“Babel and My Baby”

Catchy title, don’t you think? (Thanks to my friend Stacia for her creativity.) This is the title for a new presentation I have developed on the issue of race with the subtitle, “How the Biblical Answer to Racism Impacts My Family.” As many of you know, my husband Chris and I adopted our daughter Elizabeth from China several years ago. Our beautiful daughter is now eight, and it is such a privilege to help people understand the importance of biblical authority on the issue of race and the impact it made in our family—and can make in their lives, too.

This presentation is very personal for me as I share our story that led to adoption, our journey to China, and our current journey as an interethnic family formed by adoption. In some ways Chris and I had a crash course in Practical Theology 101! What we believed about the issue of “race” from God’s Word became extremely vital as God led us to choose international adoption. We came to know the importance of the history in Genesis to the understanding that we are all one race (descendants of Adam and Eve) but multiple people groups (a result of the Tower of Babel event). So by adopting a child from China, we wouldn’t be raising a child of another race—just another people group—and that the child was even distantly related to us! What a sense of freedom and relief we felt once we understood God’s Word.

We also began to realize how important biblical authority is to the issue of adoption itself. From an evolutionary standpoint, adopting a child that is not closely biologically related to you doesn’t make sense because you waste resources on raising a child that will not further your own genetic makeup. Many evolutionists classify humans adopting children as satisfying an urge or an animal instinct that hasn’t yet been weeded out by natural selection. But when we begin with God’s Word we have a foundation for adoption because we are following the greatest example of adoption ever—God’s adoption of us when we receive Christ as our Savior!

Elizabeth is a tremendous gift given to us by God and we are privileged to raise her on the foundation of the tremendous gift God has given us—His Word. I’ll be giving this presentation several times at the Creation Museum this month—February 3, 14, and 21 at 12:00 and on Saturday, February 18 at 3:00.

I will also be giving this presentation at two upcoming Answers in Genesis conferences—the Answers for Women Conference in April at the Creation Museum and as part of the women’s track at our Proclaiming the Faith Conference in Branson, Missouri. Hope to see you there!

Keep fighting the good fight of the faith!