Whether you find your inspiration in the Bible or on the car radio – or both – one thing seems to be clear. Adoption is one of the rare times in life when both parties – parents and children - come away more than satisfied. Both new parents and their adoptive children come together as a family, pleased and joyous and filled with more love than they could possibly have imagined. Parents wanting sons and daughters who in turn need to be wanted… a perfect symbiosis of needs met, resulting in families formed.

The vast majority of adoptions still involve native-born children, with roughly 100,000 in 2003. But the number of international adoptions has increased dramatically from 7,000 in 1990 to more than 20,000 in 2003. According to the 2000 census, nearly 13%, or 200,000, of the country's 1.6 million adopted children, were born outside the United States, with Korea (47,555), China (21,053), and Russia (19,631) leading the way.

Experts say more parents are looking abroad because of the quick processing time (roughly a year), lack of potential legal complications with birth parents, and the diminished stigma attached to parents who adopt a child of a different race or ethnicity.

It is the emphasis on the parent/child relationship rather than the biological connection that drives parents to adopt. After all, if we tear down our preconceptions and expectations of what it means to be a mother and father, is it not simply to love?

"It isn’t the beautiful child that is loved but the loved child that is beautiful."
        Anonymous

History shows us families who were willing or forced, as a result of uncontrollable circumstances, to place their child for adoption. Although most people have no idea how many orphans exist in the world (approximately 35 million), or even in the United States (over 650,000), the fact is that there are couples that want children and there are families who need help.

If you are struggling and feel your desire for children might never be fulfilled, adoption is a wonderful, fulfilling and commonplace solution. It is an amazing gift and the families who have searched out, acted on and accepted this gift will tell you that they could never imagine their lives without their children by adoption. In every sense they think of their sons and daughters not as their adoptive children anymore, but as their children. Family, finally.

For further information about international adoption please contact the America World Adoption Association, A Christian-based adoption agency at 6723 Whittier Avenue, Suite 406, Mclean, Virginia 22101 or by telephone: (800) 429-3369. Please have a look at their website @
www.awaa.org.