What Will I Be Leaving?

Last evening my wife and I attended a fundraising event for our friends who will soon be traveling to Ethiopia to pick up their new daughter - their fourth adopted child in some sixteen months I think. I really enjoyed hearing about the reasons that some people chose to adopt. One benefit mentioned yesterday is that adoption connects you in a real way to people and places in a way that you would have never known. For example, connections to the children's relatives and to Ethiopia. It also connects us to the future.

I've been thinking about issues of race this week, particularly after reading a book about baseball in the 1960's and the movie The Great Debaters. It's difficult for me to relate to how people have treated each other so poorly in the past. I love the fact that my kids of similar age are becoming close friends with the newly adopted children in our community. I don't think that they realize it yet, but these friendships are expanding their connections and perceptions far beyond those of my childhood.

When I think of what I will leave behind me on this earth, I obviously think of my children. Soon that number could be as high as nine. Lord willing, my children will have, not only friends, but brothers from Africa. If my kids have the U.S. average of two children each, that would be 18 grandchildren, then 36 great grandchildren, then 72 great-great grandchildren, and so on. So what will I be leaving because of adoption that I might not have left otherwise? Not just numbers. I hope I'll be leaving great-great grandchildren who couldn't care less about the color of someones skin. They will see brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins and nephews. I'll be leaving descendants who are a little bit more like Christ. And this, I think, will leave the world a little better than I found it.

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." - Galatians 3:28