Workshop!

We are at the home study and adoption education point in our adoption journey. We attended the workshop on Thursday and Friday. Information overload! I have done a lot of research on adoption between blogs, articles, books and talking with friends who have adopted but some of the topics really got me thinking.

First of all, we are open to adopting any race of child. From the statistics at one of the agencies we considering, many families choose only Caucasian (girls if you want to be specific) children. We do not have a preference as we know that God will chose the perfect child for our family.

However, say we adopt an African-American child (which we will at some point because we are hoping to adopt from Haiti when we qualify in 7 years). We live in South Dakota. Granted, Sioux Falls is becoming more diverse but we are light-years behind other states. How do we explain profiling and racism to our child? We have never dealt with it on that level. We can not speak from our own experience.

Or, if we adopt from in-state, it is very likely we will be matched with a Native American child. The prejudice against Native Americans in this state in incredible. It is scary to think how our child may be treated. How can we protect and/or prepare them for what they may face?

I know that God wants us (all of us) out of our comfort zone. Serving Him should be uncomfortable. We should feel challenged and we should trust that He will give us the tools that we need to raise our children (biological and adopted). But that doesn't make my heart hurt any less when my child comes home, upset about being bullied (for any reason, whether they are a different color, a different weight, or anything DIFFERENT).

We were told in the workshop that we are not only adopting, we are now educators. We are teaching everyone we come in contact with about adoption. The social worker said, I think everyone should adopt trans-racially. If they did, there would be no more prejudice in the world. So my prayer is that God speaks through us, that we can educate and encourage people who may or may not be considering adoption, and that he protects our children from, well, the world.