Caring for an Orphan in Her Affliction

Soon after this article hits your mailbox, a helpless baby girl is scheduled to be born to an unwed mother unequipped to raise her.  A Christian family, known to many readers of this paper, is qualified and ready to adopt the baby and raise it as one of their own.  This they have a deep desire to do.

Each of us is obligated to live James 1:27, if we would practice pure religion.  Many feel troubled that they seldom see clear cut opportunities to help with specific needs.  Many of us have strong scriptural scruples against caring for orphans by establishing religious institutions as adjuncts to the church.  We are dubious of the many organizations which plead for our charitable dollars, knowing that a discouragingly small percentage of what we contribute actually gets applied to the need.  The quickest way to kill love is to institutionalize it.  Non-institutionalized love is personal, and shows that somebody cares.

Many feel daunted by the idea of adoption.  Only a minority of us are equipped to attempt it.  I admire and respect those among us who through the years have undertaken this tremendous task.  Your labor is not in vain, even when it may feel like it.

The couple desiring to raise this baby girl is eminently qualified to do so.  I can vouch for them as parents as strongly as for anyone I know.  I have lived in their home, and seen them in action.  I believe a child would be better off raised by them than by me.  Since procreating two children, they have already adopted three more, bearing all of the considerable expense of the adoption process themselves.  They are tried, and true.

Why should a couple, willing and able to adopt and financially support an orphan unrelated to them from birth to adulthood,  be penalized with twenty-six thousand dollars of extra expense at the very outset of the process?  Yet this is the situation I am describing.  And this is where we can help.  Here is an honorable and effective way to share in the care of a child in need, without having to raise her yourself.

Contact information for the adopting family:

Alan and Shonya Klein

660-342-7799

arklein29@gmail.com

The Kleins:

“We received an email from a friend of a friend stating that an agency in Arizona currently had 16 women who have chosen life for their babies and are looking for families to parent them, but the agency didn’t have enough families to present.  Would we be interested in being presented?  We received this  email on a Thursday, contacted the agency and started filling out all the required paperwork over the weekend, and were presented to some birthmothers on the following Tuesday.  We met with (mother’s name deleted, RS) via Skype on Thursday evening and were informed Friday that she wanted us to parent her baby . . .”

“. . . we have been blessed with Alan’s ability to provide and we live frugally and have no debt, including for our home.  We are open and willing to share our lifestyle if asked–we try to be good stewards with what the Lord has blessed us. . . . we buy our clothing from thrift stores, make most of our food from scratch, raise chickens, pigs and garden, and don’t go on extravagant vacations or buy expensive vehicles.  We are able to financially provide for our family and an additional child–it’s just the costs of adoption we are struggling with a little this time after adopting three times previously.  We have always worked and saved in the past to pay for adoptions and have borrowed the difference to pay adoption costs and then repaid the bank. . . . we personally commend and support women who choose life for their babies and think a child is of far more worth than material wealth. . . .We are happy the Lord is blessing us with a child who needs a family, and trust Him to provide.  He always has before! 🙂 . . . feel free to ask questions or for clarification . ..”

Are we willing to help with this project?  I don’t adopt because I don’t believe my gifts are in the area of child rearing.  Shall I let what I can’t do keep me from doing what I can do?

No amount is too small.  A child who wants to send a dollar to help a baby should not be discouraged, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.  Here is an open door of opportunity to hold up the hands of those doing a noble work.  I have witnessed repeatedly how openhanded the brethren are when they encounter a situation where they can feel unambiguously good about giving.  The brethren are already altruistic.  They don’t need to be hounded or coerced.  They just want to be able to give without feeling like idiots being fleeced.

Perhaps half of the Lord’s parables have a stewardship concern.  God has joined faith and finances.  Let no man put them asunder.  Adding faith to our finances causes our dollars to make sense.  Money is a tool to be used for advancing the kingdom of God.  Faith and foolishness are not twin sisters.  We must be selective when we give.  Wise giving looks for a return for God in its investment in people.

I am setting before you a cause that is at once evangelistic, educational, and benevolent.  We can help place a newborn in a Christian home with wonderful parents and loving siblings who will help her.  If we follow the golden rule, we can be saved from the rule of gold.  You can give without loving, but it is impossible to love without giving.  Generosity is the nature of God.  God so loved the world that He gave.  Personal salvation is purse-and-all salvation.  Gold is tested by fire.  Man is tested by gold.