This is a guest post from Andrew Wolgemuth. 

Naomi sat contentedly on my lap, fingers from one hand in her mouth, fingers from the other gripping her new toy. We quietly watched her two sisters and three cousins—all between the ages of twenty months and five and half years—chase, dance, and laugh back and forth as parents and grandparents tried to corral them in the direction of the bathrooms.

The group was louder and more rambunctious than is appropriate for a courthouse (juvenile or otherwise), but, hey, some celebrating was in order. The Honorable Judge Woods had—mere minutes before—heeded the recommendations of Denver Human Services and Naomi’s Guardian Ad Litem. He’d declared Naomi to be the newest member of our family.

Adoption Day

I was thrilled and exhausted and doing my best to relish the deep joy and humbling honor of officially becoming Naomi’s forever dad. Naomi was thrilled because the judge had given her a rubber ducky, exhausted because the courthouse events delayed her morning nap, and simply relishing the boisterous joy of her cousins and siblings. And so we sat quietly enjoying a Friday morning unlike any other we’ve experienced.

As the bathroom round-up continued, a young woman crested the top of the stairway across the hall. She glanced around, and then moseyed over to Naomi and my bench. Spinning and sitting, she sighed lightly.

“What are you here for?” She looked at us sideways, just her left eye visible.

I couldn’t help but smile. “We just finalized our adoption.” Nodding towards Naomi. “This is my new daughter.”

Her sideways stare broke; her gaze snapped forward. A quick nod was all the acknowledgement she gave. Well, huh.

I didn’t offer a return question, but she broke the silence. “Do you know who I am?”

I might have smirked. Did she think I had a mental roster of all that morning’s hearings? The 10.00am event in Courtroom F was the only one I’d paid any attention to.

“Nope.”

The sideways stare returned. Ignoring my reply, she went on: “I’m here to learn my program.” My expression made it clear that I wasn’t following. She continued, “I gave birth on Monday.” Strong emotion played on the half of her face that I could see. “They took her. I just want to see her. She’s with a foster family now. They’re going to tell me my rehab program…tell me what I need to do to get her back.”

This time my eyes broke away. The emotion opposite the joy Naomi, my family, and I felt sat next to me, embodied in this woman. I was stunned. Subdued.  “I…I’m…I’m sorry.”

She shared a bit more—the state’s concerns, her fears. I responded haltingly, poorly, saying not a single one of the kind phrases that have occurred to me in the weeks since. I failed to ask her name; to let her know that I’d pray for her and her daughter; to ask how I might be able to help.

Naomi’s new siblings and cousins were fleeing the restrooms. Their respective parents and grandparents followed, now corralling kids towards the elevators. I stood, shifted Naomi to my hip, and stumbled through some parting words: I hoped she could complete her rehab program; I needed to go. And then I did.

~~~

I recently read Kathryn Joyce’s Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption, a book about Christians and adoption and troubling issues that Joyce believes underlie much of the Evangelical “orphan care movement.” The book has garnered critical attention as Jedd Medefind, the President of the Christian Alliance for Orphans, wrote a “frank analysis” and rebuttal while Jonathan Merritt ably reviewed the work for Books & Culture. Like both Medefind and Merritt, I found plenty to dislike in Joyce’s book (perspectives and presentations that are unfair and ungracious) as well as much to be challenged by (stories and observations that made me uncomfortable and pushed my thinking). All told, the book was a difficult but worthwhile read for me, and—despite its weaknesses—it forced a couple of important ideas into my mind.

Chiefly, adoption is critical and important and desperately needed in situations around the world…but it’s not the only tool in the proverbial tool kit. I knew this before I read Joyce and I’ve celebrated that Christians are involved in all manner of ministry, development, and social work, but Child Catchers was a helpful reminder. At its best, adoption provides a “forever family” to a child who lacks one, but a lot of things have gone wrong—a birth family has experienced tragedy; a community has proven unable to support birth parents; etc.—for that point to be reached.

Sometimes well intentioned helping hurts. Sometimes we don’t think through the long-term impacts of our actions; sometimes the unintended consequences of our attempted good works are harmful. What is true of charity is true of adoption as well: at times it’s best for the child and the birth parents and at other times it’s not. One size does not fit all. There are situations where foundational causes can be addressed, while there are also other times where painful situations must be dealt with as best we can.

These key ideas popped up again and again through Child Catchers, and I’ll remember the most critical of them in this short-hand: Don’t forget the first mother. Don’t forget the birth families.

~~~

And so I pray for the lady who sat next to Naomi and me at the courthouse. I hope she completed her rehab program; I hope she has encouragement and support as she works to make a safe and loving home.

As jarring as it was to encounter her sad and difficult situation alongside our great joy, I’m grateful for the perspective that it provided. Naomi’s birth certificate displays Chrissy and me as her mother and father. Indeed we are, through and through and forever. But somewhere out there are a woman and a man who will always be her birth mom and her birth dad.

We don’t know much of their story. We don’t know where they are now or what their lives look like.

I hope that they have more than a stranger on a courthouse bench to share their travails with. I hope there are believers in their lives, listening, encouraging, assisting. Loving them as we’re loving their daughter.

Regardless, they’re in our prayers. Lord, have mercy. And may the church as well.