Changing a trajectory of brokenness

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, March 20. This is WORLD Radio and we thank you for listening. Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: caring for vulnerable children. Pre-pandemic, American families adopted more than 100 thousand children.

Last year in Australia, the number was over 200 adopted. Not 200-thousand. 200, period.

EICHER: With so few official adoptions in Australia and almost 50-thousand children in foster care, the church has a big job—and a high calling.

Here’s WORLD Correspondent Amy Lewis.

AUDIO: [Boys laughing, bouncing] We’re having so much fun here!

AMY LEWIS: Bonnie Uppill watches her three sons on the trampoline after sharing after-school snacks on the patio. Their eldest, Seth, arrived 9 years ago. It was an emergency foster care arrangement. His two brothers arrived soon after.

BONNIE UPPILL: So that is how we came to be the parents of three boys.

It’s a typically busy afternoon of snacks and trampolines and bikes and bunnies.

AUDIO: It’s a flop eared rabbit. A Lopp eared rabbit. This is our rabbit Dory. You don’t want to get near her. She loves licking. She loves to scratch. Hello, Dory. You’re allowed to pat her, but she won’t make a noise…

They’re now in permanent care that officially ends when the boys turn 18. The Uppills would love to adopt.

UPPILL: Ah, I would, I would put my hand up for that in a heartbeat. But it's not offered as an option for the mum.

Adoptions are a reflection of God’s adoption of sinners saved by grace.

But we humans don’t always do adoption well. Some adopted children suffer physical, emotional, or sexual abuse in their new family. Sometimes children are removed from their capable birth parents against their parents’ will. That’s what happened in the case of Australia’s Forced Adoption Era. A quarter of a million babies were taken from mostly single moms and adopted out to married couples.

That—among other things—eventually moved Australia in a giant pendulum swing away from adoption. Now, parental rights are extremely hard to dissolve. About a third of today’s adoptions are within step families. Overseas adoptions are rare.

Instead there’s a bloated foster care system and permanent care like Uppill’s. It’s an arrangement that carries the responsibilities of adoption but with all the requirements of typical foster care.

UPPILL: Every year, we have to do a home safety check.

A caseworker visits their home every six weeks and the Uppills take parenting refresher courses.

UPPILL: So adoption would eliminate all of that. We will just get on with our lives without having to have all those extra people. And also, it could mean that we all have the same last name.

When they first met, her husband Simon couldn’t fathom loving children that didn’t have his DNA. Then they worked in the inner-city.

UPPILL: The stories of the people that we lived amongst, basically, all whittled back down to their childhood, where they weren't loved well, where they were loved wrongly, and kind of set them on this trajectory of brokenness.

When it came time to start a family, Simon did a 180.

UPPILL: And Simon actually came and said, “We're not going to have our own kids first. We're going to foster first and then maybe add our own afterwards.”

People questioned their decision. They asked if they were infertile. There was a general unawareness of the need for loving homes—or how to support the families that provide them.

UPPILL: Yeah, and other people would have babies, and they would have a baby shower, and the church would give them a, you know, gift basket or something like that. And I got none of those things.

Not that she wanted the gift basket—just an acknowledgement that she truly was a new mom.

Leonie Quayle heads up The Homeward Project. It’s one of several Christian groups in Australia helping people start—and stay—in foster care. Particularly people in churches.

LEONIE QUAYLE: On a very real level, we need to make sure that there’s enough homes for every child who needs one.

It’s not easy. One mom admitted to Quayle that inviting someone else’s children into your home is a calling that requires self-denial.

QUAYLE: She's like, “Yep, foster care is hard. It's messy. It's complicated. And the gospel calls us to hard, messy, complicated things.”

But Quayle recognizes that foster care—or permanent care—is just one way to help the vast number of people in need.

QUAYLE: If you are passionate about healthy children and healthy families and healthy community, you can get involved at so many different levels.

Even though Australia doesn’t allow many adoptions—and maybe because they don’t allow many adoptions—it opens opportunities for people in the church.

UPPILL: And if you love Jesus, find a kid to mentor. And you can just love on that kid. Take them to the skate park, teach them how to drive a car, like all these things that are missing in their lives, which is namely an adult caring for them. You can be that person.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Amy Lewis in Geelong, Australia.

AUDIO: Who wants to go back to the trampoline? Me! Me. Let’s go bounce.

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