(Please remember that this is just a piece of my definition of adoption. For my full definition of what adoption is, you can read this whole series of posts here.)

Adoption is necessary.

While adoption is not perfect and is indeed complicated, it is also necessary. I say that it is necessary because I know how very many children there are in this world who do not have anyone to call Mom or Dad. I have seen a teeny tiny percentage of those children and they have forever touched my heart.

I have stood in an orphanage in Vietnam, and looked at babies with their names written on their legs in black magic marker laying three to a crib in the eerie silence that comes from babies who have learned that crying is useless.

I have stood in an orphanage in Ethiopia and had boys and girls hanging on to every one of my limbs, pulling me towards them, calling me with their voices and pleading with me with their eyes to love them.

Those kids, so desperate for personal love and attention, whether it would last a moment or a lifetime, are why adoption is necessary. I remember being so completely overwhelmed that there were so many children that were so desperate for a mom, and then realizing that these were just a handful of children in an orphanage with many children, in a city with many orphanages, in a country with many cities, in a world with many countries...

To imagine that many orphaned children is just too hard. To imagine countless babies, toddlers, older children, teenagers, special needs children and sibling groups without parents is too much. To imagine what affects it will have on our world for so many children to grow up without love and security is scary.

Because of all of those children, adoption is necessary. There are programs that can feed some of the children. There are programs that can provide education for some of the children. There are places for some of the children to live. There are ways for some of the children to survive. But programs can not replace the role that a family plays in the life of a child, and children deserve so much more than to just merely survive their childhoods.

They deserve to have love. They deserve to have parents to care for them and allow them to be a child. They deserve to have somewhere to belong and someone to belong to. To deserve to know happiness and joy. They deserve to have a family.

There is no alternative equal to living this life as a part of a loving family.

As long as all of those orphaned children are out there, adoption is necessary.



*** If you have not yet participated, make sure you visit this post and enter the fun giveaway for National Adoption Month thanks to Curls.