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Singing To Spread the Love
By Rosanna Tomiuk, Canada
This summer I sang in my first paid concert. Before my opening song, I thanked everyone in the audience for their $5 and let them know that every penny I made that night (which amounted to $250 after I paid the band) was going into a fund so that I could adopt a baby.
"just imagine filling a 70,000 seat football stadium 714 times to accommodate 50 million orphans and 2,856 stadiums to accommodate 200 million orphans." -Rosanna Tomiuk
While I'm only 23 and single - not the best criteria for adopting a child - I am nonetheless prepared to sing in as many concerts as I can for the next few years so I can afford to provide a parentless child with boundless love and possibilities of fulfilling his or her dreams.
The fact is I love children and recently became passionate about adopting a child when I learned that somewhere between 50 and 200 million kids around the world are orphans. Whether through the death of their parents or by simply being abandoned, many children are left to fend for themselves.
While that's a tough number to visualize, just imagine filling a 70,000 seat football stadium 714 times to accommodate 50 million orphans and 2,856 stadiums to accommodate 200 million orphans. Food For Orphans, Inc. further informs us that 42,000 children are orphaned every single day, that 400,000 orphans die every year due to malnutrition and that 60 million orphans go to bed hungry. Shall I go on?
These tragic and startling statistics haunt my conscience daily. And as I sit here listening to Whitney Houston sing, "I believe that children are our future / Teach them well and let them lead the way / Show them all the beauty they possess inside", I can't help but wonder what the future will look like for these millions of children if we don't intercede.
As the world appropriately tackles environmental issues and now financial issues, we must also assume responsibility for this very serious, burgeoning worldwide challenge. Understand - I absolutely do not discourage parents from having their own children, but there are millions of dinner tables around the world that are big enough to feed another child - hearts large enough to open just a little bit more to love another child.
Americans adopt more children than any other nation. Just last year, over 20,000 children were adopted internationally. Yet still there is no shortage of children to adopt either domestically or internationally. The National Council for Adoption estimates that approximately 25,000 U.S.-born children are up for adoption each year.
Certainly, there are many things to consider in adopting a child such as costs, legal concerns, and medical history. Adopting a child can be expensive. Costs can average between $15,000 and $25,000. According to Adoptive Families magazine, China is the No. 1 nation where U.S. families go to adopt a child. The costs to adopt a Chinese child range between $20,000 and $25,000.
Many people tend to adopt children from overseas because the wait time is significantly less than adopting in the U.S. where it can take between one to 18 months for all of the paperwork to be completed.
"400,000 orphans die every year due to malnutrition and that 60 million orphans go to bed hungry." -Rosanna Tomiuk
Although the media may dramatize some of these stories, the fact is that once the U.S. courts finalize an adoption, the adoptive family is recognized as the child's family by law. For international adoptions, parents must follow that country's laws.
Often the biggest difference between adopting domestically versus internationally is the ability to acquire medical history. Typically the medical history of children adopted internationally is sparse and often there isn't any information regarding the social history of the child's family. But tests can be performed to ease any worries of disease.
Bottom line? If your heart aches at the thought of a young child losing both his parents to HIV, then adoption is for you. If you think it's unfair that a little girl through no choice of her own is forced to sleep on the streets of our prosperous country, then adopting a child is for you.
And so I dream of the day when I can sit in a football stadium of 70,000 with my kids, knowing that the love we share has transformed the sad picture in my head of orphans filling the seats around me. Adoption is a redemptive opportunity to heal the broken fragments of humanity, giving every child an equal chance to contribute to the beautiful mosaic of love and life. Dream with me. We can make the difference.
