Michelle, for the record, I am ALL for keeping families intact :001_smile: I wish adoption didn't have to exist. I wish there were no orphans. In reference to putting your child up for adoption being commendable, I was setting it up against abortion in my mind, but failed to put that part into words. Obviously it's never the ideal to not raise your own child, but to those who have chosen adoption over abortion, I highly commend them!

Going back to domestic adoption... most of the babies up for adoption here in the US have one or both parents still living. Nobody has an issue with this. If a teenage mother or a single mother, etc wants to give up their child for adoption, nobody throws a fit about it because the child isn't a true orphan. So why do people have such a hard time when an orphan from another country still has a living parent? I'm obviously not talking about cases when the parent did not want to give up their child, or was tricked into it, etc. I'm talking about when the parent felt it was in the best interest of the child to put him/her up for adoption. If somebody in the US does this, it's commended. If a parent does not feel that they are in a good position to care for a child, adoption is a wonderful alternative. Why then is this automatically looked at as a bad thing when it is international? I am not speaking out of naivety. I KNOW there is a lot of corruption in international adoption. That's why we have hague set up, etc. It is so important to make sure that the child is truly orphaned or relinquished. I am not at all condoning corruption in adoption. I am also fully aware that the best case scenario would be if all parents were ready and able to care for their children - emotionally, physically, financially, etc. But it simply isn't the case. Just throwing it out there. PS: UNICEF's definition of an orphan is a child who has lost one or both parents.

Bumping. And also, would love to hear anybody else's experience with Memoria Press K.

Just wanted to add in response to buying non-Lamplighter versions of the stories... they may not be exactly the same. They sometimes tweak them to make them more doctrinally sound. From the Lamplighter website: "Upon Mark's approval, modifications are sometimes considered for each of our books. Mark sometimes recommends changes to assure that each book contains biblical themes and that the spiritual messages within are theologically accurate." I think I actually read or heard somewhere that Teddy's Button was one of the ones that was changed a bit. Possibly where salvation was being explained? I could be wrong on the book though.. Either way, I just wanted to throw that out there. I'd personally buy them from Lamplighter for the sake of doctrinal accuracy. Plus they're so darn pretty :)

:bigear: