it matters to this one...

It wasn't that long ago that I had a hard time understanding international adoption. The price tag is so very high, I wondered why people pursued it. Not that the children weren't worth every penny, but I wondered if those tens of thousands of dollars couldn't benefit more children if it were somehow raised & donated to benefit in-country ministry, rather than to bring one or maybe two children to our own country. The problem seemed so big, so impossible to address one child at a time. If you search online, you can find estimates on the number of orphans worldwide, anywhere from 143 million to 210 million! If we look a little deeper into the huge number, we can find more detail about the lives of these children. Check out these statistics from Orphan Hope International:

According to data released in 2003 as many as eight million boys and girls around the world live in institutional care. Some studies have found that violence in residential institutions is six times higher than violence in foster care, and that children in group care are almost four times more likely to experience sexual abuse than children in family based care.

Every day 5,760 more children become orphans

Approximately 250,000 children are adopted annually, but…

Each year 14, 505, 000 children grow up as orphans and age out of the system by age sixteen

Each day 38,493 orphans age out

Every 2.2 seconds another orphan ages out with no family to belong to and no place to call home

Studies have shown that 10% – 15% of these children commit suicide before they reach age eighteen

These studies also show that 60% of the girls become prostitutes and 70% of the boys become hardened criminals

Another study reported that of the 15,000 orphans aging out of state-run institutions every year, 10% committed suicide, 5,000 were unemployed, 6,000 were homeless and 3,000 were in prison within three years…

An estimated 1.2 million children are trafficked every year; (THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN 2005)

2 million children, the majority of them girls, are sexually exploited in the multibillion-dollar commercial sex industry. (THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN 2005)

Statistics like these help me to see why it's important for families to step forward & bring the children home. Life in an institution, regardless of the quality of the institution, is not a substitute for a family..for home...for love. Bless those who are truly working to help the children in institutional settings! They are necessary & what they're doing is so vital. But let's not let ourselves think that an orphanage can take the place of a family. God puts children into families, for a reason. Sometimes families are broken, & then other means of caring for the children have to be used, but always the goal should be to have the children placed in loving families again. Families, even with their faults, are the means that God has ordained for raising children.

Reece's Rainbow was instrumental in bringing about a change in my own view of international adoption. They put a name & a face on all those millions of nameless & faceless orphans that I had heard about. I realized that God had a plan for each of them...

for Heath...

for Simon...

for Kolya...

for Alexander...

for Veronica...

for Constance...

for Carina...

for Lilah...

& for all the rest of them. It's true that not all of them will be adopted, but their lives all have a purpose & value, & they are worth the effort, the struggle, the sacrifice it takes to redeem every single one. Many of the children pictured above are facing imminent transfer to adult mental institutions or have already been transferred. Their lives are in danger of being over before they've rightly begun. Please pray, support, give...every one of them matters.