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Adopted

By S. George Thomas

When Julia Norris was 20 years old, she participated in “Semester at Sea,” a program for college students to travel around the world on a ship and visit orphanages in several third-world countries. The images of the children Julia saw in those orphanages never faded from her heart, and God birthed a passion in her for orphans.

In the summer of 2000, Julia led a mission trip to an orphanage in China. She expected to have her heart captured by all the little girls in the orphanage, but instead, she spent most of her time with the older children. One little boy, in particular, caught her attention. His name was Jiacheng, and his engaging smile stole her heart. An orphanage worker told Julia that two years earlier Jiacheng had been found wandering around under a bridge—lost, alone, and in total shock. The police tried to find his parents but were unable to locate them. At that moment, Julia knew God was leading her to do something to help this little boy, but she didn’t know what she could do.

When Julia returned to the US, she couldn’t stop thinking about Jiacheng. All the while, she continued praying and asking God to show her what to do. Although she had a desire to be a mother, she was single, 33 years old, and had always planned on marrying first. But God led her to go ahead and begin the adoption process. Nine months after Julia first laid on eyes on Jiacheng, his adoption was finalized and he officially became her son. She legally changed his name to Christian Jiacheng Norris, and he moved to Julia’s home in the small town of Easton, Maryland, near the Chesapeake Bay.

Because Julia wanted Christian to grow up with a sibling, she adopted another child from China in April of 2004. This time, it was a little girl she named Madison Joy.

Unlike many adopted children, Christian had lots of memories of his birth family. Whenever he shared his memories with Julia, she jotted them down in the event that someday he might want to search for his family. When Christian turned 14, he asked his mom to help him find his birth parents. Julia spent hours scouring the Internet looking for clues; she even hired a Chinese attorney to look into the matter.

After searching on and off for more than three years, a non-profit organization in China that had been helping Julia with her search contacted her to say they had found Christian’s birth family and discovered that his parents hadn’t deliberately abandoned him. Instead, they had been separated by a tragic mistake when his father lost him while they were traveling by bus. When Christian’s parents found out that he was still alive and living in the US, they were overjoyed. Christian’s father begged his son’s forgiveness and asked to meet him.

Julia didn’t have enough money to take her whole family to China so that Christian could be reunited with his birth parents. But an anonymous donor from her church gave the family two plane tickets, and Julia’s boss bought a third ticket for Madison. So the Norris family boarded a plane and flew to Beijing to meet Christian’s Chinese parents. As soon as they laid eyes on Christian, they burst into tears. After 11 years of thinking their son was dead, he now stood before them, healthy and whole. Christian’s father knelt down in front of him and just sobbed as he held his son’s hands. The family was so grateful to Julia for all she’d done to adopt and raise Christian. Blown away by Julia’s actions, Christian’s father said, “That a foreigner would just devote all her selfless love to a Chinese child is astounding!”

Julia’s selfless love for Christian beautifully illustrates God’s love for us. Just like Julia rescued Christian, God rescued us when we were alone and lost in darkness, and He adopted us as His own. John 1:12 says, “But to all who believed Him and accepted Him, He gave the right to become children of God.” And Ephesians 1:5 says, “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.” And as men and women who bear the image of God, we are called to follow His example. All throughout the Bible, you can find numerous verses where God commands us to love and care for orphans. James 1:27 tells us, “Religion that God the Father accepts as pure and without fault is this: caring for orphans or widows who need help, and keeping yourself free from the world’s evil influence.” If orphans are so evidently near and dear to God’s heart, shouldn’t they be our passion as well?

So how do orphans fit into our calling as believers to go reach the world with the gospel? Well if the Great Commission is about going out and demonstrating the love of Christ to every man, woman, and child, then orphans are certainly included in that. Statistics tell us that 5,760 children become orphans every day, and it’s estimated that there are 143 million orphans in the world today. As the Body of Christ, filled with His love, we have to be the ones leading the charge on caring for the orphans.

Not everyone is called to adopt, but there are other ways to get involved in caring for orphans. You can always pray for orphans and talk to your family and friends about coming up with ways you can help them. Like the anonymous donor from Julia’s church, God may call you to pray for and financially support those who are involved in foster care and adoption work. He may be tugging at your heart to share His love with an orphan through foster care or by adopting a child from a country overseas or from a young single mother who chooses to give up her baby. If you will allow Him, God will open your heart towards the children around the world who don’t have parents and show you how you can demonstrate His love to them. Thank your heavenly Father today for showing His love to you and adopting you into His family.

Memory Verse

He has shown all you people what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8 (TNIV)