I experienced my first moment of overt racism just months before our adoption referral. The wife of an elder at our then-church and I joyously discussed the upcoming domestic adoption of dear friends of ours, SongOfSixpence and the King (although this time the baby was Blackbird rather than ThePie). Wife-of-the-Elder patted me on the shoulder, believing she consoled me, saying, “And they got a white baby.”

Yesterday, as I dragged my now five-and-a-half-year-old Tongginator into a local coffee shop, a man surprised me from behind, asking quite bluntly, “Where is she from?” I turned and looked at him for a minute with a raised eyebrow before sharing the name of our town, then adding, “but she was born in China” so that I could avoid the dreaded “But where is she really from?”

Adoptive parents are a diverse crowd, and our children are just as diverse, so I don’t know that it’s completely fair to create a list of specific dos and don’ts and say “THIS is what love in adoption MUST look like.” But… but… some overall concepts are universally true. While we may not agree on every single detail, and I may not be right on every single point, I do believe that sharing my list – the things that God has placed on my heart – will help you think more about God’s Truth when it comes to your own call to adopt.

Our daughter found it much less stressful to watch an edited version of our China adoption trip video, set to music, which she soon named her “China baby movie.” This started our quest to find songs that fit an adoption themed video. I’ve compiled a list below – some I love, some not so much – that seem to be favorites among the adoptive parent community.

But the most important thing my Dad ever taught me was how to build a successful family. Because you see, my Dad is not my Dad, but he IS my Dad. He taught me that family is larger than genetics, or geography, or bloodlines. I am an adopted son who never knew his birth father.

Some words can really stop a parent’s heart… words like autism and cystic fibrosis and childhood cancer.  Two months ago, I held a friend’s hand while we waited to hear whether or not her six-year-old …

Two Fridays ago, as I dropped off yet another immigration packet update at our agency, I stumbled into an adoption placement. The director of my agency and I shared smiles during the paperwork hand-off as a young couple became parents for the first time, just a few feet from me. During my brief, two-minute visit, I watched the faces of those standing in the room, so filled with joy and hope, absolutely awe-struck while gazing at this three-month-old infant.

The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute just released the executive summary of its recent research study entitled Beyond Culture Camp: Promoting Healthy Identity Formation in Adoption. I’m so excited to see this published study because, although the results aren’t really all that new if you already listen to the voices of adult adoptees, this study will reach a much wider audience of adoptive parents. And since they are the ones raising this next generation of adoptees, they are the ones most needing to hear the results.

On Saturday night, people across Asia will celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival or 中秋节 (Zhōngqiūjié) in Mandarin. This holiday always occurs during the Autumnal Equinox, so people often refer to it as the Moon Festival, since the moon appears bigger, brighter and closer to earth at this time of year than at any other.

Well, my daughter, whom my husband and I adopted from China, doesn’t look just like my Korean-born cousin, but – to quote my five-year-old Tongginator – they DO have “the same shiny, black, Mulan hair.” Sometimes it takes my breath away to think of how our pasts can so radically shape our futures.