Model Marriage by Bishop Dag Heward Mills

Children by Adoption

Challenges of Adoption

1. Finding a child to adopt is very difficult. If you seek, you will find; so keep
   seeking and you will find eventually, that God has blessed you with a child.


2. Convincing your family and friends to accept your decision. Overcome this by
   discussing the adoption with them and by being decisive.


3. People may tell your child that he is not your real child. This could shock the
   child. You may overcome this, by telling the child yourself, at an early age. You
   may say something like this: “ I had no one to look after and to love, and you had
   no one to look after you. Because of this I took you in and loved you, and you
   became my child.” This early information in a loving way, will protect your child
   from growing up to receive shocks, since it is the surprise element that is
   destructive. As time goes on, the child may rather feel special to have been
   adopted.


4. Your adoption may turn sour because the child may turn his back on you, or his
   family may show up or people may point out to the child that you are not his
   biological parents. But just as there are unfortunate stories, there are also success
   stories.

How to Flow in Adoption

1. Find out where you may be able to get a child––e.g. an orphanage.


2. Take the child into your home for a period of fostering. As the bond develops, go
   ahead and do the legal work to ensure the child is legally adopted.


3. Seek medical advice and choose a birth date for the child.


4. Believe that this child is God’s blessing to your life.


5. Be prepared to birth the child from your womb and heart.


6. Embrace the child wholeheartedly like God embraces us.


7. Provide nice things for the child within your means.


8. Work on your extended family to accept your decision.


9. Entreat them to accept the child, and not to refer to his/her heritage.


10. Understand that every step in life involves risks.


11. Celebrate your adopted child. Have parties and other celebrations for the child
    just as you would for any biological child.

Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive

of the Lord...

Ephesians 6:8

Notes

1. Alexander, Dan and Tremper Longman have a detailed discussion on adoption and positive attitudes
   to adopted children in their book, Intimate Allies(Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publications 1995), 195

2. Connie R. Sasse, Families Today(Peoria, Illinois: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 1997), 573 - 574.