Overcoming Racism

I'm not sure where this blog post is going to go as my thoughts have been swirling the last few days...as Adam and I are praying and talking about our next adoption, talk of racism has come up. you see, a door has opened that may lead to us adopting from Africa {somewhere I've always wanted to adopt from by the way!}. this has led to many discussions on skin color. {I'm going to preface here by saying my husband is not racist, but, well, some people that he grew up around were - and still are. in fact, some of these people did not even want us to adopt M, regardless of the fact that it's what we felt the Lord was calling us to do; to them, we just didn't have enough faith we would get pregnant}

now, since our daughter is from a country other than the US, she does look a bit "different" than her mommy and daddy, and so would any other child we would adopt for that matter. what has bothered me in these conversations over the last couple weeks is that I've realized we have become a country where, although supposedly a "melting pot," we still think families should be made up of people that all look alike {or pretty much alike}. why is this? it's the 21st century after all! slavery was abolished many {many!} years ago and we've opened the doors in the US to people from all over the world, yet it seems as though people from some countries are more accepted than others (as long as you can pass for "American" then you're okay; what really is "American" by the way?). people still look at a couple differently when the man and woman have a different skin color than each other. personally, I love it! why do we look at a person's skin color to determine their worth? why do we have to see skin color at all? sometimes I wish there were glasses everyone could wear that would make us all look the same from the outside and we were all forced to wear them for a week and then see how much things would change in that week. I think we would become a world where a person was valued for what was on the inside, not for what they looked like on the outside. skin color and place of birth are 2 of the only things a person has no control over when born. why then do we think that certain "colors" of people are better than others?

some Christians like to believe that when the Bible says "don't be unequally yoked together" it refers to skin color. but, well, obviously, it does not. and this bothers me. I've started listening to the CD "Adopted for Life" by Russell Moore. in it, he says "...how great it would be if when we opened our church directories we saw families made up of all different skin colors?..." I have to agree! there are so many children {164 million and counting!} who need a home. these children are from all over the world. if as "Americans" we were only willing to help those that "looked like us," I doubt we would even begin to scratch the surface.

so then, how does one overcome racism? first of all, I think we need to realize there is only 1 race. there are different colors of people, not different races. different cultures, nationalities, ethnic groups, etc. we all came from Adam and Eve and once removed from the Garden and then scattered after the Tower of Babel, people migrated to different parts of the world. it's interesting to me that all of the things that we think separate us from each other - skin color, hair color, eye color, all just simply have to do with the amount of melanin we have. yep, that's it. those with darker skin, eyes and hair all simply have more melanin in their bodies. it also had to do with where that person ended up. those who went north in the colder climates, did not need protection from the sun like those who went south - yes, darker skin = sunscreen. secondly, we need to realize that if we peel back a person's skin, we all look the same underneath. we all have 1 heart, a set of lungs, 2 kidneys, 1 liver, etc. we all bleed the same color {now there's something to think about...if we really are different, you would think there would be different colors of blood...}. we were all given 2 ears, 2 eyes, 1 mouth. thirdly, Christ died for ALL of us. {and hey, Christ wasn't "American" - so does this mean that we shouldn't accept Him because His skin color was different than ours?} "For God so loved the WORLD..." not just America.

now all that being said, will raising a "multi-cultural" family in America be difficult? for right now, yes, probably so - at least until the culture begins to shift and realize that "family" has nothing to do with skin color. we will probably still get asked "was she adopted?" or "is she your baby?" many more times. or have to deal with those who don't like that we will raise our daughter {and future children} knowing their culture and understanding where they came from. yes, our children will be an "American" citizen, but they will also have duel-citizenship with the country they were born in. do people who give birth to their child in another country not tell that child where they were born? or where they maybe spent the first few months/years of their life?

adoption has not been easy. as much as people might like to say, "it's just like having a kid," it's not. and because our daughter is now becoming more vocal when in public ;), we're probably going to have to face more questions than we once did in the first couple months after we brought her home. but is adoption worth it? absolutely! it has painted a more clear picture to me of what Christ did for us. He adopted us into His family, regardless of what country we are from or what color our skin is. He looks beyond that. He looks at us and loves us anyway. and if we're to be Christ-like, shouldn't we begin to do the same?

"...Not everyone is called to adopted...but all of us have a stake in adoption issues because Jesus does..." Russell Moore