Some 20 years back, a remarkable resurgence of care for orphans began. It united believers across the US and beyond who longed to renew the age-old Christian commitment to children on the margins, from international adoption to local foster care. The movement arose eager but green.
In May 2004, 29 leaders gathered in Little Rock, Arkansas. Some led venerable ministries, others startups. Some were pastors and business leaders. Many were also adoptive or foster parents. “There were all kinds of opinions in the room,” recalled Andy Lehman, then vice president of a new orphan-care nonprofit. “But we all loved Jesus and longed to see more Christians stepping up for orphans.”
Interest in orphans seemed to be sprouting in many corners of the church. Technology and travel were shrinking the world. The global AIDS crisis spotlighted the reality of orphaned children. Just a year before the Little Rock meeting, President George W. Bush had launched the largest health initiative by any nation in history, including a special focus on children orphaned by HIV. Countless private efforts also flowered, from massive organizations like World Vision to mom-and-pop nonprofits.
International adoption was surging, too. Respected Christian leaders like Steven Curtis and Mary Beth Chapman, who welcomed a daughter from China in 2000, showed believers that adoption wasn’t just a last resort for parents who couldn’t conceive. It was also a beautiful way to provide a child with a family.
This energy appeared novel, but its roots ran deep. Christians have always paid special care to children the world discarded. Even as a persecuted minority in the Roman empire, the first believers earned a reputation for seeking out children left to die and welcoming them as sons and daughters.
Christians have been known for similar efforts ever since, from early saints like Afra of Augsburg to George Müller, Pandita Ramabai, and Charles Spurgeon. Their efforts varied from orphanages to adoption to aid for widows and more. But all acted with a strong sense that God cares deeply for orphans and calls his people to do the same.
The eclectic bunch in Little Rock wanted to reignite this ancient commitment. Dennis Rainey, founder of Family Life and an adoptive father, gave the group a charge that would define their work together. Rainey observed that despite their shared values, most organizations worked in isolation or even competition. He asked a bold question: “Can we leave our logos and egos at the door to accomplish far more together than any of us could alone?” The participants pledged to find out.
“Unity isn’t easy,” Rainey warned. “It doesn’t happen without serious effort.” He added another caution: “This call to care for orphans, adoption, foster care—that’s not easy either. It may be one of the hardest things a person can do.”
Looking back now, Rainey admitted that many of those present seriously underestimated the challenges ahead, himself included. “We didn’t know the half of it,” he said.
Today, many who began this journey are still at it but are markedly changed. Most bear invisible scars. Their early enthusiasm has been humbled, their idealism chastened. Yet many also evidence surprisingly buoyant hearts and spiritual depth. How did they get there? And what can fellow believers committed to justice and mercy learn from the passion, pain, and perseverance of this movement?
Courtesy of CAFO / Edits by CTFresh enthusiasm and big dreams
When the group next gathered, enthusiasm ran high. A volunteer observed that participants “were making plans to change the world before they even got to the first meeting.”
On some issues, realism held sway. Participants agreed that bad actors in the field needed to be confronted. At the time, virtually anyone could raise money “for orphans” with zero accountability. One of the group’s first steps was to adopt shared standards for fiscal integrity and governance.
But other elements of their plans were thick with idealism, even naiveté. Phrases like end the orphan crisis and bringing hope to millions echoed in plenary talks and hallway conversations. Solutions now viewed as flawed—including large, impersonal orphanages—went largely unquestioned. Perhaps most of all, it was taken for granted that the right blend of faith and elbow grease could fix just about anything. Love would heal the hurts of any child, no matter how severe.
Like others in the room, Andy Lehman and his wife, Jill, not only desired to spur others to action. They wanted to answer God’s call personally, too, whatever that might mean.
Even as the organization Andy Lehman was helping build worked to support orphan care on a larger scale, the Lehmans began the process of adopting a boy from Korea. “We had two little ones already,” explains Jill. “But we knew so many kids out there were growing up without families.”
International adoption meant a long, costly, and uncertain journey. The Lehmans were not deterred. “We had plenty of questions,” Andy recalled. “But it also felt straightforward. As it says in Psalms, ‘God sets the lonely in families.’ That’s exactly what he did for us in Jesus, welcoming us into his family. If we could do that for a child, why wouldn’t we?”
The fruits of unity
In 2007, the growing community incorporated as the Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO). Their work together began to spill beyond annual summits, including stronger accountability standards and a joint advocacy campaign.
Organizations with media reach—including Focus on the Family, FamilyLife, and Shaohannah’s Hope (now Show Hope)—synchronized their messaging. Others pitched in. The group even sent a delegation to the White House, securing a PSA from First Lady Laura Bush.
The Bush campaign was a smashing success, tabulating millions of media impressions. People who visited a redirecting website were guided to trustworthy organizations that matched their sense of calling, from foster care or adoption to ministries worldwide.
That’s when I first encountered CAFO. I served as a special assistant to President Bush, and the meeting request for a CAFO delegation was funneled to me. Eventually, I joined the organization full-time and have served as its president for 15 years.
In 2004, the same year as the first CAFO summit, a Colorado pastor named Robert Gelinas learned that 875 kids waited in the state’s foster system for adoptive families while more than 3,000 churches gathered weekly. Gelinas was confident that, working together, Christians could end the waiting.
Gelinas met with state officials, listening and forming friendships. He engaged fellow pastors, too. His message was simple: “The body of Christ needs to come together to make sure there are no children waiting for homes in Colorado.”
In time, Gelinas and his friends formed a nonprofit, Project 1.27, to spearhead the charge. Focus on the Family and other Colorado partners also threw in their weight. Pastors preached on God’s special love for orphans. Congregations launched foster care ministries.
Within five years, the number of children in Colorado waiting for adoption had been cut to fewer than 300. Sharen Ford, a senior state administrator at the time, said, “Project 1.27 and their partners turned things upside down. So many kids who’d have spent their whole childhood in the system were welcomed to loving homes. We estimated they saved the state at least $5 million.”
The CAFO Summit continued to grow, topping 1,000 attendees in 2010. Models like Project 1.27 spread quickly in a setting like that, along with contagious enthusiasm. The coordinated initiatives owned jointly by CAFO’s growing membership continued to expand.
Courtesy of CAFO / Edits by CTInspired by an Orphan Sunday service held by a small church in Zambia, CAFO created resources to help local churches all over the world do the same. By 2010, hundreds of churches were joining in. Diverse expressions ranged from Sunday sermons on God’s heart for orphans to evening concerts, from foster-family recruiting lunches to fundraisers for projects worldwide.
The July 2010 cover of Christianity Today captured the moment. “Adoption Is Everywhere,” the editor’s note declared, adding that nearly “every conference we’ve attended recently devoted attention to orphans … with calls to establish foster-care ministries [and] support adoptive families.” A subsequent edition described “the burgeoning orphan care movement.”
Christians were giving, too. The 2011 ECFA State of Giving Report found that donation growth in the field notably outpaced almost every other area. This category included orphan care (up 21%), adoption (up 15%), and child sponsorship (up 24%). To many, this offered further evidence of the power of Christian unity and coordination.
Adoptive families like the Chapmans and the Lehmans were no longer exceptions. A 2010 Wall Street Journal article described churches becoming filled with fostered and adopted children of differing backgrounds and races. Russell Moore’s 2009 book Adopted for Life freshly expressed the gospel foundations of adoption.
By 2014, Barna Research confirmed that practicing Christians were twice as likely to adopt as the general population, including in the adoption of children with special needs, sibling groups, and older children. Evangelicals were five times as likely to adopt.
“It was great to see so many believers adopting,” Jill Lehman said. After their own adoption of a boy from Korea, they had welcomed a daughter from Ethiopia as well. “We had often felt like outliers. Not anymore.”
Orphan fever
Progress like this doesn’t go unchallenged, however. For years, critics had complained of Christians’ engagement in the field. Some faulted believers for not doing enough. Others suggested the opposite—that Christian enthusiasm for orphan care was overkill. At best, they said, this newfound enthusiasm represented bumbling good intentions. More likely, it sprang from self-aggrandizing hubris, exacerbating the very problems it tried to solve.
Among the most potent of the critics was Kathryn Joyce, an advocate-journalist who’d written exposés on other Christian endeavors, from homeschooling to pro-life efforts. In 2013, after a number of hard-hitting magazine articles, Joyce released a magnum opus of critique, The Child Catchers.
The book offered a damning portrait. Page after page detailed the errors, excesses, and devious intentions of what Joyce described as orphan fever. No facet of the Christian movement was exempt. Readers encountered adoptive parents who treated their children “like slaves.” Nonprofit leaders appeared utterly inept in crosscultural interactions. Joyce argued that even “seemingly heroic” actions—like the adoption of children with special needs—were shot through with “commercialization” and “corruption.”
At times, Joyce seemed to struggle with the remarkably sacrificial choices she observed. Virtually all her subjects, whatever their faults, had upended their lives for the sake of children who bore no biological claim on them. This couldn’t be merely for love, she concluded. Darker motives ranged from “proselytizing” to “making their antiabortion activism seem more truly ‘pro-life.’”
For the people giving their lives to this calling, the ugly caricatures cut deep. What hurt most, though, was that many criticisms held partial truths. Orphan advocates did often use statistics sloppily. The movement had underestimated the complexity and hazards of the work. Christians had not always done enough to support birth mothers or to prevent kids from entering orphanages.
At the same time as critics brought deeper awareness of the movement’s shortcomings, countries that had previously allowed large numbers of international adoptions were increasingly closing their doors. Some did so in response to actual or rumored improprieties, including Guatemala. Others, like Russia, used the orphan care system as a diplomatic pawn.
Amid all this, the most aching realities never made the news. Families that had welcomed children from the most painful of places now shared in that pain, sometimes profoundly. Parents discovered that the effects of abuse and severe neglect ran deeper than they’d imagined. Those who ministered through adoption and foster care couldn’t retreat from a hard day. Home was ground zero.
Meanwhile, even as some US states expanded their faith-based partnerships to serve foster youth, others moved in the opposite direction. Illinois and Massachusetts ended work with Christian agencies that wouldn’t place children with unmarried or same-sex couples. New leadership in Colorado—where churches had made such dramatic progress—pulled back sharply from faith-based partners as well. The number of waiting children in the state began to tick steadily upward again.
For some, the struggles were difficult but bearable. For others, they were crushing. The stress test on marriages sent some couples to counseling and some to divorce. While church communities rallied around weary families in many cases, other congregations seemed fearful or oblivious. Parents often felt abandoned by the very communities that had cheered when they’d first brought children home.
Like many others, Andy and Jill Lehman’s adoption journey wove together seeming extremes. It included hard-earned growth and moments of pure joy. Andy’s work also provided vivid reminders of what their kids might have faced without adoption—heartbreaking realities of life in orphanages or on the streets.
But what had felt like manageable challenges in the early years grew larger, more complex and sharp-edged. Jill and Andy’s relationship persevered, but at times their home felt like a combat zone. Nothing seemed to help, even out-of-home care in a residential program.
Andy admitted his prayers were often tearful. “Those years held many of the hardest things we’ve ever faced,” he said. “As much as we’d thought we were prepared, we weren’t.”
I’ve heard similar words from countless others. Some carry the deepest pain imaginable. It’s a lament over a prodigal child, still profoundly loved despite countless hurts. It is also grief over a family portrait that appears irredeemably distorted. For some, it has all been too much. Little but disillusionment remains of the enthusiasm they once felt.
But a remarkable number of advocates are still at it. They bear scars, some deep. But there’s a light in their eyes and a weightiness to their words that wasn’t there before. They’ve walked through fires, and not all of them are yet on the far side. Still, they’ve persevered. They continue to take on new challenges, both in organizations where they serve and at home.
“Some of what we’ve faced are things you’d never choose,” Jill Lehman said. “It’s probably a good thing we didn’t know everything the future would hold. But we have zero regrets. There’s so much we would’ve missed out on if we’d taken a safer route.”
In many of these families, children who struggled deeply as teens have made positive turns as young adults. As one recent study confirmed, while adoptees are more likely to face certain challenges in childhood, they generally do quite well in the long run. Narratives that cast adoption or childhood trauma as destining a person to a miserable life are not only statistically inaccurate but also deeply unfair. David Brodzinsky and Jesús Palacios, two experts in adoption and child welfare, concluded, “Not pathologizing adopted people is as important as not minimizing their problems.”
“There were a lot of tears in our home in the years after I was adopted,” described a young man, Trent Taylor, who had experienced severe abuse before being adopted out of foster care at age 10. “But my parents were rock solid. They made it clear they’d never, ever give up on me. I’m so glad they didn’t.” Now in his early 20s, Taylor leads a ministry called Watch Me Rise to help current and former foster youth.
Wisdom for the future
There are no quick fixes to the deepest struggles. Veterans in the adoption and foster care field affirm that professional intervention for families can sometimes be a lifeline to stabilize chaotic situations. Yet healing requires more than medication or therapeutic visits alone. Parents and family life must play a central role.
True healing involves the whole person, including physical elements like sleep, diet, exercise, time outdoors, and boundaries for screen use. As many studies now affirm, age-old practices of the Christian life, like thanksgiving, forgiveness, prayer, and community, contribute powerfully to well-being. Amid the self-focus of therapeutic culture, habits like these lift our eyes toward God, his world, and the needs of others.
Courtesy of CAFO / Edits by CTAs Taylor put it, “There’s certainly a time for introspection and dealing with your past. But ultimately, a person will never truly flourish just by looking deeper at themself.”
The CAFO community continues to grow too. What started with 29 leaders now includes more than 290 member organizations and a global network of churches—still trying to leave “logos and egos” at the door. The most recent CAFO Summit conference, the 20th since that first gathering in Little Rock, drew over 2,400 people from more than 40 countries. Year-round, members work together in jointly owned initiatives, harnessing the strengths of the whole community. These span from US foster care to global best practices and research, church-based ministries to locally led networks in developing countries.
Meanwhile, even as international adoption remains limited, locally led expressions of the movement are expanding worldwide. Perhaps not coincidentally, many of the most vibrant national movements are growing in countries that saw the most international adoptions—from Romania to Ethiopia to the Philippines. Efforts rising from these countries—including World Without Orphans from Ukraine and Alianza Cristiana para los Huérfanos (ACH) in Guatemala—add tremendously to the global movement.
But no amount of growth, however impressive, is enough to keep a person from toppling when trials come. That kind of staying power comes only from a vibrant life rooted deep in Christ. The many who’ve persevered, including Andy and Jill Lehman, testify to that foundation.
Despite all they’ve faced, the Lehmans continue to pour into the movement both at work and at home. When I asked if they’d do it again, Andy didn’t hesitate. “No question,” he said. “Our family’s story is still being written, but we are so very thankful for it, for all of it. In the Christian life, the hardest things and the best things often come together.”
Jedd Medefind is president of CAFO.
