Being a Bandaid

Wow! I'm borrowing the following from someone who borrowed it from another adoptive parent's blog:
"It is easy to sink into the bliss of being an adoptive parent - but it is important to always remember that the bliss comes at great expense - often the heartbreak of a birth parent left without options, or the hopelessness of a child's prospects in their broken birth country, or the death-knell of an incurable disease, or the ramifications of poverty on a small life.

Adoption is not the answer - it is a band-aid and it is absolutely necessary, but something needs to be done about the problems - poverty, disease, war, racism, economic disparity - that leave children in this chasm.

It is imperative that those of us who walk down this road vow to always engage ourselves in solving the bigger problems - the very problems that brought our children home to us. Find an organization that is addressing these problems and send your money, give your time, advocate on their behalf."

It's so easy to feel that "I'm doing my part" by just fixing the next meal and comforting the next owie and being the parent that Leon and Aliou need for the rest of my life. Really that feels all consuming at times! But I love a challenge like this to look beyond my little world to see how I might keep trying to make a difference at the root of the problems that brought them to us. My main calling is to be a band-aid but I don't want to limit myself and my family to only that.