photo by Rebecca Vrieland Maria Vander Lei colors in the second floor lobby of Kalsbeek Huizenga on Monday night. Maria is the adopted daughter of English Professor Elizabeth Vander Lei.

It probably comes as news to many students that November is National Adoption Month. In honor of this, Chimes has decided to make its readers more aware of the adoption process and the challenges and joys associated with it. There are over 100,000 children available for adoption nationwide, according to recent statistics.

Adoption is a way that some people, many of them infertile, choose to have children. There are three types of adoption: confidential adoption, semi-open adoption, and open adoption. In the past, adoptions were completely confidential, which means that all ties with birth parents were severed and the birth parents did not choose the adoptive parents.

In the 1980s, adoptions became more open and now are almost always semi-open adoptions, which means that contact between the birth family and the adoptive family is conducted via a professional mediator. In a completely open adoption, there is no mediator and the birth family and adoptive family take on all responsibility for initiating contact.

Professor Elizabeth Vander Lei of the English department knows about open adoption firsthand. Her two sons, ages seven and five, have completely open adoptions with the birth mothers, and in one case the birth father, almost part of the family. These birthparents participate in the children’s birthdays and holidays and keep constant contact with them. Professor Vander Lei feels that this makes the situation easier for her sons, because there aren’t so many questions about their identity.

“In closed adoption you only get questions and you never get answers,” she said. “Questions fester while anger resolves. Open adoptions allow for those questions to be asked in a non-threatening way.”

She points out that with open adoption, it is easy to see that personality is a combination of things: both heredity and environment.

On the challenge having the birthparents of her children be such a big part of the picture, Vander Lei said: “We tend to hang out with people who love the same thing, namely the child. We both want what is best for them.”

But Vander Lei also knows what it is like to have a closed adoption after bringing home their Korean daughter, Maria, a year ago. She is now 18 months old. They petitioned the Korean government for permission to contact the birth mother, but the request was denied. She knows that this could cause her daughter some pain in the future and she mourns that. However, she points out that it should come as no surprise to a Calvinist that the world is broken and that everyone will have pain in their life, whether it be the pain of being adopted, the pain of infertility, or other manifest-ations of the Fall. She sees the adoptive arrangement as a partial redemption of some of that brokenness. Vander Lei also celebrates the Christian witness that the family is able to give to her sons’ birth parents, who are not believers.

“I think it kind of takes them by surprise, that the children attend Christian school and I teach at a Christian college; that it’s such a big part of our lives,” she said. “This is a great opportunity for the birthparents to see what it is like to live life intentionally as a Christian.”

Another Calvin professor who has experience with adoption is Professor Hessell Bouma of the Biology Department. His daughter, Laura, is a sophomore at Grand Rapids Christian High School. Laura was 11 months old when she was adopted through Bethany Christian Services. Her adoption is closed, and Bouma said she has handled it well. The Boumas saw adoption as the most intense way they could live their faith.“Adopting a child that already exists is very biblical. It shows the full meaning of the New Covenant,” he said.

The United States Post Office has issued a stamp advocating adoption.

According to Bouma, the cost for adopting a child can be $10,000 to $20,000, unless the child has special needs. However, things have improved in recent years since the U.S. government approved a tax credit for international and domestic adoption. For faculty and staff of Calvin College, the situation is even better. According to a statement about the adoption benefit on the Calvin website, Calvin reimburses adoption expenses associated with the adoption of a minor, non-relative under the age of 18 up to $4,650, or the actual cost of the adoption, whichever is less. This figure was calculated to be comparable to the average cost of a natural delivery.

This benefit is an especially good one among U.S. employers. Calvin received the 2000 Adoption All-Star Award from the Dave Thomas Center for Adoption Law as a reward for its efforts. This is given to the 50 best employers in the U.S. on the basis of adoption benefit packages. Calvin was the only college or university to receive this honor.