Ending the Orphan Crisis, For One Child

-Jillian Jones-

Adoption was my plan A from the time I was 16 years old and spent a summer in Romania hosting a camp for the orphans. I didn’t have baby fever and didn’t face infertility. But adoption felt SO right in my heart. The orphan crisis has felt heavy for 8 years. And that’s where my adoption story starts.

I was 26 and single. I had bought a house. I was done with school. Set in my career and working 40+ hours a week. I was in a cycle, a routine, and I didn't like it. There had to be something more to life than my current "this".

I decided I was ready to do something big, and I gave it to God. I started looking into missions trips. Perhaps back to Romania or maybe Uganda. China or Haiti? I prayed hard over finding a group to travel with. I started brainstorming fundraising. When would I have enough PTO saved up? How long of a trip did I want to go on? What would be the humanitarian goal? Building schools? Offering medical care? Why would I be going?

And through all that, for some reason, it wasn't setting with me quite right. I felt like God was pulling me in a different direction. I kept thinking of the orphan crisis, and what would happen when I returned home from that trip. They would continue to grow up. And then they would grow out. And age out. And the cycle would continue. And I would still be living my privileged life. For those weeks or months I was a visitor in their country, I would be the "Mother Theresa" they needed.  I would 'save' the orphans, for a short while. I would hold them, kiss them, feed them, pray for them, play with them, and then I would leave them. And they would still be going to bed in an orphanage without a mother or father, and I would go back to my home. The more I started looking into my options for missions trips, the more clear I heard God telling me it was not enough.

"You need to end the orphan crisis, even if it's for one child". I heard God speak those words to me as clear as day. Because being okay with orphanages isn't okay. Because visiting the crisis isn't okay. Because there is more work to do. There are children who need to be in families. We need to change our views on the orphan crisis if we are going to help overcome it. Orphanages are to be temporary safe places for children. Temporary.

Children should not be aging out and then left to fend for themselves. This should outrage us as Christians, as humans. This is not something we can be okay with.

And that is how adoption became my "why". This is why I'm doing it. Because children belong in families. And with God on my side, I will advocate for them with every ounce of my being. We need to stop hoping and praying to visit orphanages. To open them or fund them or organize them. We need to bring children into families, not into the system. We are the church. We are the body. We need to become the orphanage. Children belong in families. That will always be more than enough 'why' for me.

It was the night before adoption day and I was laying in South Africa sobbing into my pillow. Exhausted. She hadn’t slept in days and was facing loss of being removed from her home. We had spent weeks waiting for her paperwork and passport in order to travel back to the USA. The guilt that I was the one inflicting this trauma on her was overwhelming in the most hopeless way. I prayed “God, please don’t let tomorrow come”.

What a broken place to be after praying and working so hard for this adoption. When I first began pursing international adoption as a single woman, I knew no single women who had adopted and really had no clue where to start. But I remember asking God for some very specific signs to pursue this adoption, and He came to me as I asked, so clearly.

He showed me my daughter before I even saw her face on the referral which made accepting it so easy. So why, now that I was simply hours from finalizing, was I so desperate to erase this journey? To run. To pretend I had never embarked down this road. To ignore everything He had shown me? I had praised Him through this journey, and now I was here and I wanted out. I didn’t think I could walk through the life He had laid out before me. How did I so quickly lose my faith?

In the midst of my desperation that night, God spoke clearly to me, reminding me of all the times He had carried me through my mistakes and failures. He reminded me that now was the time to surrender to HIS plan. I had promised I would go where He sent me and I was here. His purpose was going to be so much bigger than these sleepless night. His purpose was going to be so much bigger than my loss of self.

Matthew 16:24-24; Then Jesus said to His disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it”.

This walk, this struggle, this story of bringing my daughter home. Her loss, her trauma, my guilt and grief. It is my cross to carry.

Court that next morning was so redemptive. I felt a peace wash over me as I sat in that room and the judge asked me if I was sure I wanted to proceed. Without hesitating, I answered ‘yes’, thinking that this is how it should feel. It didn’t have to feel magnificent or joyous. My daughter would come to be mine through loss and trauma and there is nothing beautiful about that. But it felt okay. It felt for the first time that we would be okay.

The following weeks and months were filled with attachment struggles and more sleepless nights and tears than I am willing to admit. It took support and mistakes and antidepressants. It took prayer and forgiveness and the decision to try again every morning. It took practice to look into my daughter’s eyes and not feel guilty. My heart still breaks when I think about the loss she has faced at such a young age, but the guilt is fading because no matter how much love is in an orphanage, it isn’t designed to be a family.

2 Timothy 1:7 “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

God meets me in my struggles everyday. He is giving me a voice for the orphan. He is healing my heart and my daughter’s everyday. He is giving me the strength to say again and again, I will:

I will choose love.

I will ask for forgiveness.

I will keep my daughter’s story alive.

I will surrender my life to Him, every day.

I will fight for the orphan crisis.

I will support families.

I will lose my life to this broken world a thousand times over for the opportunity to walk this journey.