Adoption

Pro-life advocates saw the 2022 Supreme Court’s decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization as a turning point in the fight against abortion in the United States. After the court overturned Roe v. Wade and removed federal protection for the procedure, some conservative states began introducing fetal personhood laws, granting the unborn the same rights as full-born children.

But Hannah Strege watched it all unfold with another vulnerable group in mind: frozen embryos. In this new era, would they have rights? If they did, would anyone respect them?

Strege, 24, was conceived through in vitro fertilization (IVF) in 1996 and frozen for two years. In 1997, she and 19 of her siblings were adopted in embryo form by John and Marlene Strege. They were shipped by FedEx to a local fertility clinic. Hannah was the only embryo to survive thawing and to successfully implant in Marlene’s uterus. She was born in December 1998.

Since Hannah was born, the number of frozen embryos sitting in storage in the United States has risen from roughly 100,000 to an estimated 1.5 million. Many of these embryos remain from IVF treatments, indefinitely chilled in canisters of liquid nitrogen with no plans for their future.

Some clinics feel overwhelmed by the growing volume of embryos sitting in storage and doctors may create dozens of embryos per patient. One doctor told NBC News in 2019 that some patients have 40–60 eggs retrieved in a cycle, and “the embryologist gets the orders from her doctor to inseminate all of them—and the question isn’t asked if the patient even wants that many inseminated. … Nobody’s going to have 30 kids.”

One Florida reproductive endocrinologist said, “We were not prepared for any of this. Twenty-one percent of our embryos have been abandoned.”

After celebrating his national championship as the head football coach for the Michigan Wolverines, Jim Harbaugh made a surprise appearance at the March for Life in Washington D.C. Harbaugh truly lives out his pro-life convictions. In 2022, he told ESPN about encouraging his players to come to him if they ever dealt with an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy with a partner. He said he wanted them to know that he’d be happy to raise the baby with his wife.

I’ve told (them) the same thing I tell my kids, boys, the girls, same thing I tell our players, our staff members. I encourage them — if they have a pregnancy that wasn’t planned, to go through with it, go through with it. Let that unborn child be born, and if at that time, you don’t feel like you can care for it, you don’t have the means or the wherewithal, then Sarah and I will take that baby. … We got a big house. We’ll raise that baby.

When asked by the media if it was appropriate for him to share his views on the issue, Harbaugh replied:

We need to talk about it. It’s too big an issue to not give real serious consideration to. What kind of person would you be if you didn’t stand up for what you believe in and didn’t fight tooth and nail for it? I believe in letting the unborn be born.

When Friedrich Stapel went to move the herd of cows under his care, he had no idea they would attract a following. But that’s exactly what happened after he spotted a wild boar piglet, roaming with his cows in his town of Brevoerde, Germany. He theorized that it must have gotten separated from his own kind while crossing a river, but he couldn’t leave the piglet to fend for himself. He said, “To leave it alone now would be unfair.” He nicknamed the piglet “Frieda,” and told the local hunter not to shoot it.

Whether because of the unusual sight of a piglet roaming with cows, or because of Stapel’s act of compassion, word has gathered in the town. You could say Stapel and his herd of cows have attracted a following.

Possible Preaching Angle:

The heart of Jesus is for all people to be brought into God’s family, especially those isolated or traumatized.

Louie Anderson had a career that included a slew of small but memorable roles in seminal 1980’s films, such as Flashdance, Quicksilver, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Coming to America. Anderson was always open about his upbringing--a childhood that was marred by his father's alcoholism. He once shared: "One time my dad goes, ‘I hate that guy.’ I go, ‘You don’t even know him.’ He goes, ‘I don’t need to know someone to hate them, Louie.'”

His childhood left him embittered towards his dad, until he learned about his father's life struggles. Louie grew up in a St. Paul housing project as one of 11 children. He said: “My dad had a 10 times harder life than mine." Anderson went on to reveal that when his father was around 10 years old, he and his sister were taken out of their home and placed for adoption. He said “[They were] split up and never saw each other for 50 years. Because ‘put up for adoption’ meant that you were put up in front of a church congregation and families picked you and took you. Imagine being with your sister and having her go one place and you go another.”

This helped Louie understand why his father acted the way he did: "So, I go, I’m sorry, Dad.' Forgiveness was easy for me when I found that out."

Possible Preaching Angle:

Instead of dwelling on what "they" did to you, maybe we should spend time understanding what life struggles led them to act the way they did. Scripture teaches us that living apart from Christ is difficult. We should never be surprised when an unsaved person acts unsaved. Pause and just imagine being in their shoes, going through what they are enduring apart from Christ. Afterwards, we may just find that forgiveness will come.

Adoption attorney David Anderson wrote in Christianity Today about how it is a privilege for him to help the rare parents who adopt special-needs children. He was particularly moved by the story of Sally and her parents. Anderson writes:

Sally had gone through two heart surgeries in her short life. I talked with her parents, one of whom was almost always at Sally’s crib side. I learned that they had adopted Sally as a newborn even though they knew that there were significant medical risks ahead. When the surgeries came, they did not change their minds about the adoption. Sally’s adoptive parents demonstrated their love to her by being almost constantly present in the hospital room, by talking to her, by bathing her, and by holding her. In years to come, Sally may experience various disabilities, but her parents give every indication that they will continue to love her in a way consistent with their initial choice to adopt her.

I know another couple who adopted three special-needs children from India: one girl had polio in one leg and never walked until she was fitted with leg braces in the States. Another girl had surgery for a cleft palate, and the younger brother needs blood transfusions every three weeks. All these moms and dads did not have to love and adopt the child they chose; they were not compelled to shoulder the extra burden of disabilities. I would have understood if they had said no. But they did not.

We may not want to admit it, but each of us is a special-needs child in our relationship to God. We may not have any significant disabilities in the eyes of this world, but we are often spiritually blind and sick, disobedient, and willful. How can it be that God is there, always waiting, always loving, even when we are unlovable?

Ryan and Morgan, adopted a child from an orphanage in another country. They'd passed through all the legal processes in that country. Charlie was their son. But right before the day when they were supposed to pick Charlie up from the orphanage, things changed. There were some political upheavals, and the country froze the process. No more children were going to be able to leave the country.

Charlie could not come to Ryan and Morgan. So, they decided to go to him. They flew over from the US and basically camped outside of the orphanage. They spent half their time with their son and the other half lobbying the courts and meeting with government officials, pleading with them to release their son.

After a few weeks Morgan came home, but Ryan stayed. It was at Christmas time. This was not where he wanted to be at Christmas—away from home, far from family. But here was a father who loved his son. Since his son could not come to him, he was going to go to that son, and he was going to fight for that son. There would be more days and weeks of struggle, but, wonderfully, Ryan was eventually able to bring Charlie home.

That Christmas, as Ryan battled corrupt court systems on the other side of the world … he was a picture of the kind of "Eternal Father" that Jesus is for anyone who asks him to be. Jesus went far further for us than Ryan went for his son. He didn't leave a country of privilege to move to a country of poverty. No, he left the riches of heaven to come to a world of pain. He did all that because he loves us. He did all that because he wants to be with us. He came to us to ensure that we could go to be with him, and it cost him far more than a plane ticket.

While young Cheyenne was trying to transition out of homelessness at 16, the child welfare agency told her that finding a foster home would be unlikely. In the province of Ontario, around a thousand teenagers age out of the foster care system every year without being placed in a foster family.

Four years later, Cheyenne beat the odds when she was adopted by Shannon Culkeen, the woman who’d been serving as her mentor. For years Shannon and Cheyenne had kept in touch and celebrated several milestones together, including Cheyenne’s high school graduation and her first pow-wow honoring her Ojibwe heritage. But it wasn’t until Shannon applied to become a first-time foster parent that she began to wonder about formalizing their relationship. When asked if she had any other children, and she realized, “I think maybe I do.”

Cheyenne has since legally added the Culkeen surname to hers, and has court documents to prove that they are now legally related. That was the culmination of two years of process, which started when Shannon took Cheyenne on a long drive to make the ask. Shannon said, “I didn't want to put any pressure on her. But in the end, I sort of freaked her out because we were driving, and I just kept on driving further and further because I couldn't spit it out. It's like proposing, but for parenthood.”

But for Cheyenne, “It was 'yes' right off the bat." She’s taken comfort from Shannon’s consistent presence. She said, “Someone has faith in me to do the right thing and will also still be there even if I don't. It's not like I'm doing anything out of fear of losing her."

Shannon’s motivation was simple. "I don't think it's ever too late to make a family.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

The gospel of Jesus Christ is the good news of the lost being found and being brought into God’s family of faith and hope. When we practice adoption, we are mirroring the spirit of adoption that God has for all of us, no matter our earthly lineage.

Livia Satterfield Young was a 12-year-old girl in a Romanian orphanage when her life was changed--forever--by an Operation Christmas Child shoebox. (Operation Christmas Child, uses gift-filled shoeboxes to demonstrate God’s love to children in need around the world.)

Livia was an orphan for 10 years. She described a lack of food, hygiene supplies, and no feeling of love and happiness. She said, “Some days our food supply was so low that all we had was a piece of bread that was hard as a rock and moldy. We also wore the same clothes for a week. We had only one toothbrush which we shared with hundreds of other children.”

Livia longed to feel someone’s love and warm embrace. She said, “I wanted to feel like I existed in this world.” That all changed when the ministry delivered shoeboxes full of personal hygiene items, school supplies and toys to her orphanage. The same day, an American missionary group also came and Livia met a woman named Connie. Livia said:

Before we opened our boxes, they shared with us about people who packed them because you loved us. I was so mesmerized by the word “love.” And then, they shared “the greatest news of all.” That there’s a God, and He gave His one and only son who died on the cross for me because He loves me. God made this possible through a simple gift. It sparked so much love, joy and hope in my life.

The same year Connie arranged for Livia to stay with a Christian family, and she accepted Christ as her personal Lord and Savior. She said, “I wish I [would’ve] had a mega-sized microphone to tell the whole world I had Jesus in my heart. Two years later when I was 14, Connie came back to Romania, adopted me, and took me home to my brand-new family.”

British radio host Sam Darlaston found a fuzzy surprise when he opened a bag of broccoli from his local grocery store--a caterpillar. But instead of evicting his new furry friend, he decided to take care of it. It turned out that being an ad hoc caterpillar caretaker was just the hobby he needed to pass the time during lockdown in his London apartment.

He told a reporter, “I did my research initially and discovered the exact type of caterpillar/butterfly we were dealing with. I then decided to build him a little home in my (living room) with all the broccoli he wanted.” Darlaston named his caterpillar Cedric, and was planning on maintaining a habitat for one, until another trip to the same store for more broccoli yielded more caterpillars. He said, “The broccoli I’d got as a replacement contained 5 more. And then a 3rd broccoli belonging to my housemate had another one! So, 1 became 7 caterpillars overnight!”

Over a series of tweets, Darlaston conveyed to his audience how each of them eventually became chrysalis and formed cocoons, only to eventually become butterflies and fly away. “I felt a tiny bit sad watching them spread their wings but overall feeling was happiness … I’m just happy at least one of us gets to go out during these times.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

No matter how we’ve arrived or what condition we're in, God loves and receives us into His family. Not only that, but God will continue the work He started in your life, even when others have abandoned you.

After Dustin and Caren Moore asked a flight attendant for help changing their newborn daughter, they received much, much more than what they asked for. Jenny, one of the flight attendants working the Southwest flight, happened to ask the parents why they were flying with such a young baby. And when she found out that the Moores had newly adopted their first and only child, Jenny sprang into action. Enlisting the help of her workmate Bobby and other members of the Southwest flight crew, Jenny surreptitiously organized an impromptu baby shower. Bobby came back and asked a few other questions, which initially left the Moores confused.

Caren Moore told reporters, “Five minutes later, Bobby came on the intercom and said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, there’s a very special guest on the flight today. She’s only 8 days old and she’s traveling home with her mom and dad.’” After the passengers burst into applause, the crew then passed out pens and napkins and encouraged them to jot down notes of advice, love and encouragement, some of which were eventually read aloud. Meanwhile, plenty of folks stopped by to offer their compliments for the baby and congratulations to her parents.

After arriving home, Dustin contacted Southwest to offer his gratitude. “For an entire crew of strangers to come together like that, to partake like that, to show us that kind of love and kindness meant everything to us.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

The people of God show the heart of God when we can surround those who care for children with unexpected love and care.

When five-year-old Michael showed up at the courthouse for an adoption hearing with his foster parents, he found a group of surprise visitors waiting--his entire kindergarten class. Michael’s teacher, Mrs. McKee got the idea when she encountered Michael’s foster mom dropping him off at school. The two of them devised a plan, and McKee organized the field trip, bus and all.

In the year or so since Michael has been with the couple, his father said he’s been amazed at how often other children have welcomed Michael into their homes and social circles. The highlight of the day was during a portion of the hearing where the judge, who’d never hosted an entire kindergarten class before, asked all the students to explain why they were there in support. They all gave touching answers like, “I love Michael” and “Michael is my best friend.”

Potential Preaching Angles: When we show up for those in need--a friend, advocate, or supporter--we are modeling the behavior of the early church, who shared everything they had and gave to whoever was in need. More importantly, we are modeling the love of Jesus.

A woman who was abandoned as an infant turned to Facebook to find the people who rescued her. In January 1983, Amanda Jones says one of her birth parents wrapped her in a blanket and left her inside a dumpster near the Prado Business Mall in Atlanta. Three months later, Jones was in foster care, and was eventually adopted. Now, Jones has launched a campaign to find the people who helped change her life. “I want to thank whoever found me because they changed so many lives by being in the right place at the right time.”

After tracking down the police report from the day she was found, Jones contacted Joyce Vaughn, the now-retired detective that handled the case. Jones said, “After I spoke to Joyce and I felt like I had a new heart. I felt like there was a weight lifting off me after 36 years, to know these stories.”

Her Facebook appeals led her to two of the paramedics who transported her to the hospital. Jones said, “Knowing that they held me and warmed me, it makes me feel really good.” By sharing each meaningful contact, Jones has high hopes that she will eventually reach her rescuer.

Jones said, “(If those) people … hadn't found me, my children wouldn't be here today. My husband wouldn't have a wife. So, it is such a blessing to all of us. So many people have been blessed by that one night and one person.”

Potential Preaching Angles: Even brief acts of heroic kindness can reverberate for decades. God loves someone who does good away from the cameras, without seeking recognition or acclaim.

Mr. Jay Speights of America discovered that he is royal. He took a DNA test and the results popped up as being of royal descent. The funny thing is that Speights grew up in New Jersey. He lives in an apartment. He does not even own a car. But now he’s a prince.

NPR reports that he visited his long-lost country and was welcomed home as royalty. Another paper reported, “When he first arrived, he saw what looked like a festival, hundreds of people dancing and playing instruments and singing. It took him several minutes to realize it was a welcome party—for him.” Here’s an excerpt from his interview on NPR:

Steve Inskeep (host): Royal DNA? Mr. Speights is a prince in the small West African country of Benin. His family had been trying to learn the African side of their lineage for decades, and at last, he had an answer. So naturally, he got on a plane.

Speights: Next thing you know, I'm in Benin, being crowned as a prince. It was that easy.

Inskeep: The royal family prepared a festival for his homecoming. They hung up banners. They held a parade. And because the prince had no experience with prince-ing, the royal family sent him to a so-called prince school.

Speights: What may have added to the intensity of emotion was that it was my father's birthday. And to land there on my father's birthday was just unbelievable. And I tell you, my father's presence was with me. I could see him and feel him.

Possible Preaching Angles: When we come to Christ we discover we are a child of God, adopted as royalty into God’s family.

In March of 2018, California Highway Patrol discovered a GMC Yukon driven by Jennifer Hart had plunged off a cliff with her wife Sarah and their six adopted children inside. All were either confirmed or presumed dead. After a yearlong investigation officials have identified a troubling trend in Oregon’s child welfare agencies.

Social media photos of the family engaged in a variety of wholesome activities appeared to contradict allegations of abuse and/or neglect that continued to surface. Just days prior to the road trip, a Woodland neighbor had called Child Protective Services. Internal documents showed that during their residence in Oregon, CPS was aware that the Hart family had been investigated for child abuse back in Minnesota. Nevertheless, DHS closed the investigation, concluding they were unable to determine if abuse or neglect had taken place.

This was not an uncommon conclusion. According to a federal survey, officials in Oregon were closing one in every five child welfare investigations as inconclusive. Case workers sometimes felt pressure not to report allegations of abuse because they felt the sanctions were too harsh. “We put kids in peril, because there was just a big push to make sure we didn’t take kids into custody.”

Possible Preaching Angles: Children are precious in the sight of God. When our mechanisms to protect children fail, God is grieved.

In a skills article for Preaching Today, David Prince writes:

I know a family who adopted an older child from an unspeakably horrific orphanage in another country. When they brought her home one of the things they told her was that she was expected to clean her room every day. When she heard about that responsibility, she fixated on it and saw it as a way she would earn her family’s love. In other words, she isolated the responsibility and applied it to her existing frame of thinking that was shaped by life in the orphanage. Thus, every morning when her parents came in her room, it was immaculate and she would sit on the bed and would say, “My room is clean. Can I stay? Do you still love me?” Her words broke her new parents’ hearts.

Eventually, the girl learned to hear her parents’ words as their unconditionally beloved child who would never be forsaken, not as a visitor trying to earn her place in the family. After she knew that she was an inseparable part of the family story, even correction and discipline did not cause her to question her family’s love for her; she understood correction and discipline to be part of what it meant to be in the family.

The documentary film, The Drop Box, tells the remarkable story of Lee Jong-Rak, pastor of Jusarang (God's Love) Community Church in Seoul, South Korea. Worldwide, millions of children are abandoned at birth. But in South Korea, because of a strict social code, the problem is especially acute—and it's growing.

Unwanted children are often left to die in an alley or street corner or dumped in a trash bin. But occasionally they're left on someone's doorstep. When some of those unwanted newborns started being placed on Pastor Lee's church steps, he decided to take action. He and his wife, spurred by their Christian faith and the experience of raising a son with extreme disabilities, began to take in these children. Because of the long, cold winters in South Korea, he eventually built a "drop box" into the front wall of the church. With a door that opens from the outside as well as the inside, it's like a baby-sized drawer, complete with light bulb, heater, and a loud bell that alerts his family when a baby is placed in the box.

Today, Pastor Lee's family and a small group of volunteers provide a loving home for more than a dozen mildly to severely disabled children at a time. Over the years, they have saved hundreds of abandoned newborns.

Some have criticized Pastor Lee. They say his compassion encourages mothers to abandon their children. But history shows that abandonment has been happening for generations. Despite the criticism, enormous cost, overwhelming amount of work, and the lack of any government funding—Pastor Lee and his family continue. Night after night, Pastor Lee stays up listening for the alarm. When a new baby arrives, he races downstairs, bundles up the child, and prays.

Both Christian and secular audiences have flocked to see the film. The Hollywood Reporter (the secular journal of the entertainment industry) was so enthusiastic about the film, it finished its report with this:

[The director of The Drop Box], Brian Ivie, was transformed by the making of the film. He grew up going to church on Christmas and Easter and considering himself a Christian "because I didn't smoke cigarettes and I watched Fox News with my mom. It was a decorative label." But witnessing Lee's sacrifice and compassion for the abandoned children changed his perspective. "These kids were helpless." he says, "and I realized I was broken and helpless too, and I also needed to be rescued."

Ivie actually went to South Korea to make a different movie, but once he met Dr. Lee and saw the work he and his team were doing, he changed his plans, produced The Drop Box, and in the process, dedicated his life to Christ.

When Johnny Jennings of Ringgold, Georgia was 18, he made a life-changing visit to a Georgia Baptist children's home. Several children ran up to him and asked to be adopted. "That took my heart, right there," he says. While Jennings wasn't ready to adopt, he promised to do everything he could to help the home's young residents. A few decades later Jennings found a practical way to raise funds for the home—recycling. For the past 32 years Jennings, 86-years-old as of March 2017, has sold 810,063 pounds of paper, $20,275 worth of pennies, and countless pounds of recycled aluminum products. Over the years, he's given $400,000 to the home.

One of his friends told reporters, "Johnny normally loads his truck by himself, and that is a job in itself, and did I mention he is 86 years old and had two small strokes just two weeks ago?" But that didn't stop him from getting back to his paper route. When Jennings' got home from the hospital, he went right back to work. The friend continued, "That is just how he is, and he will not stop until the undertaker turns his toes up, that is what he tells everyone."

Jennings son said, "My dad doesn't see the $400,000. He sees the faces of those kids."