Dear Class Member, This is the lesson we will address this week: Jan. 6. We will meet in Fellowship Hall. See you on Sunday....bring your prayers, questions, ideas, thoughts of how we can make a difference Blessings, Fran Russia Bans U.S. Adoptions Claiming that Americans routinely mistreat adoptees from his country, Russian president Vladimir Putin supported a law that would halt the adoption of Russian children by U.S. families. Both houses of the Russian Parliament voted overwhelmingly to approve the measure, citing 19 deaths of Russian children by their American adoptive parents since the 1990s. The bill was named for Dima Yakovlev, a toddler whose blind grandmother claimed was illegally adopted by Americans who first forged her signature on adoption documents and then left him for hours in a broiling hot car, leading to his death. The adoptive father was found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter. A few lawmakers claimed that some Russian children were adopted by Americans to be used for organ transplants and to become sex toys or cannon fodder for the U.S. Army. In 2010, an American woman sent her adopted son back to Russia alone on a plane, claiming that the then-7-year-old boy had violent episodes that made the family fear for its safety. Lawmakers also expressed the concern that foreign adoptions discourage Russians from adopting children. Russian law allows foreigners to adopt only if a Russian family has not expressed interest in a child being considered for adoption, but “a foreigner who has paid for an adoption always gets a priority compared to potential Russian adoptive parents,” said Russian children’s rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov. “A great country like Russia cannot sell its children.” Even an unidentified spokesman for Russia’s dominant Orthodox Church argued against foreign adoptions, saying that the children adopted by foreigners and raised outside the church will not “enter God’s kingdom.” According to the U.S. State Department, 233,934 international adoptions were made by Americans from 1999 to 2011, of which 45,112 children came from Russia, second only to China. UNICEF estimates that there are about 740,000 children not in parental custody in Russia, while only 18,000 Russians are now waiting to adopt. Many fear orphaned children are being sacrificed to make a political point in retaliation for the Magnitsky Act, which U.S. President Barack Obama signed on December 14, which imposes U.S. travel and financial restrictions on Russian officials deemed to be human rights violators. “Since 1992, American families have welcomed more than 60,000 Russian children into their homes, providing them with an opportunity to grow up in a family environment,” U.S. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said in a statement from Washington. “It is misguided to link the fate of children to unrelated political considerations,” he said. Bill Blacquiere, president of New York City-based Bethany Christian Services, one of the largest adoption agencies in the United States, said children are the ones who stand to lose if the Russian ban on American adoptions is implemented. “It would be very sad for kids to grow up in orphanages,” Blacquiere said. “And [it] would hurt them socially, psychologically and mentally. We all know that caring for children in institutions is just not a very good thing.” Dozens of Russian children close to being adopted by American families now will almost certainly be blocked from leaving the country. The law also cuts off the main international adoption route for Russian children stuck in often dismal orphanages. In 2004, U.S. citizens adopted 22,991 children who had been born abroad, an all-time high, according to Adoptive Families magazine. By 2011, that number had fallen to 9,319. More on this story can be found at these links: Russian Lawmakers Eye Adoption Ban to U.S. CNN Russia’s Lower House Approves Bill to Ban U.S. Adoption. CNN Georgians Wait to See If Russian President Will Sign Anti-Adoption Bill. Atlanta Journal-Constitution Russia’s Parliament Moves to End U.S. Adoptions. Associated Press / Politico Would-Be Adoptive Parents Look Beyond Russia. Yahoo! News The Big Questions 1. If you were adopted or have an adopted family member, talk about what that experience was or is like for you. 2. TWW Team member Heidi Mann recounts: "I am the adoptive mother to a boy who was 14 months old when my husband and I were married. His biological mom, my husband's first wife, died 1-1/2 days postpartum. I am also the biological parent, with my husband, to a younger son. We often talk about how interesting it is that, from a genetic perspective, our boys are half-brothers, but from a legal perspective, the elder is just as much my child as the younger, and they are full brothers." How might the experience of an adopted child be different from the experience of a biological child? How might their experiences be the same?. Is one to be preferred over the other? Explain your answer. 3. A boy was born in Memphis, Tennessee, to a father who was murdered and a mother who was a cocaine addict. He didn’t have a permanent address until he was 16, and went to 11 schools in 9 years. At the age of 16, he had a measured IQ of 80. A friend brought the boy to the Christian school he attended, where Leigh Anne and Sean Tuhoy saw him walking to the gym to get warm, even though he wasn’t on the team. The Tuhoys took him into their home and hearts. One day they found that the boy had stashed food in his room because when he was homeless, he never knew where his next meal was coming from. They told him he could go into any one of the 60 Taco Bell restaurant franchises they owned and get something any time he wanted. The boy grew up to become Michael Oher, an All-American star and first-round draft-pick of the Baltimore Ravens, whose story is told in the movie The Blind Side. What do you think would have happened to the boy if no one had noticed him and cared for him? What obligation do faith communities and/or individual Christians have to step forward to care for orphans? How is your church involved in ministry to at-risk children? What more could you and your church family do in this area? 4. In July of 2005, Angelina Jolie adopted a young Ethiopian child. While touring drought- disease- and famine-stricken Ethiopia, she got the idea that although she couldn’t help every child in Africa, she could help one child. So she stepped out of her world and into the world of this little girl whose existence was difficult at best. Imagine the difference between the child's life before Jolie adopted her, and her life after the adoption. Jolie chose her. Her life, once deprived, now had abundance. Her life, once without any real future, now exploded with possibility. What parallels might be drawn between an adoption such as this one and God's adoption of us as his children? If we are all part of one humanity (in Christ there is no slave nor free, Jew nor Greek, etc. -- Galatians 3:28), should it matter at all if parents and children share the same ethnic, racial and national background? On the other hand, how important is it for parents to learn something about heritage and practices of an adopted child's culture when the adoptive parents are of a different heritage and culture? 5. (TWW has been unable to verify that the following story is true, but we offer it for its illustrative value.) Author Richard Foster tells the story of a young couple who experienced great joy at the birth of their first child. Then the baby died suddenly, and they were devastated. Instead of the excitement of new beginnings, they were consumed by endings -- darkness instead of light -- and they struggled to hold their fragile love together. It all seemed hopeless until a simple knock on their door changed their lives forever. There at the door stood a Native man holding a small baby. He reached forward, handing the child to the couple. "Here, this baby is for you," he said, and then he left. The young Native mother had learned of the couple's loss and gave her own baby to fill their void, practicing what her people called "custom adoption." Put yourself in the shoes of that grieving couple. Can you imagine what it cost that Native mother to give up her son for you? How would you treat the child you had been given? How would you feel about the mother who gave you such a gift? How is her gift a metaphor for God’s gift of his own Son for us -- the gift we have just celebrated during the Christmas season? (“For a child has been born for us, a son given to us” -- Isaiah 9:6.) Confronting the News with Scripture and Hope Here are some Bible verses to guide your discussion: Acts 7:20-21 "At this time Moses was born, and he was beautiful before God. For three months he was brought up in his father's house; and when he was abandoned, Pharaoh's daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son." (For context, read 7:20-23.) Pharaoh’s daughter could not save every Hebrew child, but she saved one who would grow up to become the liberator of his oppressed people.