CBS News providing a compelling window into the needs of foster youth in Montgomery, AL.   Some may read into the coverage an unnecessarily attempt to pit inter-country adoption against domestic adoption.   Even so, it raises a critical point:  families that find themselves freshly stirred by Haiti to the possibility of taking in an orphan may ultimately discover that the need they are called to fill is closer to home.

The article relates that no children from the Brantwood Children’s Home in Montgomery, AL have been adopted in the past 4 years.  This is a tragedy.  But alongside this tragedy is hope that the CBS news crew may know nothing about.  In communities across the country, from Florida to Kentucky to Texas to Arkansas to Colorado, Christians are opening their homes as never before to welcome in foster children—via both foster care and adoption.   All of these church-centered efforts, led by members of the Christian Alliance for Orphans, will be highlighted at Summit VI…and the vision will continue to spread.

The needs—both across the sea and close to home—are tremendous.  The good news is that the Church is rising to respond!