Defining a purpose for adoption

            In beginning this road to adoption I have discovered the importance of defining a purpose or reason for adopting. There is the obvious reason for a couple struggling with infertility, which is to become parents. But, there is a much greater reason that I believe that anyone called to adopt must feel or recognize. This reason is for the children. This is a topic that many times brings me to tears as I process the reality that these children face and must live with. No child should have to live their entire lives in an orphanage/children's home or be passed from foster home to foster home. No child should have to live their entire childhood having no one to call "mom" and "dad" or someplace to call "home". They shouldn't have to reach a certain age where they know their chance at being adopted has more than likely passed, and once they reach 18 they will be on their own. No mother, who loves her child enough to choose adoption over abortion when she knows that she cannot care for that child, should have to struggle to find a family to adopt her baby because of race. Every child deserves a "forever home". Every child deserves to have parents that love them, support them, provide for them and make them feel as though they are the most important child in the world.
            I have been reading a really inspiring blog lately about this young woman named Katie, who is 22 or 23 years old. She went to Uganda after high school to teach for a short term mission assignment. While there she began caring for a few little girls who needed a home. Long story short, she returned after her assignment ended and adopted (I'm not sure if this is literal or figurative) 14 girls! One has returned to her birth mother, but in her early twenties she is "mom" to 13 girls ranging from toddler to teenager. In addition to this she takes in guests that need a temporary place to stay. Simply put, I want to be like her. In one interview that I watched of hers, she said that God calls us to "love our neighbor as ourself", which lead her to think that she wouldn't want to be hungry so why should her neighbor be hungry? If I use this thinking in all of the above situations that children shouldn't have to live with, then adoption seems like the most logical choice. I wouldn't want to be an orphan, I wouldn't want to not have a family or a home to call my own, I wouldn't want to be bounced from foster home to foster home, I wouldn't want to not be adopted because of my race. Please don't get me wrong, people who choose to foster children are a huge blessing to many children and parents out there, especially when a child can be returned to his or her parents or can find a long term placement. Unfortunately for children who aren't returned to their parents or can't find a long term foster home, this situation is usually less than ideal
            God also calls us to love the widow and the orphan.  I believe that this applies not only to the literal definition of orphan, a child who has lost both parents, but rather a child who is in need of parents to call his or her own. So ultimately this is our purpose in adopting: Love.