Above Rubies and failed adoptions

[weerach]

Ummm, is this a bad time to say i am a member of Above Rubies ????

havent heard any of this though. I dont get the magazine or anything, i am part of their email listing for the UK and am quite close friends with a few of the ladies who go to all the AR retreats here in teh UK and get the magazine.

[SilverMoon]

I don't think it's a bad time, at all! I'm sure there are many GCMers who are part of the group. You can lend a different perspective since you're able to view this from the 'inside'.

What are your thoughts on the disappearing adopted children? Do you find there was a push for evangelistic adoptions, and are the children accepted as fully part of the family?

I imagine that Above Rubies in the UK would be different than Above Rubies in the US, and that different from how people in other countries follow them.

[Hermana Linda]

Originally Posted by weerach

Ummm, is this a bad time to say i am a member of Above Rubies ????

havent heard any of this though. I dont get the magazine or anything, i am part of their email listing for the UK and am quite close friends with a few of the ladies who go to all the AR retreats here in teh UK and get the magazine.

You might want to look further into their teachings. Here is an old thread about her.

[weerach]

Originally Posted by SilverMoon

I don't think it's a bad time, at all! I'm sure there are many GCMers who are part of the group. You can lend a different perspective since you're able to view this from the 'inside'.

What are your thoughts on the disappearing adopted children? Do you find there was a push for evangelistic adoptions, and are the children accepted as fully part of the family?

I imagine that Above Rubies in the UK would be different than Above Rubies in the US, and that different from how people in other countries follow them.

I dont actually know anything about the disappearing children tbh. I hadnt heard of it before this thread. It is something i would have to look into. I must admit, i havent heard of anyone over here (from the ladies i know) who have adopted from abroad , but the ladies i do know myself, well if they adopted they would adore the child and the child would be very much a part of their family. They arent the sort of ladies who would go and adopt because the ministry says they should. They are very much led of their husbands. As far as i know none of them have adopted as yet but i do know some who are seriously thinking on it, but they arent the type to go in to it blindly. But its so hard to adopt over here, esp if you are a christian, its something DH and i hope to do at some point, but it would definately need to be a miracle for it to go through. Things are getting worse over here re adoption when christian families are the adopters, from what i have heard first hand its their faith thats put on trial, not their potential as parents if that makes sense?

[SilverMoon]

I remember a GCM having a lot of trouble adopting there. Their faith was definitely put on trial, not their fitness as parents.

[weerach]

Originally Posted by SilverMoon

I remember a GCM having a lot of trouble adopting there. Their faith was definitely put on trial, not their fitness as parents.

The family my family know of who went through the adoption process, they had the child from a newborn (or close to newborn) and it took two years. He was a Magistrate, she was a primary teacher. Their own two children who were 7 and 11 i *think* at the time, were both grilled for an hour each (and seperately) by social services about their faith and why they believed what they did, and their parents werent allowed in with them . And that family were a professional family. DH and i arent, so it would be even more difficult for us if we were to do it. And tbh, it really puts me off.

[Elibellamiah]

I'm finding this very interesting. I've never paid much attention to AR, but I have some magazines from 2007 that a friend lent me and I never remembered to give back. I do remember them making some comment about the "African girls" and it came across strange to me, but I never thought anything else about it at the time (and I can't find where they said that now). Anyway, 2007 seemed to have been a big time for them with adoption and pushing adoption. One of my best friends adopted a 1 year old girl from Liberia in 2007. I don't know if they went through this corrupt adoption agency or not or whether they heard about Liberia because of AR. I know when they were in Liberia picking up their daughter it turned out all the paper work wasn't done and they had find the birth father and have some papers signed. So, if these other children were being trafficed, was the paper work all forged? Hopefully the fact that the birth father signed the papers means my friend's daughter was given up legitimately. I think she was because she had some medical issues.
Back to the magazine, I was struggling a lot with this idea of evangelistic adoption being wrong. I figure any reason to do a good thing like adopt is a good reason. But I read an article in one of these 2007 magazines today where Nancy Campbell talks about how her daughter was only 30 but the mother of 11 children (6 through adoption and all adopted that year if I read it right) and how she just had a baby and how the 2 oldest adopted girls took care of everything and cooked and cleaned for everyone when the baby was born. It just makes me think, who was serving who? Did they adopt these teens to minister to orphans or to buy live in nannies? It just didn't come across right to me. And being 30 years old myself, I can't imagine adopting 6 kids this year while also being pregnant or any adoption agency letting me. I still don't see how evangelistic adoption in general would be wrong, but I do see how it's wrong to adopt if you aren't doing it as a ministry to the children and putting them first and including them fully as part of the family.

[Stiina]

i got a couple of magazines after some encouragement from some really respected friends...and then asked for my subsription to be stopped. It was just too *weird*...I didn't really know what was off about it. then I read on gcm about sally clarkson and I think I understand a little bit now.

i just wonder what her motives are...?

[Barefoot Bookworm]

I do read Above Rubies and own most of Nancy Campbell's study manuals. This was *before* I knew anything about this. Not quite so sure how I feel about her now.

[Llee]

Originally Posted by Stiina

i got a couple of magazines after some encouragement from some really respected friends...and then asked for my subsription to be stopped. It was just too *weird*...I didn't really know what was off about it. then I read on gcm about sally clarkson and I think I understand a little bit now.

i just wonder what her motives are...?

Sally Clarkson is good. We her

[LilySue]

Originally Posted by weerach

Ummm, is this a bad time to say i am a member of Above Rubies ????

havent heard any of this though. I dont get the magazine or anything, i am part of their email listing for the UK and am quite close friends with a few of the ladies who go to all the AR retreats here in teh UK and get the magazine.

I don't think it's a bad time to say it, after all you didn't know about the failed adoptions. I also think that because, at least where I live in the UK ,we're quite starved of encouragement on the Christian/home-making front ,so if I see anything uplifting online, I tend to jump on in. When I first went online, I joined a very supportive Christian site that is pro-Pearl, but initially that meant nothing to me because I had not heard of him. Of course now I know that has provided me with some problems......

[Can'tTurnLeft]

Originally Posted by Elibellamiah

Back to the magazine, I was struggling a lot with this idea of evangelistic adoption being wrong. I figure any reason to do a good thing like adopt is a good reason.

What you described in your post is one of the reasons why so many of us adoptive families balk at the idea of adoption being a "good deed" I don't know anybody personally who adopted with the purpose of doing a "good deed" We adopted to grow our families.

---------- Post added at 12:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:33 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Stiina

i just wonder what her motives are...?

To bring people to Jesus. Nancy Campbell is part of the extreme quiverfull and wife only submission movement. It is a fairly common teaching among those people that adopted children have to do a penance of sorts for the generational sins that landed them with the need to be adopted. Extra spankings, extra service, etc... It is, according to these people, a way to attain salvation for them.

[CelticJourney]

Originally Posted by Can'tTurnLeft

What you described in your post is one of the reasons why so many of us adoptive families balk at the idea of adoption being a "good deed" I don't know anybody personally who adopted with the purpose of doing a "good deed" We adopted to grow our families.

but it is such a complex issue that there are many, many shades of gray. We chose adoption as the form of expanding our family over more biological children and the fact that children existed that needed a family played a part in that decision. On the third hand if anyone considered my SON as my 'mission project' they would be asking for a long, long lecture about the meaning of family and blessing - he has blessed us in ways incalculable. And you know, it think maybe that is the dividing line - everyone I know increased their families, where as what the Campbells were advocating was 'ministry to 'others' '. Did I just come full circle

[Stiina]

This is interesting! I read the other thread now as well - thanks ManaLinda for the link

I think there are definitely good things that Sally and Nancy do, and they seem like very nice ladies...I guess you'd just have to be able to weed through the yuck in order to get to the good. But knowing their stance on this now, for *me*, I don't think it's worth it to weed through the yuck. I've got GCM

She does seem like she's very earnest and following God in the way she believes it. So you're probably right...and what I said about her having motives was probably not fair But ... didn't she read the part in the Bible that said, ya know, that things we do (or their adopted kids do) don't earn you salvation??

[Elibellamiah]

[QUOTE=Can'tTurnLeft;4573968]What you described in your post is one of the reasons why so many of us adoptive families balk at the idea of adoption being a "good deed" I don't know anybody personally who adopted with the purpose of doing a "good deed" We adopted to grow our families.[QUOTE=Can'tTurnLeft;4573968]


Thank you for saying that. I don't know if it will ever happen, but I've thought a lot for many years about adopting or foster parenting someday. I think there are a lot of reasons behind why I would do it, but recently I was on a foster parenting board to learn more about it and at some point felt really attacked and like people thought I was just doing it for selfish reasons. It was after I asked if most people want babies, because if I fostered I think I would like to foster babies but I have the impression everyone wants babies. Is the fact that I would like to care for more babies selfish? So I wondered a lot after that, is there a not selfish reason to foster or adopt? Most people do so because they want children. Is it better to do so just because you want to help someone? It's not like my focus would be on fulfilling my own desire, I just think there are babies who need to be taken care of and even though this is probably my last pregnancy, I don't feel ready to be done taking care of babies. Or if I adopted, I would really like another daughter and I would like my daughter to have a sister. Is that wrong? Should I be more focused on just wanting to help a child in need? I don't know if this makes any sense, it's just part of where I was coming from with that.