Orphan Justice

Johnny Carr, Laura Captari

• Publisher: B&H Books
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781433677984
• eBook ISBN: 9781433677977
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Christians are clearly called to care for orphans, a group so close to the heart of Jesus. In reality, most of the 153 million orphaned and vulnerable children in the world do not need to be adopted, and not everyone needs to become an adoptive parent. However, there are other very important ways to help beyond adoption.Indeed, caring for orphaned and vulnerable children requires us to care about related issues from child trafficking and HIV/AIDS to racism and poverty. Too often, we only discuss or theologize the issues, relegating the responsibility to governments.
No one can do everything, but everyone can do something. Based on his own personal journey toward pure religion, Johnny Carr moves readers from talking about global orphan care to actually doing something about it in Orphan Justice. Combining biblical truth with the latest research, this inspiring book: • investigates the orphan care and adoption movement in the U.S. today
• examines new data on the needs of orphaned and vulnerable children
•connects "liberal issues" together as critical aspects or orphan care
• discovers the role of the church worldwide in meeting these needs
• develops a tangible, sustainable action plan using worldwide partnerships
• fleshes out the why, what, and how of global orphan care
•offers practical steps to getting involved and making a difference

Chapter 1

True Religion

Orphans and My Family

Motionless bodies met my gaze as I stepped into the courtyard. James tensed up in my arms and clung desperately to my neck as I stood there in shock, trying to grasp the inescapable reality of this place he called home. The nearly two-dozen orphans with special needs in front of me were confined to crude high chairs. Flies were buzzing around pans positioned underneath each chair. A closer examination revealed why. The pans were full of excrement. James’s eyes, full of fear, stared into mine and pleaded silently, “Please don’t leave me here!”

Though the physical conditions were horrifying, that is not what haunts me the most about that day. It was the children’s blank gazes. We were the first non-Asian people the children in this Chinese orphanage had ever seen, yet they didn’t point, laugh, or even stare at us. They just sat there, some with their heads down on the trays and others simply staring aimlessly into space.

My wife, Beth, and I had traveled to Zhenshi,1 China, to adopt our son from this orphanage. Guo Ya Zhou was brought to our hotel room the day before. I had quickly scooped up the precious four-year-old deaf orphan, and he had barely let go of me since. The entire event was scary for all of us, but I was filled with love for our new son, who we renamed James Ze Carr. We had been told that Ze is the Chinese word for “chosen.” He had been chosen by his heavenly Father and given to us as a gift. I can’t fully express in words how it felt to play a part in his redemption.

The next day we were standing in the horrifying conditions of James’s orphanage in one of the poorest cities in Asia, as already described. Malnutrition and disease ravaged the small bodies of the children in the courtyard. Since James is deaf, I couldn’t comfort him with my voice or tell him we wouldn’t leave him there. I simply held him securely against my chest so that he would feel safe, yet James began to scream and cry uncontrollably.

Once inside the compound, Beth and I witnessed things that shocked us. I tensed up, much like James had done in the courtyard. Infants were starving. Children were dying from both major and minor medical issues. It was evident that the workers truly loved the children, but they were barely surviving themselves, and didn’t have the necessary resources to properly care for the children.

Standing in that orphanage, little did I know the radical changes that would take place in my life. Humbled and broken, I walked away a different man.

God, Football, and the American Dream

I was not always open to adoption. I grew up in a conservative Christian home in the South, and we were more focused on following the rules—no drinking, no smoking, no dancing—than on social justice issues.

Growing up in Alabama, you learn to love two things from birth: God and football (and not in that order). When it came to football, I was an Auburn fan—the only one of “that kind” in my family. In the religious department, I was for Jesus. Everybody was. I didn’t know anyone who wasn’t a “Christian.” Although for many people going to church was optional, praying before a football game was not. Band members removed their fancy hats with tall feathers. Ball players took off their helmets. Fans held their caps in hand. Even the kids playing cup football on the side of the stadium scolded each other if their game accidentally continued while the cheerleader prayed over the PA system.

I was evangelical, conservative, and proud of it. I followed the rules and shared the gospel. Most of the people in our church were trained in Evangelism Explosion and went out witnessing door-to-door at least one night a week. We were good at keeping ourselves unspotted from the world and sharing our personal witness, but in all of our passion for the gospel, we neglected to place the same importance on caring for those in distress, as we are commanded to do in Scripture.

Every time I heard about missionaries digging clean wells, working with HIV/AIDS patients, or trying to alleviate poverty, I rolled my eyes. Why are they wasting their time? I thought. Don’t they know that the gospel is what really counts?

To be honest, I took a great deal of pride in the fact that I was right and they were wrong—they being anyone who didn’t agree with me theologically. I was especially contemptuous toward anyone who had fallen prey to the liberal “social gospel,” the trend in Christian circles where people were passionate about meeting people’s physical and emotional needs while neglecting to share the gospel. I often criticized my liberal colleagues. They’ve missed the heart of the gospel, I thought. One day, maybe they’ll wake up and see the truth before they waste their entire lives doing humanitarian work.

But now, as I look back, I see how narrow-minded I was. I seemed to frame everything in terms of either/or, all or nothing—either verbally sharing the gospel OR meeting people’s physical needs. I didn’t realize I was missing the true meaning of religion—one that includes BOTH sharing the gospel and meeting people’s physical needs.

Then I met Beth, the sign language interpreter at our Baptist campus ministry in northern Alabama. The first time I saw Beth, she was signing for Heather Whitestone, who would later become the first Miss America with a disability. I barely noticed Miss America, though; Beth was the one who caught my eye.

I finally mustered the courage to ask Beth out. In one of our early conversations, she shared with me how she ached to adopt a deaf child. Without thinking too much about it, I responded, “Wow. That would be a great thing to do.” What I didn’t tell Beth was that adoption was out of the question for me, especially adopting a child with a disability. Sign language was cute for college girls, but definitely not for me. After all, I wanted to laugh, roughhouse, and play football with my little boys. I wanted to talk with them about the latest baseball trade or which NFL teams would make the playoffs, not sit and contort my fingers into weird shapes.

A year later, the sign language interpreter walked down the aisle to be my wife, and I could not have been happier. I had dismissed adoption as nothing more than Beth’s college dream, particularly when our daughter Heather was born. I was such a proud dad. She was perfect with her little pinched red face, a startlingly loud scream, and big brown eyes. Four years later, along came Jared, and I thought that our family was complete.

I had the American dream—a beautiful and educated wife, two great kids, a fantastic job, two cars, and a house in a neighborhood with restrictive covenants. The only thing we were missing was the white picket fence because those stupid covenants wouldn’t allow it.

How God Broke Through

I started working in church ministry when I was twenty-three years old, and by the time I graduated from Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary in 2001, I was steadily climbing the Christian ministry ladder one rung—one church—at a time.

At Jerry Falwell’s university, I was able to spend time with him and learn from the best of the best in conservative evangelicalism . . . and I was determined I would be the best. Swept up in not only the American dream but also the “Christian dream,” I dreamed big about how God would use me (big emphasis on me). As the churches where I ministered grew, my head grew, and my family was along for the ride. Every congregation I served was a little bit bigger and offered a little nicer perks than the previous one. In 2004, I took a position as Pastor of Ministry and Leadership Development at one of the fastest growing churches in the Florida panhandle.

While on the job, I met with a visiting missionary who wouldn’t stop talking about a deaf orphanage in Belarus. I didn’t have any idea where in the world Belarus was, and I had zero interest in deaf orphans, but I was a pastor, so I knew I had to at least seem interested in what this missionary was saying. Apparently the orphans needed loving, Christian families to adopt them. As the words “that would be a great thing to do” came out of my mouth, I remembered that I had spoken the same sentence to my wife many years earlier, before we had “moved past” the adoption thing.

A month after that meeting, Beth and I were having another conversation about adoption, much like the one we had while we were dating. But this time I didn’t pull the “that would be great” card and tune her out. I actually listened. Hearing my wife’s deep desire to welcome a deaf orphan into our home struck me like it never had before. I began to see my selfishness and arrogance. God was chipping away at my American dream, and I finally promised to call and get some information about the adoption process.

I did an Internet search for “Belarus international adoption” and picked up the phone to call the first hit—Nightlight Adoption Agency. I was somewhat relieved to find out that Belarus was closed to international adoptions. Well, I guess God is closing that door. I was just about to hang up when Ron, the guy on the other end of the line, asked me a strange question: “What specifics are you looking for in an adoption?” I stumbled over my words, but managed to tell him we were looking for a child under the age of six, deaf, and with no other disabilities. Then we hung up.

Ten minutes later, the phone rang again. It was Ron. “Check your e-mail,” he told me. I opened a picture of a four-year-old Chinese boy and just stared. Could this be my son? I thought. He doesn’t look like me—but he needs somebody to call Dad. He needs somebody to call him son.

Exactly seven months later, Beth and I were in China, along with Heather and Jared, getting ready to meet our new son. You’ve already read about how God gave James to us. But that’s not the end of the story.

In the process of James’s adoption, Beth came across an adorable picture online of a little Chinese girl sitting on a footstool, sticking her tongue out. A family who had adopted a child from an orphanage two hours from James’s city had snapped the photo. The caption read, “I tried to whisper ‘Jesu aye ni’ to her, which is ‘Jesus loves you’ in Chinese, but the orphanage worker told me that she was deaf and couldn’t hear anything.”

My wife immediately called Heather into the computer room. A few seconds later I heard, “Johnny?!” It was that all-too-familiar tone that communicates, “Honey, I really want something and you are going to think that I am crazy for asking but I am going to sound so sweet that you will not be able to resist it.”

Beth was beaming as she spoke, “Look at this little girl. She is four years old, in the same province where James is from, and she’s deaf! She really needs a family!” I would love to say that I responded with a very spiritual answer, but I didn’t. I balked. The amazing thing is that even in my doubt, God worked. In May of 2007, we found ourselves back in China adopting Xiaoli (Shao-lee).

During the twenty-six-hour flight home from China after adopting Xiaoli, all I could think about were the starving, desperate, and forgotten children in the deplorable orphanages James and Xiaoli had been rescued from. A question kept running through my head: If what I’ve seen in these orphanages is real, do I care enough to do more than adopt two kids?

It continued to plague me as I returned to my American dream life. I suddenly realized I didn’t need the white picket fence or the sleek Honda. As I stood in line at Starbucks for a five-dollar latte or ordered a twenty-dollar steak at a restaurant, I was struck by the difference between my life and that of the orphans back in China and around the world. Sitting behind my big desk as Pastor of Ministry and Leadership Development, I wondered what that title really meant. Did I have a responsibility toward the orphans of the world, beyond James and Xiaoli?

I began to study Scripture like never before, discovering God’s great love and concern for the fatherless. Verses about orphans that I had never noticed jumped off the page, and the one that stuck out the most was James 1:27, which I’ve already mentioned: “Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you” (NLT).

In our Western church culture, we tend to view religion as a negative thing. It is no surprise that the YouTube video titled “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus” went viral. However, James offers us the meaning of true religion—caring for orphans and widows in their time of need and keeping ourselves unstained from the world. We frequently focus on keeping ourselves unstained, but we often fail in the area of taking care of orphans and widows.

The Grim Reality

We live in a fallen world. War, famine, and disease ensure that there will always be orphans among us. Every day, children are orphaned or abandoned due to economic need or disabilities. Understanding the plight of orphans and their families is critical.

In many cultures, mystic beliefs lead people to assume that a child born with a disability is possessed by an evil spirit or is the direct result of a curse. Families believe they must dispose of the child to free themselves from the curse. In other cases, families know that they will not have the resources to take care of the child, especially in the case of a disability. The sad reality is that many parents believe that their child will have a better life in an orphanage.

James and Xiaoli were both born deaf. Their parents probably could not confirm that they were deaf until they were about two or three years old. James was abandoned at a bus station, and Xiaoli was abandoned at a grocery store. Surprisingly, these were actually very safe places to leave the children because they were public locations. The toddlers were noticed, law enforcement was notified, and the children were delivered to an orphanage. My children’s birth parents were most likely not cruel, but probably felt very desperate. They likely were hoping for the best for their kids. If they had wanted to be cruel, these parents would have left their toddlers in an abandoned field or drowned them in a river. This practice, known as infanticide, is common in many cultures.2 James and Xiaoli’s parents actually took a huge risk by leaving their children in crowded places, because someone could have caught them in the act. Punishment would have been swift and severe. This does not excuse their behavior; it simply serves to show that these parents were not intending cruelty toward their children.

It is hard for me to understand abandonment as a sacrificial, mercif...

Table of contents

• Orphan Justice
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Notes