National Adoption Month Interview with Katie Davis

Katie was recently featured on RedLetterChristians.org for an interview about National Adoption Month. We are humbled and thankful to Margot Starbuck and RLC for posting this thoughtful interview (excerpt below).

I know that the goal of Amazima is to keep children in the care of a parent or other relative. With the recent evangelical emphasis on orphan care through adoption, can you talk about the importance of keeping birth families in tact?

I believe that biological family is God’s first choice for a child. After all, that is the family that He placed them in. Of course, because of sin and brokenness in the world, families often crumble just like everything else, and adoption can be a beautiful, redemptive response to this tragedy. But we must view it as such, a redemptive response to tragedy and brokenness. We are in a dangerous place if adoption ever becomes about us, how we are serving or saving someone else. I very much believe in James’s call to care for the widow and the orphan and Jesus’s call to love our neighbors as ourselves, and I believe we must do this wisely. “Care for” and “love” might mean adoption, but it could also mean many other things. It is my belief that before a child should be adopted every possible effort must be made to keep that child in his biological family, and then in a foster or adoptive situation in their own culture before international adoption is considered.

This is how Amazima started, out of a desire to keep families together as much as possible and keep children from being institutionalized. Of course, as in the case of my girls and so many other children, sometimes there is no biological family, or the biological family is just really not in a place where caring for a child would be an option even with support. In these cases adoption can be a beautiful solution.

I think education is the key here. I don’t think any well meaning, God-seeking family would ever intentionally take a child from his or her biological family if it were not necessary, but unfortunately we do not always have all the facts, especially in the case of international adoption. I would encourage people to ask lots of questions and educate themselves before pursuing adoption of any kind. Jesus is pleased when we love others well, in the compassionate and sacrificial way that He loved us. This can happen in the form of adoption, but in can also happen in many other ways, including that of keeping families together even when it is difficult.

The unique calling on your life is not the call for many Christians. How can these ones participate in caring for the families God loves that are at risk of splitting apart?

I think that if we are to really take the call of the Gospel seriously, we must be involved in caring for the vulnerable in some way or another. Of course, for many people this does not look like moving to a different country or adoption or working for a non-profit. People in need of love are everywhere! They are in our neighborhoods, at our work places, on your street corners.

I think that sponsorship can be a very practical way for people to get involved in helping an at-risk family, even on another continent, from right where they are! Amazima currently has over 600 children who have lost one or both parents, or were at risk of being institutionalized, in our sponsorship program. When sponsored, a child is provided with food, education, medical care, family support and spiritual encouragement. This allows the children in our program to stay with a biological family member or even a Ugandan foster family while still having their needs met. I love watching these children grow and thrive in their own culture and communities because of the generosity of people all over the world who choose to share!

Click here to read the full interview>>