Register Now for Christian Alliance for Orphans' Summit VII

Some of this year's speakers inclue Russell Moore, Karyn Purvis, and Dennis Rainey.  There will be pre-summit events, numerous break-out sessions, and musical guests.  This is THE conference to attend for  pastors, lay leaders, ministry professionals, and individuals seeking knowledge on adoption, foster care, global orphan care, and advocacy.  Visit the Summit site to register or for more information.

The Role of the Church In Adoption

Churches Adopt Adoption
Churches are getting real about adoption's challenges—and helping families after the child arrives.  By Carla Barnhill

This article is part of Christianity Today's July issue which focuses on adoption and orphan care.
In 1962, my parents picked up a 3-month-old boy from a Minneapolis children's home. Instead of a shower or welcoming committee, they came home to silence and sideways looks. They were adopting at a time when the decision was considered a response to an epic reproductive failure, something not discussed in polite company.

And then there was the baby. At just three months, my older brother showed signs of institutionalization. My mother remembers how he lay in her arms like a board, never able to snuggle. Psychologists were only beginning to form theories on attachment disorder, and no one, including my parents, fully understood how even a few months without parental nurture can impact a child.

Thank God that attitudes about adoption are changing.

The Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAO) held its sixth annual summit on orphan care this April at Grace Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Featuring keynote addresses from John Piper, Steven Curtis and Mary Beth Chapman, and Al Mohler, the summit drew more than 1,200 attendees, most of them ministering to orphans through their home churches. Watching those gathered, I knew this was not my parents' generation.

Continue with article here.

Jedd Medefind's (the President of Christian Alliance for Orphans), Top 5 Books on Orphan Care

This article is from July's Christianity Today, focusing on adoption and orphan care.

1.  Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families and Churches
     by Russell D. Moore (Crossway)
With deep theological moorings, Moore builds an inspiring case for why adoption carries special priority for Christians. Even readers who don't agree with Moore on all points will find it difficult to escape the power of his conviction that God's adoption of all believers is the wellspring for Christian action to "defend the cause of the fatherless."

2.  The Connected Child: Bring Hope and Healing to Your Adoptive Family
      by Karyn Purvis, David Cross, and Wendy Lyons Sunshine (McGraw-Hill)
Built on research and medical expertise, this accessible book provides both compassionate insight and concrete practices that any parent can apply to nurture and connect fully with children coming from difficult backgrounds. Purvis's new study guide and other resources are also invaluable.

3.  There Is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey to Rescue Africa's Children
      by Melissa Fay Greene (Bloomsbury)
Greene opens unforgettable windows into the plight of children orphaned by HIV/AIDS with the true story of one Ethiopian widow and the children she took in. Her well-crafted account is both haunting and hopeful, exposing both aching need and the complexity of responding wisely, alongside the beauty found when we do.

4.  Fields of the Fatherless: Discover the Joy of Compassionate Living
     by Tom Davis (David C. Cook)
Weaving together Scripture and compelling narrative, Davis paints a simple yet powerful picture of what it looks like when Christians come to share God's passion for orphans. Fields of the Fatherless offers not only inspiration and provocation, but also practical steps for action.

5.  The One Factor: How One Changes Everything
      by Doug Sauder (4Kids of South Florida)
Focusing on real stories of children from foster care, this slim volume delivers its punch with dozens of poignant reminders why the number one matters more than all the statistics in the world. Sauder helps us turn the tired adage that "one person can make a big difference" into a vibrant, vivifying confidence.

Love for Orphans Transforms

An article by Jedd Medefind

President, Christian Alliance for Orphans
 
Unwanted infants in ancient Rome were often disposed of via the practice of “exposing.” Whether undesirable because it was malformed, female or simply inconvenient, the child would be left alone, outside the city walls, without defense before glaring sun, icy winds or roving animals.

In 374 AD, the Christian emperor Valentinian banned the practice. But for centuries prior, a marginalized group gained a reputation for rescuing these children: Christians. The early church was known, even among many who despised it, as a people who defended the orphan. Believers went outside the city to find infants abandoned there, taking them in, and often raising them as their own. This witness was one powerful factor in the vibrant life and growth of Christianity in its first 300 years, and at other high points in history as well. It can be that way again.

Last month, 1,200 Christian orphan advocates from across America and beyond gathered in Minneapolis. At moments, the ethos and interactions felt almost electric. As one band leader expressed, “It felt like that was the first time I’d been worshipping and every person in the room was really a Christian.” I understood what he meant. From families with adopted HIV+ children, to foster parents, to individuals serving the fatherless around the globe, the spirit of that community carried the feel of the early days after Pentecost. As best I can discern, here are four key reasons why:

- Caring for orphans reflects the heart of God. From Isaiah’s call to “defend the cause of the fatherless” (1:17) to James’ placement of orphan care at the heart of “pure and undefiled religion” (1:27), the biblical mandate is clear. But this is not merely God’s expectation of us; it is a mirroring of His own character. “He defends the fatherless,” declares Deuteronomy 10:18. Describes the Psalmist, “He places the lonely in families.” To be like our heavenly Father, we’re invited to do the same.

- Caring for orphans makes the Gospel visible. At the heart of the Christian story is the God who pursued us when we were destitute and alone. He adopted us as His children, and invites us to live as His sons and daughters. Perhaps nothing makes this truth more tangible than when Christians follow in their Father’s footsteps, opening heart and home in unconditional affection to the child that has no claim upon them but love.

- Caring for orphans defies the gods of our age. Darwinism’s sole ethical imperative is to ensure one’s own genetic material carries forward. So like Gideon tearing down his father’s idols (Judges 6), we assault this dictate when we seek to ensure the survival, and thriving, of a child that does not share our genes. Meanwhile, the purposeful sacrifices required to love this child flout the demands of other gods also, from materialism to self-actualization to comfort. The cost must be counted. But—compared to the depth and richness found along the path of caring for orphans—these false gods are shown to be as lifeless and unsatisfying as statues of bronze or wood.

- Caring for orphans invites a journey of discipleship. “I see these kids changed,” explained a woman who helps Christians get involved with foster care, “But I think the parents are changed even more.” It’s true. Every family I know that’s opened themselves to parentless children has not gone unaltered. And though the road can be hard, even painful, virtually always it leads closer to Jesus. Expressed one adoptive mom recently, “People have said, ‘Oh, aren’t they lucky, you rescued them from whatever.’ And I think, Are you kidding? I’m the lucky one. I get to be their mom. And I get to be daily rescued from my selfishness, and my impatience, and things that are just as disease-ridden in my soul.”

Ultimately, here’s the result I see again and again: love for orphans transforms. It transforms children as they experience love and nurture they’ve come to live without. It transforms individual Christians, as we encounter Jesus deeply and personally in a destitute child. It transforms the broader community of believers as well, pulling us corporately beyond a religion of self-development to a costly-but-muscular faith. Finally, love for orphans transforms a watching world, as it sees—perhaps for the first time—the Gospel embodied.

Close friends from Washington, DC, Tom and Leah, adopted a little boy from an African nation two years ago. He’d been found, abandoned, at the edge of a forest, umbilical cord still attached. “He was left for the hyena,” described the old woman who discovered him when the newborn’s cry startled her milk cow.

When I heard that story, I couldn’t help thinking of the early Christians, going outside the city walls to take in abandoned infants. I feel the same about what’s going on in Colorado, where so many Christians have adopted from the foster system that the number of children waiting for adoption has been cut from nearly 800 in 2008 to just 365 today. The same goes for countless partnerships between U.S. Christians and churches abroad to care for orphans within their home countries as well.

Christians are again becoming known as a people who defend the cause of the fatherless. As we do, the world won’t be left unchanged. Neither will we.  ~

This article can be found at the Catalyist website @ http://www.catalystspace.com/content/read/june10_love_for_orphans_transforms/

Date Set for Christian Alliance For Orphans Summit VII

Save the Date...

SUMMIT VII

May 12-13, 2011

Southeast Christian Church

Louisville, KY

If you missed Summit VI, recordings are available online 

Pat Robertson's Disappointing Attitude Toward Adoption

This is an email I received from Elizabeth Wiebe, Director of Outreach and Member Services for Christian Alliance for Orphans.

Alongside a compelling news report on Summit VI, commentary from Pat          Robertson on whyChristians would…or would not…adopt is likely to stir serious controversy. It’s worth watching the polite but highly-charged exchange between Robertson and co-host Terry Meeuwsen.

Many orphan advocates likely will wince as they hear Robertson express sentiments like, “It [adoption] can be a blessing, if you get the right child.” The troubling statements, however, offer a striking reminder of three important realities. First, that many people harbor deep and understandable fears about adoption that must be gently and honestly addressed. Second, that even many Christians still hold the mistaken view that a successful adoption is primarily about building a family by finding the right child, rather than a decision born of both obedience and love–both of which spring from response to God’s loving adoption of us. And third, that much has changed even in the past several years, as Christians have re-awoken to the biblical call to care for orphans in their distress–not merely by sending checks overseas, but by opening their hearts and homes.

Explicit in Robertson’s concerns is an important theme wise adoption advocates repeatedly sound as well: “Count the cost.” Yes, many adopted children come from very difficult places, and the journey to a full sense of belonging and permanent family often is rife with difficulty, sacrifice and even sorrow. But this is only one piece of the story, and not the most important.

A segment of Robertson’s exchange with his co-host Terry Meeuwsen, who powerfully defends a truly Christ-hearted view of adoption, captures the issue well.

Robertson expresses serious concerns about adoption, warning of serious emotional, developmental and spiritual problems, and worrying, “If they’ve been brain damaged as a child, what’s going to happen?”

Meeuwsen affirms Robertsons’ fears, but then challenges: “…I think all children who’ve been through any kind of trauma certainly have emotional needs, for sure, and as you’re saying, spiritual needs. On the other hand, I would say, ‘If not us, who? Who sets those children free? Who teaches the truth to them? Who loves them to wholeness? It ought to be Christians.”

Robertson: “Well, I think it’s all real lovely but…”

Meeuwsen: “Well, it’s not ‘real lovely.’ I mean I think that lady that talked at the end [Lisa Harding] said it all when she said, you know, ‘I have the privilege of being daily being delivered from my own selfishness, from my own irritations.’ And you are. I’ve always said that if there’s a flaw in your marriage, in your family, in your character, it is all going to rise to the top. But it’s a bigger picture and if you’re called for it, go for it with gusto!’”

Terry Meeuwsen would know; she is a mother of seven, five by adoption.

For more on this and to see the exchange between Robertson and Meeuwsen, go to Christian Alliance's blog.

40 percent decline in overseas adoptions by Americans since 2004

Idaho's Impact
Haiti scandal overshadows bigger threat to evangelical adoption efforts.
from Christianity Today

The high-profile legal saga of the 10 Idaho-based Baptists arrested in January for attempting to smuggle 33 Haitian children into the Dominican Republic is winding down. But evangelical adoption advocates wonder what the long-term impact will be.

Leading orphan care advocate Russell Moore suggested in the days following the arrests that the scandal might be a black eye to evangelicals' adoption efforts worldwide. But two months later, Moore said he is no longer worried about a fallout.

"In many ways, the controversy served as an opportunity to clarify what we mean and what we do not mean," said Moore, dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. "No one in the Christian orphan care community is calling for children to be adopted who are not in fact orphans. And no one is calling for children to be adopted apart from the legitimate processes."

A larger hurdle for international adoptions by evangelicals may be new restrictions on adoptions in countries where they have been most prevalent, including China, Guatemala, Russia, Vietnam, and Liberia.

China, which has traditionally accounted for the majority of adoptions to the U.S., rewrote its qualifications for adoptive parents in 2007. Guatemala, the second-largest source of American adoptions, completely shut down its program in 2008 due to widespread corruption, though it will launch a new adoption system this June. Since 2004, these and other restrictions have resulted in a 40 percent decline in overseas adoptions by Americans—from an all-time high of almost 23,000 in 2004 to fewer than 12,800 in 2009, according to the U.S. State Department.

Read the complete article here:  http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/may/2.14.html?start=1

April 29 Is Approaching Quickly!

This is a reminder that there is still time to register for Christian Alliance for Orphans' annual Summit!

http://www.christian-alliance-for-orphans.org/summit/

An Editorial on Adoption from Christianity Today

210 Million Reasons to Adopt
Haiti's devastating quake reminds us that orphans matter to God.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/april/13.55.html?start=1
 
Two years ago, a Christian couple from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, fell in love with an abandoned toddler, born with a disability and living in an orphanage in rural Haiti. Already adoptive parents of a Liberian child, Katy and Josh Manges decided to adopt the toddler, Malachi, who has a treatable bone disorder.

Then the January 12 earthquake that crushed so much of Port-au-Prince, costing an estimated 230,000 lives, put the prayerful plans of the Manges family in limbo. It also laid bare before the world how badly orphans and vulnerable children may be treated when they get caught up in red tape, corruption, and political correctness.

For the Manges family, the outcome was success. In late February, Malachi arrived in Miami into the welcoming arms of his new family. Yet the adoption required two years of effort, delayed by local politics and requiring a personal signature from Haiti's prime minister. At the last minute, rioters at Port-au-Prince's airport derailed Malachi's departure, falsely alleging that he and other adoptees had phony paperwork.

This episode stands alongside another, the still-unfolding saga of the Idaho Baptists who were arrested on suspect charges of child trafficking. The latter may have a long-lasting chilling effect on inter-country adoption just when adoptive parents are needed more than ever. There are 210 million orphans worldwide, and adoptions to the U. S. have dropped 45 percent since 2004.
The greater problem isn't with potential adopting parents. It's with a system that is severely broken. Christian leaders and churches have much to offer in advocating for the reform of confusing adoption laws, stronger enforcement of international norms, and making adoption more affordable, more visible, and a more honored practice.

Jedd Medefind, president of the Christian Alliance for Orphans, recently told Christianity Today that immediately after Haiti's quake, many agencies fielded waves of calls from people with a strong impulse to take Haitian orphans into their homes. Rather than dismiss or belittle this impulse, Medefind encouraged them to consider the many ways of supporting the children, recognizing that adoption is a long and uncertain process. Family reunification, orphanages, extended family care, and child sponsorship all have a role to play in meeting the needs of vulnerable children in crisis or chronic need.

But Medefind is quick to note that powerful political and cultural barriers often make adoption an arduous process that takes too long and costs too much. "The reality is that there are thousands of children, before and after the earthquake, who are genuinely in need of parents," he says. "To the extent that parents can't be found, we should not relegate children to living on the streets or [in] orphanages. The political and cultural factors often become unspoken reasons why children are forced to remain in institutional care or on the streets, which is a profound tragedy."

The political and cultural barriers stem from warped ideas about what is in a poor child's best interest. It isn't in the best interest of abandoned children to grow up destitute and barely literate, regardless of the imagined cultural benefit of remaining in their home country. Haiti itself is a vivid example of injustice. The government tolerates a modern form of child slavery by allowing 225,000 children ages 6-14 to work as restavecs (unpaid, indentured domestics).

Adoption, domestic or inter-country, should not be looked down upon as inferior at best or as a last resort. The 150,000 South Korean orphans adopted worldwide (99,000 to the U.S.) since the 1950s testify well to the durable difference a loving adoptive family can make.

For Christians, the biblical basis for adoption bears repeating. The Book of James beckons every true follower of Christ to become involved in the lives of orphans (and widows). It's not for married couples only. Godly, never-married singles have successfully adopted, and most readily affirm the ideal that each child should live with a mother and father—whenever possible. So, Christian singles should not be automatically excluded from the pool of possibilities for adoption.

Adoption experts provided CT with four ways churches can increase their involvement:

• give adoptive families space to tell their stories in church;

• find ways to give small starter grants to people interested in adopting;

• encourage the adoption of children with special needs; and

• develop a full spectrum of responses, from child sponsorship to adoption.

CT recently talked with a never-married woman who adopted a young girl from Kazakhstan into her home (at a personal initial cost of $36,000). For her, the question was, "Are we talking about live souls?" Not mere "victims" or "political symbols" or "the needy," but children for whom Christ died, who need a home where the love of God is lived and shared with the least of these.

Registration is now open for the Christian Alliance for Orphans’ Summit VI in Minneapolis, MN!

Featured speakers will include John Piper, Mary Beth and Steven Curtis Chapman, Al Mohler, Patricia Arzu, Tom Davis, Stephanie Fast, Doug Sauder, and others!

For more information and to register:
http://www.christian-alliance-for-orphans.org/summit/

Orphan Care Groups Come Together to Help Haiti

An article from Yahoo news:
Disaster Response Experts Team With Orphan Care Organizations to Create Long-Term Solutions in Haiti
Unique team to deploy Valentine's Day

RALEIGH, N.C., Feb. 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A volunteer team of U.S. disaster response experts and orphan care providers is coming together to provide strategic help to Haitian churches. The team will equip and train Haitian church leaders to provide local, long-term care for orphaned Haitian children in the aftermath of the January earthquake.

The Haiti Orphan Relief Team (HORT) is a cooperative volunteer effort of disaster response experts and orphan-care professionals from many U.S.-based ministries that have joined forces to respond to the crisis in Haiti. An initial HORT on-the-ground team will deploy for a two week period beginning on February 14, 2010. The team will work to identify churches in Haiti that can be paired with U.S. churches for ongoing partnerships in caring for orphaned children, so that local resources can sustain this effort beyond the HORT team's deployment.
"We know that this disaster is not going to be fixed overnight, but by putting in place key pieces of infrastructure, efforts can be sustained and strengthened long after the HORT team has returned to the United States," said John E. Roberts, past Director of the Federal Government's National Interagency Training Center, and Incident Command System (ICS) team commander for HORT. "We are looking to build a long-term solution to the immediate crisis."

Recognizing that many Haitian church facilities were destroyed, HORT will use advanced mapping techniques developed by the U.S. government to physically identify the church facilities that are best able to provide long-term solutions to children now and in the future.

"We are looking for churches that want to become part of the long-term solution to the orphan need in Haiti. Â We encourage U.S. churches to come alongside the churches of Haiti to address this catastrophe," said Paul Myhill, President, World Orphans, and a member of the deployment team.

A Valentine's Day fund-raising drive is under way to help HORT deploy. Donors can personalize an eCard with a Valentine message and for every eCard sent, the team will personally deliver a Valentine to a Haitian orphan.

"Outside help alone won't reach Haiti's deepest need. If we're serious about helping Haiti's orphans toward a bright future, it'll be absolutely vital to equip and support committed local Haitian churches to care for the orphans in their communities," said Jedd Medefind, President of the Christian Alliance for Orphans.
More about HORT can be found at: http://www.haitiorphanrelief.org/

Collaborators in this effort include:
Christian Alliance for Orphans, http://www.christianalliancefororphans.org/
Global Aid Network, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ International, http://www.gainusa.org/
Hope for Orphans, a ministry of FamilyLife, http://www.hopefororphans.org/
Lifesong for Orphans, http://www.lifesongfororphans.org/
Love Haiti, http://www.lovehaitimissions.com/
Loving Shepherd Ministries, http://www.loving-shepherd.org/
Sweet Sleep, http://www.sweetsleep.org/
Together for Adoption, http://www.togetherforadoption.org/
University of North Carolina, School of Public Health, http://www.sph.unc.edu/
World Orphans, http://www.worldorphans.org/


(http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20100209/pl_usnw/DC52297)

Looking for reputable ministries through which to give to Haiti?

Visit http://www.christian-alliance-for-orphans.org/haiti/index.asp

Adoption steps to the front lines of the culture wars

An article from Christianity Today - http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/january/7.12.html

Orphans on Deck

by Bobby Ross Jr.

Adoption is arguably one of the Christian social ministries most central to evangelical theology. It has—to a greater extent than church positions on issues such as abortion and marriage—avoided becoming entangled in politics. Until now.
A foster dad's court challenge to a Florida law banning adoption by gays and lesbians has made headlines in recent months. So has a proposed same-sex marriage law in the District of Columbia that the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington warned could force it to cancel its social service programs, including adoption.
At the federal level, U.S. Rep. Pete Stark introduced a bill in October dubbed the "Every Child Deserves a Family Act." The California Democrat's proposal immediately drew the ire of the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance (IRF). IRF claims the proposed law could run "roughshod over the convictions of many faith-based adoption agencies" and "require every state to forbid every agency that it licenses from preferring mother-father families over gay families or single parents."

"Obviously, it's becoming a political issue," Marquette University political scientist John McAdams said of adoption.

"The fundamental problem is that secular elites—who basically don't like religious people at all—aren't willing to make any concessions at all to the consciousnesses of religious people," said McAdams, an evangelical Christian and Republican. In such a climate, children needing homes take a back seat to politics, he said.

McAdams points to Massachusetts as a prime example: In 2006, Catholic Charities of Boston stopped its 103-year-old adoption service rather than comply with a state law that made it illegal to discriminate against gay and lesbian couples when placing children into homes.

Russell D. Moore, a leading Southern Baptist theologian and author of "Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families and Churches," voices concern about "religious liberty concerns rising in the adoption arena."

"When states force Roman Catholic and evangelical Protestant adoption services and children's homes to override their religious concepts of the family in placing children, the mission of the church itself is at stake," Moore said.

On the other hand, voters in Arkansas last year passed a referendum banning unmarried couples from adopting or fostering children—a direct attack on gay parenting. Gov. Mike Beebe, a Democrat and active member of an Episcopal Church, voiced concern in November that the law hinders the state's ability to recruit qualified parents.

"It was just a matter of time before [adoption] was used as a lightning rod," said Ram Cnaan, director of the Program for Religion and Social Policy Research at the University of Pennsylvania.

Stark's proposal would increase the role of for-profit adoption agencies and minimize that of nonprofit and faith-based providers, Cnaan said. As a social worker and researcher, he would prefer a government policy that encourages all agencies to allow lgbt people to adopt but stops short of forcing organizations to do so.

"Marginalizing the uniqueness of faith-based organizations and forcing them to act secularly is the cookie-cutter type mistake," Cnaan said. "Not all adoption agencies should be molded to be alike, as many children and families have different needs that can be best met by allowing many different providers to co-exist."

On a broader scale, adoption is a legal process that always has been subject to politics, said John VanValkenburg, spokesman for Bethany Christian Services, the largest adoption agency in the world with more than 80 locations in 32 states.
Both political parties, for example, have supported a federal tax credit for families who adopt—a benefit that Grand Rapids, Michigan-based Bethany hopes to see renewed or made permanent before it expires at the end of 2010, VanValkenburg said.

"Awareness of the importance of adoption has increased as a result of President Obama, who repeatedly mentions adoption as a part of a positive strategy to reduce abortions," he added.

But Jedd Medefind, president of the Christian Alliance for Orphans in McLean, Virginia, said he fears that children in need of families will lose the most as activists work to redefine marriage—and, in turn, adoption rules.

"If it limits the right of Christian agencies to serve in ways consistent with their convictions, government will ultimately lose many of its greatest allies in finding families for kids in needs," said Medefind, who directed the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives as a special assistant to former President George W. Bush.

Like Medefind, Kay Ekstrom, executive director of the Phoenix-based National Association of Christian Child and Family Agencies, expresses concern about what she sees as the increasing politicization of adoption. Yet, in her view, the bigger headline is this: Tens of thousands of children remain stuck in foster care without permanent homes as Christians fail to step up to the challenge.

"If every Christian church in America produced one adopting family for an older child, we could wipe out the list of 'waiting children,'" said Ekstrom, who spent 25 years as president of the Christian Family Care Agency in Arizona. "And if God's people were responding to this need, the issue of adopting by gay people wouldn't be an issue. All the children would have homes."

November 8 is Orphan Sunday

www.orphansunday.org
On November 8th from 4:oo to 6:00 pm CST, join voices with Steven Curtis Chapman, Jim Daly, and Dennis Rainey to reach the nation with God’s call to care for orphans. Through excellent music and the sharing of the heart of God, we hope to give a megaphone to the cries of the millions of orphans around the world. Other guests include Geoff Moore and the Children of the World Choir.



Tom Davis writes about Orphan Sunday on his blog: http://tomdavis.typepad.com/tom_daviss_blog/2009/10/watch-out-for-the-firestarters.html

Christian Alliance for Orphans' "Orphans Deserve Better" Campaign

Orphans Deserve Better is a grassroots initiative to counter the movie Orphan. Join us in taking the side of those who cannot speak for themselves.

However far-fetched some stories are, they can still subtly shape our values and perceptions. So when a major motion picture leaves a lingering impression that orphans are damaged goods and that adoption can tear apart your life, those who know the deeper truth must speak up.
People deserve to know better. They must be told of the great needs orphans face. They should also see the joy found in loving them…and practical steps we can take to do so.

“Defend the cause of the fatherless,” urges the prophet Isaiah. We invite you to join in doing just that:
1) Send a message to Warner Brothers urging them to contribute a portion of proceeds from the movie to help orphans.
2) Share your stories of how loving an orphan can lift a child’s life and those who choose to love them.
3) Consider ways you can act to help orphans today.

Visit the site: http://www.orphansdeservebetter.org/