Transracial Adoption: Is It for You?

I had a funny experience regarding trans-racial adoption a few years ago.  I was checking in on an outreach event that our church’s bike repair ministry was doing on a Saturday afternoon.  I was standing in the middle of all the bike repair, storytelling, coloring, face painting, etc., that was going on that day having a conversation with a black pastor from the neighborhood where the outreach was taking place.  He pointed to a friend of mine whose back was to us.  My friend had a very short hair cut and a very dark tan at the time.  The pastor asked, “Is that a black guy, or is he mixed?”  I laughed and answered that he was white.  I then pointed to two little black boys (twins) and told him that they were my friend’s sons.  I enjoyed his utter confusion for just a moment before I filled him in that the boys were adopted and introduced the two men.

My friend, I’m sure, became quite accustomed to confused looks and questions.  When a family includes a child who looks different from everyone else, the questions, stares, and confusions are inevitable.

I am going to make a bold statement that may surprise some of you:

I believe that every Christian should be in favor of trans-racial adoption. 

Understand that I grew up in Mississippi, and I live and work in the shadow of Memphis, Tennessee, one of the most racially charged cities in the United States.  I have seen and heard some of the extremes of the racial divide that has long plagued the Deep South.  I can only begin to understand the issues that families of different races face.

But I stand by my statement.  Every Christian should be in favor of trans-racial adoption.

As a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and a child of God, it is my responsibility (and my great pleasure) to reflect God to a world that largely does not know Him.  The center of what I reflect to the world is trans-racial adoption.  Jesus Christ, a Jew, was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, died on a cross, and on the third day in a tomb was raised to life; as a result I, a Caucasian American, was adopted into the family of God, a family consisting of reds and yellows, blacks and whites.  Every one of us are undeserving of a perfect heavenly Father.

My pastor preached from Luke 15 this past Sunday, the story of the prodigal son.  He talked about the kindness of the father drawing the wayward son home.  The son remembered what home was like and longed to return to it.  When the son returned to a right mind and went home, hoping to be treated as a servant, he is certainly shocked at the response of the father.  The father instructed the servants to get the best robe; as Rick pointed out, the best robe would have surely belonged to the father.  He instructed the servant to get the ring, likely the family’s signet ring.  The prodigal’s inheritance may have all been spent, but he came to realize that he couldn’t “prodigal” his way out of his place in the family.

I am grateful for a place in God’s family; it is certainly undeserved.  I am grateful for a loving, holy Father; He has stuck with me so much more than I have been loyal to Him.  I am grateful for a perfect, sacrificial Older Brother; His sacrifice for me is more than I could ever even begin to repay.  I am grateful for brothers and sisters all over this globe of every size, shape, and color; I look forward to joining them in a great heavenly choir to worship our God, the author of trans-racial adoption. 

In his message at the Together for Adoption conference last month, Leonce Crump II said, “Trans-racial adoption was the plan of God from the beginning.  The church is the perfect model.”  I am for trans-racial adoption because I have been trans-racially adopted. When I see a family with a child of another race, I’m just looking in the mirror.  What about you?

Thanks for reading,
Al