Planning for Life After this Blog: An Invitation

Since the final days of this blog are upon us, I want to extend an official invitation to join the conversation at our adoption blog, Adopting from Haiti.  I've written about it several times here, but I want to share a little more about how I see that blog developing and why I think it is a site worth checking out.  In order to demonstrate this, I am going to share the direct links to five specific posts that capture the overall spirit of that blog.

1) Bringing Levi Home
This is actually a guest adoption story written by Jason White who, along with his wife Jesse (Callaway) White, adopted Levi just a week or so ago.  This post can serve as a great encouragement to anyone considering adoption and it serves as an example that I am interested in posting the related ideas/experiences of others on our blog.

2) Talking to Our Daughter about Adoption
In this post I try to capture some of the challenges of being a parent while going through the adoption process.  The questions of our daughter are her effort to better understand what we're talking about.  Perhaps if we were all this honest with our curiosity the world would be a little better.  Based upon the overall hits, this has also been one of the most popular posts.

3) A Primer on Adoption
This post serves as a starting point for those just learning the language and details of how various adoptions work.  Many of the obstacles we've encountered have come from people (almost all well-intentioned) working with incorrect information.

4) The Biblical Foundations of Adoption
Most of our readers are interested in the story side of our adoption as opposed to the "whys".  But, I try to balance what I write to help expand the perspective of those who read.  I received an email from an active reader who, being an adoptive parent herself, never considered the biblical connections to her experiences.  Clearly, this perspective was helpful to her.

5) Viewing Adoption from the Ivory Tower
In this post I view our adoption experience through the lens of my academic research.  I was able to connect with several academics who are interested in adoption-related research after they read this post.  Over time I will hopefully be able to post some additional resources that will be of interest to our general readers.

My larger goal is for this blog to develop into a forum for discussion exploring the intersection of the biblical foundation, personal experience, and academic research related to adoption and orphan care.  In order to accomplish that goal I am inviting you to join the conversation to help expand the conversation about the biblical foundation of adoption.  There will be times that this will take us in unexpected directions (just read my "One More Opinion about the Penn State Scandal" for an example).  But, overall, it connects back to the central concern of adoption and orphan care.  I am also open to having guest authors who can write for a general audience.  That audience is not the same audience as this one and I've been reminded of that a few times along the way.

So, if you are interested, check out the blog.  Join the conversation.  Post comments and engage in the conversation.  I am much more active on that blog than I have ever been here.  Also, if you happen to have any administrative suggestions about the structure of the blog I am open to those as well if they will help facilitate the conversation.