The Blind Side, the story of NFL Rookie of the Year Michael Oher, depicts the the impact of a loving (adoptive) family. Read more at World Magazine, and check the official movie website for trailers, etc.

Rocky and his wife, Suzanne, adopted from Ethiopia through the SC office of Nightlight Christian Adoptions. In this testimony, Rocky reflects on the adoption.

Matt Thien is giving away a copy of 10 Days 10 Songs Africa. Here’s how you can enter the drawing.

Matt Thien’s most recent CD project 10 Songs 10 Days Africa was established to benefit the Tumaini Mission Center in Nakuru, Kenya, home to over 100 orphans. Matt spoke with us regarding the inspiration for his project and how the gospel has influenced his view of humanitarian aid and orphan care.

This Monday (Sept 28) at 9 pm ET, Laura Godwin is teaching an online class to introduce the adoption homestudy. Please sign up in advance at the Course Page.
To participate on Monday night, use this URL: https://nightlightevents.webex.com/nightlightevents/onstage/g.php?d=666217919&t=a. No password is required, because the event is free.

Nightlight has two webinars coming up:
The Adoption Homestudy (free)
24 August 2009 (today! – it’s not too late to sign up!)
9-10:30pm ET
Details & Registration
(Snippet: The homestudy is the first step to completing an adoption. We will help you understand what is asked during the homestudy and what documents are required. Regardless of what agency you are [...]

Wednesday, September 2, at noon (ET), Laura Godwin will be teaching a lunch-and-learn webinar titled “China and Taiwan: Adopting the Child with Special Needs.”
This online adoption education is being offered free of charge by Nightlight Christian Adoptions. Here’s the write-up from the course page:
Children from China with special needs can be adopted relatively quickly. There [...]

Charlotte NC’s local ABC station recently did a report on embryo adoption, focusing on a donor family and adoptive family who worked through Nightlight’s Snowflakes Embryo Adoption program.

Help Nightlight Christian Adoptions by participating in this grocery and gas payback program.

The Grindles tell the story of how they recently gave birth to a daughter who came to them through embryo adoption.

You can now register for the upcoming Together for Adoption conference (more details here).

[The following guest post is by Martha-Marie Smith of Caroline's Promise.]
Caroline’s Promise has been an established non-profit ministry in North Carolina for five years and is now expanding into South Carolina.  The heart of our ministry is to reclaim hope for orphans.
Every day orphans in the United States and around the [...]

From Together for Adoption’s website:

We are pleased to announce that the next Together for Adoption (T4A) conference will be held at Christ Community Church (Franklin, TN) on October 2-3, 2009. The uniqueness of T4A’s conferences is that they focus primarily on vertical adoption (i.e., God adopting us in Christ), with a secondary and necessary focus [...]

This pro-life ad was rejected by NBC for running during the Super Bowl today. But everyone’s watching it anyway!

HT: ABBA

We are working with a young African American woman who is in the process of relocating to SC, and she would like to place her baby for adoption. Her due date is in June, and she is not sure the sex of the baby she is having.

This evening at 9:30 (EST) Carolina Hope is offering a live, interactive online education course on Transracial & Transcultural Adoptions.

The cost for this course is only $15. You must sign-up at least 2 hours before the course begins. Additional information on signing up and paying can be found at the Transracial & Transcultural Adoptions page. [...]

Together for Adoption and Carolina Hope are sponsoring an Ethiopia mission trip to serve orphans in Shashemene and Addis Ababa this summer. More information (including how to apply to be a part of the 20-person team) can be found at Together for Adoption.

We’ve recently redesigned our poster that encourages women facing an unplanned pregnancy to consider adoption — and we’ve had it translated into Spanish. The posters’ dimensions are 27cm x 42cm.
Do you have access to a space that would likely be seen by a woman facing an unplanned pregnancy? Women’s restrooms, public bulletin boards

Over at the Adoption Guide’s Advice page, I came across a document labeled “Accurate Adoption Language,” which links to a PDF entitled “Positive Adoption Language.” The fact sheet (reprinted from OURS Magazine, May/June 1992), has a fairly complete listing of preferred language (which it calls “positive”) and dispreferred language (called “negative”) for talking about adoption.
In [...]

Heirs with Christ: The Puritans on Adoption by Dr. Joel Beeke is a new book about the Christian theology of adoption. The book’s forward is by Carolina Hope blogger Dan Cruver. (more…)