Orphan Fever
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Orphan Fever: The Evangelical Movement's Adoption Obsession When devout Christian families made it their mission to save children from war-torn countries, the match was often far from heavenly. By Kathryn Joyce | Mon Apr. 15, 2013 3:00 AM PDT IN 2005, SAM ALLISON, a Tennessee housepainter in his 30s, arrived at Daniel Hoover Children's Village [1], an orphanage outside Monrovia, Liberia. He'd come to adopt three children, but ended up with four: five-year- old Cherish; her nine-year-old brother, Isaiah; their 13- year-old sister, CeCe, who had taken care of them for years; and Engedi, a sickly infant whom Sam and an adoption broker had retrieved from "deep in the bush." The older children's father had sent them to Daniel Hoover during Liberia's 14-year civil war, after their mother died in childbirth. The orphanage, run by a ministry called African Christians Fellowship International [2], often ran short of food [3], and schooling was sporadic. The children, who were forced Illustration: Brian Cronin to flee temporarily when rebels attacked the facility in 2003, referred to America—whose image looms large in a country colonized by freed slaves in the 19th century—as "heaven." In Tennessee, Sam and the four adoptees joined his wife, Serene—a willowy brunette who'd attempted a career in Christian music—and their four biological children. Together they moved into a log cabin in Primm Springs, a rural hamlet outside Nashville. Serene welcomed the children with familiar foods such as rice, stew, and sardines, and they were photographed smiling and laughing. The cabin adjoined a family compound shared by Serene's parents, Colin and Nancy Campbell, and the families of Serene's two sisters. Colin is the pastor of a small church and Nancy a Christian leader with a large following among home-schoolers. Her 35-year-old magazine, Above Rubies [4], which focuses on Christian wifehood, has a circulation of 130,000 in more than 100 countries [5]—mostly fundamentalist Christian women who eschew contraception and adhere to rigid gender roles. The aesthetic is somewhere between Plain People austerity and back-to-the-land granola, with articles like "Plastic or Natural?," "Raising Missionaries," and "Green to Go," featuring recipes for concoctions like "green transfusion" and "My personal earth milk." In a Facebook photo, Nancy twirls in a tie-dyed peasant skirt. Her daughters, striking women with waist-length hair, use Nancy's magazine to peddle motherhood-themed CDs and health and lifestyle books with titles such as Trim Healthy Mama [6]. It's an extended family that thousands of home-schooling mothers know nearly as well as their own. In 2005, Above Rubies began advocating adoptions from Liberia, arranged through private Christian ministries. Campbell—whose magazine likened adoption to "missions under our very own roof!"*—spent a week visiting Liberian orphanages and returned with "piles of letters addressed 'To any Mom and Dad.'" She touted the country's cost-effectiveness—"one of the cheapest international adoptions"—and claimed that 1 million infants were dying every year in this nation of fewer than 4 million people. "When we welcome a child into our heart and into our home," she wrote, "we CHARTS: Click here to see actually welcome Jesus Himself." adoption trends [7] in countries targeted by evangelicals. Campbell urged readers to contact three Christian groups—Acres of Hope [8], Children Concerned [9], and West African Children Support Network (WACSN) [10]—that could arrange adoptions from Liberian orphanages. At the time, none of these groups was accredited in the United States as an adoption agency, yet they all placed Liberian children with American families for a fraction of the $20,000 to $35,000 that international adoptions typically cost. Before long, members of a Yahoo forum frequented by Above Rubies readers were writing that God had laid the plight of Liberian orphans heavy on their heart [11]. "Families lined up by the droves," one mother recalled. They "were going to Liberia and literally saying, 'This is how much I have, give me as many as you can.'" The magazine's Liberia campaign, it turned out, heralded an "orphan theology" movement that has taken hold among mainstream evangelical Adoptive parents churches, whose flocks are urged to adopt as an extension of pro-life "were going to beliefs, a way to address global poverty, and a means of spreading the Liberia and saying, Gospel in their homes. The movement's leaders, as I discovered while 'This is how much researching my upcoming book on the topic, portray adoption as I have, give me as physical and spiritual salvation for orphans and a way for Christians to emulate God, who, after all, "adopted" humankind [12]. Churches many as you can.'" reported that the spirit was proving contagious [13]; families encouraged one another to adopt, and some congregations were taking in as many as 100 children [14]. Dozens of conferences, ministries, and religious coalitions sprang up to further the cause, and large evangelical adoption agencies such as Bethany Christian Services [15] reported a sharp increase [16] in placements at a time when international adoptions were in decline. Within months of launching her Liberia campaign, Campbell reported to her readers that 70 children were in the process of being adopted through African Christians Fellowship International, most to families that were already large, with some taking as many as five or six. She recalled helping one adoptive father navigate Washington, DC's Dulles airport with his new Liberian triplets; she put one of them, a wide-eyed infant named Grace, with bow lips and a Peter Pan collar, on the cover of the magazine. Campbell adopted four children herself, and Serene took a total of six. "From my article in Above Rubies about the children in Liberia there must have been up to a thousand children adopted," Campbell informed me in an email, "and most have been a blessing." FOR PATTY ANGLIN, the cofounder of Acres of Hope, one of the groups promoted by Above Rubies, the It Takes a Congregation A snapshot of the Christian adoption campaign's impact and Campbell's characterization of the network adoptions as "cheap, easy and fast" proved jarring. "So many people responded, and they were responding at an Religious Groups like the alarming rate," she recalled. Southern Baptist Convention, keystone churches like In part, Anglin was worried because she knew how Saddleback, and groups like Focus on the complicated things could get in Liberia, a nation that had Family and Hope for Orphans implore only recently emerged from its civil war and was still in a Christians to adopt. An umbrella coalition, state of near lawlessness. Given the conditions there, the the Christian Alliance for Orphans, helps prospect of a $6,000 adoption fee was enough to attract unite the movement. some shady operators. Adoptions that took a year to Adoptive Parents declare process in other countries could happen in weeks or days themselves "serial adopters" as in Liberia, and bribery was rampant. Liberian parents orphan fever sweeps through began complaining that adoption had been evangelical congregations. Some misrepresented to them as some sort of temporary families adopt as many as five or six new education arrangement—one local orphanage staffer children. proclaimed that his own children had been adopted and were now "benefiting from the program," according to Ministries including the Abba AllAfrica.com [17]. WACSN, one of the agencies Fund and God's Grace Adoption Campbell promoted, would eventually host a contingent Ministry direct parents to of American preachers for a three-day revival [18] in Christian agencies, host conferences, promote overseas mission trips, and give Monrovia. The organizers urged believers back home to interest-free loans and grants to adoptive get involved by adopting through WACSN, which had parents. declared that it would only serve biblical literalists [19]. The struggling Liberian government was able neither to Adoption Agencies such as All keep tabs on children leaving the country nor to God's Children, Bethany distinguish licensed adoption agencies from groups that Christian Services, and America merely had nonprofit status. World Adoption fund humanitarian projects, donate to orphanages, All was not harmonious in Primm Springs either, and handle the paperwork. according to the four Allison adoptees I interviewed at Foreign Governments exercise length for this story. (Sam Allison has denied all of their varying degrees of oversight. allegations.) "Everything was good for a month," CeCe, Trafficking and corruption have now 21, told me. "We got to the next month and things plagued adoptions in places like started to get a little weird." Serene's raw-food offerings Ethiopia and Kyrgyzstan, where Christian were unfamiliar, but Sam would discipline them if they agencies were implicated in unethical balked at eating her meals, the children said. Other and/orillegal behavior. cultural impasses included the children's use of Liberian Orphanages often cut exclusive English and the Liberian prohibition on children looking deals to supply adoption adults in the eye. "They'd say, 'You are so rude. I'm agencies. They also take in local talking to you!'" CeCe recalled. "They expected us to children who need temporary adapt in a heartbeat." sanctuary and schooling. In October 2006, a year after their first Liberian Birth Parents in some cases adoptions, the Allisons adopted another pair of siblings: have complained that adoption Kula, 13, and Alfred, 15. "In Africa we thought America was misrepresented to them as a was heaven," recalled Kula, who is 19 now. "I thought sort of sponsorship or education there were money trees." Primm Springs was a rude opportunity. awakening: It was dirty, she recalled, and she had no Icons top to bottom: Bruno Gätjens toothbrush.