Adoption Unfiltered

Adoption is a multi-sided experience that can feel like it takes place in a vacuum. Here, three participants in the adoption triad reveal the challenges, the triumphs, and everything in between from their perspectives of adopted, adopter, and birth parent, and those of others who have experienced adoption from a variety of perspectives and roles.

Organizations and businesses are applying sustainable development concepts in their management strategies in order to improve and rethink products, processes, services, and policies which will have significant potential to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, excess consumption, and improve the quality of lives. Cases on the Diffusion and Adoption of Sustainable Development Practices is a collection of case studies on the concepts and theories of successful sustainable practices. It also identifies key mechanisms and strategies that have allowed the successful diffusion of these practices into communities, regions and nations around the world. This reference source is essential for professionals, researchers, educators and leaders in pursuit of innovative solutions in sustainable development.

Adoption in the Digital Age explores the transformation of adoption due to social and digital media technologies. The most prolific of these changes can be seen within contact arrangements, particularly those that are not managed by an intermediary, between adopted minors and their biological kin. Within this shift, it becomes clear that this often-breached contact arrangement lends itself towards discussions about further openness within adoption. At the same time these technologies continue to document the way adopted individuals and their biological kin feel about themselves and each other. It is for these reasons that the Internet remains both a promise and threat. Samuels explores this in detail, highlighting that what it means to be adopted continues to evolve in the context of networked media cultures. Combining both theoretical discussions with the human experience of adoption, Adoption in the Digital Age will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including sociology, social work and cultural studies, as well as practitioners working with adoptive families and other members of the adoption triad connected and disconnected by adoption.

Adoption God's Way is a children's book unlike any other as it lays out God's love for mankind and how He wants us to love Him and love each other by following His truth. This book shares the power found in adoption; one is the earthly adoption of children into families, and the other is heavenly adoption into God's family found only in salvation in Jesus. Every page of this book can be experienced, felt, and understood by the drawings, the message, and the Bible verses on each page. All three join together to tell the life-changing, soul-saving Gospel of Jesus Christ no matter how young or how old the reader. A toddler can understand the pictures, a teen babysitter can grasp the story, and an adult can take hold of the scripture verses that reference each page. This book is meant to share God's love for every single person whom He created in His image on the earth and to explain the fallen state of our world today. The gospel is the redemption option that God offers to any person who wants to receive it. Each page of this book is meant to spark deep, life-impacting conversations. It was created for those who read it to mediate on it because it's important to your eternity. Going to bed thinking about the things of God is what we all should be doing nightly. I hope this becomes a bedtime book that families will pass on to future generations. Jesus Christ paid for the sins of the world on a cross and His story, the story of the world, found in the Holy Bible should be read by all and talked about by all, continually. This book isn't about religion but about entering into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. He is the only way to reach God. There are millions of children's books that fill time and are fun, but this isn't that book. This book is intentional and introspective. The pages explain the importance of adoption both in heaven and on earth because we all are up for adoption since birth. There are two fathers battling for our soul: God the Father and the father of darkness. We are born separated from God in this world, but we each have the opportunity to be adopted into God's heavenly kingdom. Our choices here matter. The posture of our heart matters. We can't earn our way to heaven because we have fallen short of God's perfect standard with our sin. But His Son, Jesus, offered to pay the penalty of our sin for anyone who would receive Him as Lord and Savior. His sinless life is good enough for heaven, and His sacrifice is enough to cover your sins if you receive Him. Salvation changes everything about you from the inside out. It's not a tradition or a checklist. It's a personal relationship with God made through Christ that gives you the ability to turn away from a life of sin and more into a life of sanctification. Adoption God's Way makes you more like Jesus and less like you. It's a choice that lasts forever. This book can't save souls, but Whom this book is about can. This book is meant to lead you to the right Father, to be adopted by Him so you and those you care about can know God's love and freely love Him back both now and forever. Love is an action, not a feeling. Love gave Himself up for us so we could choose to be adopted into His family. The most beautiful gift God ever gave to His human creation was free will. We can freely choose to love Him or not. He's a good Father. He won't force you to love Him back.

This book investigates the experiences of South Koreans adopted into Western families and the complexity of what it means to "feel identity" beyond what is written in official adoption files. Korean Adoptees and Transnational Adoption is based on ethnographic fieldwork in South Korea and interviews with adult Korean adoptees from the United States, Australia, Canada, Switzerland and Sweden. It seeks to probe beneath the surface of what is "known" and examines identity as an embodied process of making that which is "unknown" into something that can be meaningfully grasped and felt. Furthermore, drawing on the author’s own experiences as a transnational, transracial Korean adoptee, this book analyses the racial and cultural negotiations of "whiteness" and "Korean-ness" in the lives of adoptees and the blurriness which results in-between. Highlighting the role of memory and the body in the formation of identities, this book will be useful to students and scholars of Korean Studies, Ethnicity Studies and Anthropology as well as Asian culture and society more generally.

Adoption is not for the faint of heart. Labours of Love chronicles the journeys of Canadians who have overcome heartbreaking obstacles to become parents. Their stories are as diverse as our country, and span the borders of our world. While each account is unique in its own way, the stories are connected by the overwhelmingly commonality of the power of human connection.

No one likes to suffer. It hurts. We all suffer, though, in one form or another, at some time or another. What is God's heart towards his children as they suffer? Does God care like a loving earthly father would for his suffering children? If God loves his children, why would he allow them to go through pain in the first place? These questions are all too common--the very questions Catherine Rackley pleaded before God when she was pummeled repeatedly by multiple hardships, all starting with a cancer diagnosis at the age of twenty-five. "Is God really good?" "Does he love me?" "Is he hearing my prayers?" The hardships did not erase, but some answers did come. You are invited to walk through this vulnerable journey with Catherine where she wrestles with blood, sweat, and tears. . . . Her hope is that you will find those secret places where God led her.

Our quest for origin and, by extension, identity is universal to the human experience. For the twenty-five contributors to Somebody’s Child, the topic of adoption is not—and perhaps never can be—a neutral issue. With unique courage, each of them discusses their experience of the adoption process. Some share stories of heartbreak; others have discovered joy; some have searched for closure. Somebody’s Child captures the many unforgettable faces and voices of adoption. The third book in a series of anthologies about the twenty-first-century family, Somebody’s Child follows Nobody’s Mother and Nobody’s Father, two essay collections from childless adults on parenthood, family and choices. Together, these three books challenge readers to reexamine traditional definitions of the concept of “family.”