Saving Up to Pay for Adoption
Fourteen year old Tyce Pender of Cayce, S.C., has started his own lawn mowing business using a $200 loan from his mom to buy a new lawnmower, rake, and leaf blower. To date, he’s mowed nearly 20 lawns and earned over $400.
That’s a nice stack of cash! He could now afford a new video game system, a primo new bike, or even some great new threads. But Tyce isn’t saving for games, gadgets, or new clothes. He’s saving for something far more important — his own adoption!
Tyce’s step-dad, Eric Jenkins, came into his life when he was just 2 yrs old. He’s been there every step of the way to raise him, mentor, him, encourage him, discipline him, provide for him, and protect him. He’s been everything a father could and should be to Tyce.
The family’s goal, from the beginning, was for Eric to adopt him. Yet times are hard and finances are short. So both Tyce and Eric have had to be patient and settle for Eric's fulfilling the role of "awesome step-dad" rather than "adoptive father." But their patience may not have to hold out much longer if Tyce has his way.
He has committed himself fully to raising money and saving toward the legal fees necessary for him to officially take Jenkin’s name and to be able, finally, to call him his legal father.
"This is important because Eric teaches me respect, independence and what a man is supposed to be," explained Tyce. "If anything ever happens to my mom, Eric is who I'd want to live with. … Court is expensive," said Tyce. "I thought I could make enough money to pay for the adoption."
Tyce may have to work hard to pay the legal fees required to be officially recognized as Jenkin’s son, and good on him for doing so!
But thanks be to God that adoption into His family has been paid in full by Jesus Himself!
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God” (Galatians 4:4-7, ESV).
“This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring” (Romans 9:8, ESV).
“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God … “ (John 1:12, ESV).
The Japanese Adopt Adult Men
Lianna Brinded, with Business Insider, writes:
In Japan, 98% of adoptions are actually adult men, aged between 20-30 years old — not children.
That is according to government data cited by economist Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen J. Dubner in their book "Freakonomics," as well as a number of other reputable media outlets also citing government data.
... It all started hundreds of years ago when Japan’s civil code dictated how a family's wealth would be passed on after the death of the family elder.
... In households which only have daughters, a family would look to adopt a son, so they could fulfill the role of carrying on the family business as well as receiving and being custodian to the family's cash and assets.
Nowadays, legal adoption of this kind is paired up with an arranged marriage — known as "omiai" — of a daughter, meaning the adopted son becomes son and son-in-law at the same time because he changes his name to the wife's family name ("mukoyoshi").
... In Japan, there are even matchmaking companies that recruit voluntary adoptees for Japanese corporates.
Some of Japan's most famous companies have remained a "family-run" businesses because of "mukoyoshi," such as carmaker Toyota, which was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda in 1937.
Suzuki is also famously run by adopted sons — in fact, the current chairman and CEO Osamu Suzuki is the fourth consecutively adopted son to run the group.
In Japanese culture, adoption is a practical solution to perpetuate the bloodline in the absence of an heir. God has a similar dilemma. Since “flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God,” God has also turned to adoption! No one is born a citizen of Heaven. Every son and daughter of God is so by adoption.
“I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable” (1 Corinthians 15:50).
“He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will” (Ephesians 1:5).
Teen Orphan Finds A Home
In 2013, the world, in tears, watched the viral video of Davion Only, an orphaned teenager, who stood at the front of a church and pleaded for someone—anyone—to adopt him. Dressed in his best suit, he stood at the podium saying that he wasn’t picky. They could be “black or white, old or young, mom or dad.” He just wanted someone to love him “until I die.”
He said he was growing impatient, but he wouldn’t lose hope. “I know God hasn’t given up on me, so I’m not giving up either.”
In response to his plea, his foster agency received thousands of inquiries from people interested in giving Davion a home. He even went to live with a prospective adoptive family, only to be returned to foster care over conflict with his adoptive siblings. Over the next year, he lived in a succession of four more temporary placements.
Throughout his journey to find a “forever” home, Davion leaned heavily on his caseworker, Connie Going, repeatedly asking her if she would be his mother. Connie, who had two biological daughters, as well as a son whom she had already adopted out of foster care, was continually resistant to his pleas, holding out hope that there was a great home waiting somewhere out there for him.
But all that changed with Davion's latest plea. “In adoption there is a ‘claiming moment,’ when you know someone is your child. When he called me to ask, in that moment, I just knew. … When he asked me, my heart felt this ache and I just knew he was my son.”
Ms. Going followed the prompting of her heart and entered her application for his adoption. It will become final April 22, 2015.
As his caseworker for more than 10 years (and already the mom of another adopted foster child), Going is all too familiar with the challenges which lie ahead. She knows that Davion has a temper, that he struggles with interpersonal relationship with his peers, that he struggles with depression and self-esteem issues. But she is undaunted.
“I want him to know he is unconditionally loved for who he is, the way he is,” she says. “The changes he chooses to make in his life, and the choices, are his to make. As a family we will be there through it all, the good and the bad for our lifetime. He is home.”
Click here for a 2013 interview of Davion and his caseworker Connie Going.
Have you searched for unconditional love and acceptance from the world, only to be turned away time and time again? Are you still searching for the moment when you will be "claimed" by someone who promises to love you no matter what?
In our hearts, all of us (even those from loving, nurturing families) long for a “forever” home—a place where we can be unconditionally loved and accepted without any fear of rejection or abandonment, not just until we die, as Davion hoped, but truly for “forever.” That kind of security can come from God alone.
His offer of adoption is for every single soul who longs for that kind of acceptance.
As Going suggested, “In every adoption there is a ‘claiming’ moment.” In the case of the seeker, that's the moment when we turn our search for perfect love and acceptance to the only one who could fulfill it; to the one who was almost too obvious; to the one who has been there all along. It is in that moment, when we call upon God to become our adoptive parent, that the heart that has ached for us, claims us as His own.
The moment we do that, we are home!
“God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure” (Ephesians 1:5, NLT). “God sent Jesus to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, ‘Abba, Father’” (Galatians 4:5-6, NLT).