly frightened by events in their environment, chaos and violence, even if it did not touch them physically - these children have established biochemical brain patterns. No amount of talk therapy rewires the brain. (As you may have discovered when trying to persuade your spouse to change his or her behaviors.) In children, this is a particular challenge, because the younger they are, the less their cognitive skills have developed. Reason is not a tool they have at their disposal. (more…)

Carolina Hope is conducting a free 1-hour adoption home study education course tomorrow (April 15) at 7 p.m.

The course will be conducted online as a webinar, so participation will require an internet connection faster than dial-up. (No gas, no travel time: The perfect way to get an education!)

This webinar is open (and free) to all, not just Carolina Hope clients. However, it will be useful only to South Carolina residents, because adoption home study requirements vary significantly from state to state.

To find out more and to sign up, go to the Preparing for a SC Home Study page at our Domestic Site.

To read more about Carolina Hope’s adoption home study services (for domestic and international adoptions), go to the SC Home Study page at our international website.

:: posted by josh ::

There are many countries and adoption programs that are closed to our family due to our income, age, family size and ethnicity. It is probably good that they are closed, as I have been accused of a tendency toward ‘adoption addiction’ — and it just makes it easier to find the specific paths that God has laid out before our family when the options are not so wide.

As a general rule, we don’t allow a program’s being ‘closed’ to signify the end of our care and concern for the orphans involved. It just doesn’t look the same as an adoption — it’s like having a window that we can offer help through rather than a doorway to physically enter in. But what does that look like? For us it’s all about being open and intentional. We seek out and encourage families who are able to adopt in those countries, we support orphanages with donations, and we work on their behalf here in the United States. I have visited facilities out of the U.S. and helped with maintenance, child care and tangible gifts, and we are always watching for and praying over families who are prepared to adopt specific children that we never would be allowed to call our own. And most of all we TALK about the needs so that other families may be led to get involved also.

This month I get to add another way we are involved — I have the amazing opportunity to travel with a friend and help bring home her soon-to-be daughter from Korea — a country whose door has always been closed to us due to our financial resources. Even though that door has never been an option to me as an adoptive mom, the window is wide open to aunties, and I am reaching through!

Praise God for giving us windows as well as doors that we might reach out into the world and proclaim the good news of Adoption.

:: posted by dorothy ::

Part Six: The Trinity and Adam’s Sonship (read the other parts here)

We concluded Part Five by asking this question: In what sense was Adam a son of God? Have you ever considered why it is that God is three persons and not just one? (This question is relevant to our discussion of Adam’s sonship. So stay with me.) I am one person. You are one person. So it just makes sense to me that God would be one person, but Scripture reveals God to be three persons not one. Here is our agency’s doctrinal statement concerning the Trinity: “There is one true God, eternally existing in three equally divine persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Scripture teaches that God is one God eternally existing as three persons. So why is the one God three persons and not just one person?

Believe it or not, theologians have wrestled with this very question.[1] Richard of St. Victor, a Scottish theologian of the 12th century, wrote an important philosophical work on the Trinity titled De Trinitate (”On the Trinity”). When wrestling with why it is that God is three persons and not just one, an answer to this difficult question struck him while meditating on 1 John 4:8 (”God is love”) and 1 Corinthians 13, the great love chapter.

Here was Richard of St. Victor’s profound insight: Since 1 Corinthians 13 teaches that love is never turned in upon itself but is always turned out upon other persons and 1 John 4:8 teaches that God is love, God could not be love if He were only one person. A god who existed all eternity past as one person would be a god who was eternally turned in upon himself. This god could not be love since, according to Scripture, love is always turned outward upon other persons. Therefore, he concluded, a God who is love must be more than one person. (more…)

As we celebrate our adoption agency’s 10th Anniversary, I’m posting brief introductions of the Carolina Hope staff. March 10 I told you a little about our Assistant Director, Lisa Prather. Today I would like you to meet our Director of Ministry Outreach, Dan Cruver. I’ve asked him a few questions, and here are his answers.

JJ: You’ve taught Bible and theology for many years. When did theological adoption begin to be a prominent part of your thinking?

DC: I can’t identify a decisive moment when theological adoption really began to become prominent in my thinking. My growth in this area, at least the first couple years, was a fairly gradual, almost imperceptible process. As I think about it now, my thinking in this area really started a few years before our first adoption as I began to consider the practice of transracial adoption through the lens of Scripture. God used my study in this area to move my wife and me to joyfully embrace transracial adoption, in part, as a wonderful and powerful picture of what God is doing through the gospel, namely, creating a mulit-ethnic family through His work of adoption. Then, after our first transracial adoption, my thinking gradually broadened out to consider Scripture’s teaching on adoption in general terms to the point where it is now my primary theological focus. I can honestly say that nothing has grown my understanding and amazement of God’s grace more than the theology of adoption over the past several months.

JJ: Has the doctrine of theological adoption affected how you relate to your sons and daughter?

DC: One of the main ways it has affected my relationship with my two sons by adoption and my 11 year old biological daughter, is that even though I grew up in the home of my biological parents, I can look my two sons in the eyes and tell them that I too know what it is like to be adopted. Since God has adopted me as His child, I know the experience of being brought into a family that was not originally mine. My daughter is also able to relate to her brothers on this level. Adoption is not unique to just those two members of our family. As a result of our vertical adoption (i.e., God adopting my daughter, my wife and me as His children), we are better able and equipped to rejoice in the horizontal adoption of our two boys. Vertical or theological adoption gives us great reason to make adoption a cause for celebration in our household. It enriches and informs our experience as an adoptive family.

To read more about Dan, go to his staff page at our main site.

:: posted by josh ::

If you tried to access our blog and got an error in the last day, our apologies. There was apparently a problem with our host. We recovered all our content and moved it to a new database this morning. Our content was safe thanks to a great Wordpress plugin by Austin Matzko. Another friend helped me import the backup to the new database.

:: posted by josh ::

Part 5: The Question (read the other parts here)

As I have tried to demonstrate in parts 3 and 4 in this series, it really is not difficult to recognize the importance of adoption in Paul’s thought. It clearly plays a central role in the outworking of the history of redemption. Adoption precedes human history (in God’s pre-temporal decision to love us, Ephesians 1:4-5), shows up at climactic moments within redemptive-history (Romans 9:4; Galatians 4:4), and brings our salvation to its intended goal (Romans 8:23).

You may be wondering, though, why adoption is so important in the unfolding story of redemption. It is one thing to recognize its importance. It is another thing to understand why adoption is important. Therefore, I think it will be helpful to view the story-line of redemption (i.e., creation, fall, redemption, consummation) through the lens of the doctrine of adoption.

Here is the outline that will lead us through the story of redemption from the perspective of adoption over the next several posts:

• Adam’s Sonship (Creation / Fall)
• Abraham’s Promise (Redemption)
• Israel’s Adoption (Redemption)
• Jesus’ Mission (Redemption)
• The Spirit’s Work (Consummation)

Adam’s Sonship (Creation / Fall)

Sometime after God’s pre-temporal decision to adopt us (Ephesians 1:5), He created the heavens and the earth and, on the sixth day of creation, made man in His own image (Genesis 1:1, 26-27). Creation week reached its climax when God formed the first man, Adam, from the dust of the ground. In his genealogy of Jesus, Luke begins with Jesus and works his way backward through time all the way to Adam: “Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son of Heli…” (Luke 3:23). All throughout the remainder of the genealogy we see the phrase “the son of…” [1] Notice how the genealogy ends: “The son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God” (Luke 3:38; emphasis mine). Surprisingly, Luke refers to Adam as the son of God! (more…)

Part 4: Quick Survey of Adoption’s Marking Function (read the other parts here)

As I noted in part 3, God’s work of adoption has a “marking” function in the grand story of redemption. It plays a leading role from before the beginning of the unfolding story of redemption (before God created the world) all the way to the end (when all of God’s adopted children enjoy the full privileges of their adoption on the new earth in glorified bodies). Here is a brief overview of adoption’s marking function in the grand story of redemption:

Act One: In Ephesians 1:4-5, Paul states that in love God the Father “predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.” This is really quite amazing: adoption’s marking function began before God created the universe. Even before the earth existed God marked us out (i.e., predestined us) for the great privilege of being His children through adoption. Adoption was not a divine afterthought. It was in God’s mind even before the dawning of human history. One amazing truth we learn from Paul’s words here, as John Piper has said, is that “adoption is greater than the universe.” (more…)

Part 3: Adoption’s Importance and Recovery (read the other parts here)

So how important is the doctrine of adoption and why should it be recovered? Its importance should not be evaluated by considering the number of times the term adoption is actually used in Scripture. One of the other reasons adoption has been neglected in church history, in addition to the one mentioned earlier, may be because Christians failed to recognize its importance since the term is only used five times in Scripture—all found in Paul’s epistles (Romans 8:15, 23; 9:4; Galatians 4:5; and Ephesians 1:5). But we must be careful never to determine the importance of a doctrine solely based on the number of times Scripture uses it. For example, I think we would all agree that the Trinity is a doctrine of fundamental importance to the Christian faith. Yet the word Trinity is nowhere to be found in Scripture. Clearly, the importance of the doctrine of the Trinity is not determined by the frequency of its use as a term in Scripture. Its importance is established in other ways.

If adoption’s importance is not established by considering how many times it is used in Scripture, how is it established? Answer: (more…)

It’s been a long week, with more than the usual adoption issues to deal with and more than the expected number of stares and comments from strangers. I sat down on Tuesday to have the ‘Where Babies Come From,’ discussion with my three oldest kids and realized that even there I have to think through and pray over what I teach. We have always discussed the fact that some of our babies were carried in my body and some were placed into my arms after they were born. No problem, everyone in the family gets that one. Just like they understand the basic ideas of genetics and why we have so many different skin tones in the family.

This week we started in on the conception part of the discussion and I found myself stalled at the reality of what my teaching about abstinence might emotionally mean to my adopted children who were all conceived out of marriage. I actually had to stop the lesson because I realized that I needed to speak intentionally so that I didn’t give the wrong messages to my children about their births being a ‘mistake’ or a ‘problem’ while at the same time not endorsing premarital intimacy. When we adopted I never thought about how these basic things would affect our daily lives. Who thinks about pre-teen abstinence talks when adopting a baby or child? Not me! Thank you, God, for revealing these things to me slowly so I can catch up and have plenty of time to pray over them!

:: posted by dorothy ::

Come hear Carolina Hope’s Dan Cruver at The Vine Community Church this Sunday. Here’s the announcement from our Workshops page:

Adoption Awareness Service
Sunday, March 30, 2008 (6pm)

Dan Cruver, Carolina Hope’s Ministry Outreach Director, who is an adoptive father, will be speaking at this special adoption service. Also, two birthmothers and an adult adoptee will share their stories.

At 5 pm, before the service, there will be a simple spaghetti dinner at $5 a plate. Here’s the address:

The Vine Community Church
4373 Wade Hampton Blvd.
Taylors, SC 29687
(get directions)

The Vine Community Church is beginning a financial and educational ministry called Child of the King for Carolina Hope families adopting domestically.

:: posted by josh ::