ADOPTION

This is another repeat posting. I am doing the continued dramas in the order they were written.

I am including a newsletter I sent in 2011 about this subject. This is a drama about a real person who is living out of the African worldview box. The pastor in the drama is the one I was writing about in the letter who I interviewed. The next seminar I had the drama written and ready for his approval. He showed up with his wife. I was very moved to meet this extraordinary couple.

All of the other issues mentioned in this drama were brought out in the seminar the news letter describes. The girl who was raised and educated by one family and then taken and married off by her biological family is a real case situation. The misuse of orphans of relatives is the norm. When subsidies enter in, it gets more complicated.

One situation that was brought to my attention was a pastor in Zambia had a boy attending his Sunday school who was an orphan. The family who took the boy was receiving a subsidy in the form of food staples. They were using the corn and sugar to make local beer and had an informal business going. The pastor asked me to contact an NGO that was prepared to take him in and educate him. The adults who had him told the boy that this NGO would take and mistreat him. They filled him with all kind of stories to the point where he refused to go. They also persuaded him to stop going to church because they didn’t want to lose their source of income. The pastor was sure this child was already using alcohol.

NEWS LETTER 2011

Dear Adopted Ones,

Romans 8:15 For ye received not the spirit of bondage again unto fear; but ye received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. Christ came as a baby (and was adopted by his step father, Joseph) so you could be adopted by His Heavenly Father.

I think I’ve found the real life story I’ve been looking for to help me write a drama about a subject that has weighed heavily on my mind. The subject is adoption. Traditionally, Africans only “adopt” children who are related to them. It is rare to hear of someone taking in a child who is not “of their blood.”

Of course, with the pandemic of AIDS, the situation has become grim, with many children having no living relatives. And even children who have been taken in by relatives are not treated like family. Often they become virtually slaves. I have known I was going to write about it, but was struggling with confronting Africans without an African example of how to do it.

The theme of the seminars in Zambia this time was Family Life. We had a number of hot topics. One was family planning (birth control). One pastor adamantly maintained that we were supposed to multiply and fill the earth. He had 11 children, and they were all turning out fine, and God was providing. (I won’t go into the discussions of this, but I was frustrated.)

Then I was able to lead into the topic of adoption. Right off the bat, a number of them said, “No, Africans cannot adopt like you Westerners. It is not our culture.” The pastor with 11 children was rather quiet on this topic. Then he got up and said, “It is not our culture, but we can do it. I did not exactly say things correctly when I said we have 11 children. One of them is not ours, but we have taken and are raising her just like our own. There is no difference and no one who isn’t in our family can tell that she is not ours.”

Folks, I was so excited I wanted to go over and hug him. I knew that would probably freak him out, so I did a more traditional African gesture. It’s a cross between a curtsy and a bow while clapping the hands. I also started to cry—not particularly African.

When I got his permission to interview him with the purpose of using his story in a drama, I was even more astonished to learn that this child is not even his tribe. This is very unusual. I told him God was going to bless him for what he is doing.

Pray for God’s words to speak through the dramas to Africans’ hearts.

Your adopted sister,

Rachel