Julie Gumm - Author

Interpretative Art

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During the Karyn Purvis pre-conference at Together for Adoption she talked a bit about kids from hard places and how they see themselves. She showed us several drawings done by these kids and explained what they meant. There is a real science to this – extremely fascinating.

Some of the pictures showed the adopted child off to the side of the rest of the family – they didn’t feel like they were part of a family. Others demonstrated how they felt trapped or angry or hurt.

Of course all us adoptive moms had a sudden urge to go home and ask all our children to draw a family picture.

Before I could even ask, I got this.

This is me, as drawn by Beza at school.

In real life I have short brown hair. It definitely would not go in pigtails. Does this indicated I’m not the white mommy she really wanted?

She drew me with a crown. Does that mean she sees me as a princess? Or the wicked queen?

I have cape. Am I Superwoman?

Then I asked her about the bikini top. Because I don’t wear a bikini.

“It’s not a bikini mom. It’s those things….”

<long pause while she searches for the right word>

“Coconuts!”

Um yeah, because I walk around in a coconut bikini top A LOT.

Tell Stories That Change Stories – Esther Havens @ T4A

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There were many, many reasons why I was excited to attend the Together for Adoption conference and one of the biggies was meeting Esther Havens.

Esther is a humanitarian photographer who travels the world with different organizations helping them document their stories. I first started noticing her work a couple years ago through Charity: Water. She takes positively breath taking photos. Photos that are different although at the time I couldn’t pin point why.

Then I had the privilege of spending an hour on the phone with her one day and I began to understand why her photos are different. Because she is different.

She views her job differently than most photojournalist who are there to capture a moment. A newsworthy moment. And sadly because of the culture we have become those moments seem to be more and more about the sensationalistic and tragic images.

At her session at T4A Esther shared about her early experiences as a photographer and how God began to show her the beauty of the people she was photographing.

That is what makes her pictures so different. She sees the beauty in these people. She sets her camera down and takes time to talk with them and hear their stories. THEN she takes the photos. She showed us some awesome examples of what a person looked like before she talked with them and after. Totally different photographs as far as capturing the true spirit of a person.

Some thoughts I took away from her session:

  • Pictures reflect what we see. If we see African people as sad and poverty-stricken then that’s how they’ll appear in our photos.
  • How does God see this person? And can I help the subject see that?
  • We are the avenue for them to tell their story. We need to “tell stories that change stories”.
  • Can the photo really help them? Is it worth taking the shot? People are more important than photos.
  • Awareness without action is pointless. Use your photos to tell a story and then tell people what they can do to help.

Esther drove home that last point by sharing the story of Watoto and her trip to Uganda to visit their project. They returned with photos and they used those photos to prompt action in two ways. First, there was an amazing display in the exhibit space that showed the photographs and told the subject’s story. Second, they offered people the chance to purchase a photo (the first time she’s done this) either at the exhibit (small postcards) or through Wallblank (check it out to read the stories as well.)

Thanks Esther for sharing your heart and for inspiring a group of people who want to use their photographs to tell stories that change stories.

P.S. If you want to hear more of Esther’s heart behind her photography there’s a great podcast on TechTock.

Are We Just Remodeling Hell?

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On Saturday during one of the Together for Adoption conference breakouts Tom Davis made the remark “Building orphanages is like remodeling hell. That is not God’s plan.”

A small collective gasp went up from the audience. I think there were quite a few mouths open as well.

I tweeted the comment and it was obvious the shock carried over into the cyberworld.

It sounds kind of wild doesn’t it? But it is so true.

God’s design is not for hundreds of children to live in large institutional orphanages where rows of bunk beds line the room and paid staff dish out food and little else. Certainly not the nurturing that a mother and father can give.

Yesterday I shared Psalm 68:5 but that passage goes on to say

“God sets the lonely in families…” Ps 68:6

God’s plan for the orphan is a family. Not an orphanage.

That’s one of the reasons why I believe in and work for World Orphans.

Everything we do revolves around the church, the orphan and a family.

At the prevention stage our local church partners identify at-risk children and help keep them in their families by providing food, educational fees, medicines and whatever other needs there are.

If the church knows that the child’s orphaning is imminent (i.e. mom is dying of AIDS) they work diligently to find extended family that will be able to care for the child. If that isn’t available then the next step is to find foster parents from within the church or place the child in the children’s home on the church property. Even that home is a family – 8-12 kids living with houseparents who give them the long term love of a mom and a dad.

The indigenous church has heard God’s cry – maybe more so than the American church. They stand ready to help the orphans of their community but they lack what we have in abundance – resources.

My prayer is that the church as body will wake up and corporately decided that we are done remodeling hell, putting band-aids on wounds that need surgery.

We must help God put the lonely in families.