Acts to watch - pass it on

Found a red flag among the many Christian adoption blogs calling for others to heed the call to adopt.  

Adoption Ministry of YWAM - Ethiopia is a Christian agency establishing Widows and Orphans Homes in Ethiopia. The heart of our ministry is to find loving Christian families in the U.S. to nurture, love and disciple children in forever homes and to minister to those in Ethiopia who are without hope.

[From:  That We Might Be Adopted... from Ethiopia:  Acts of Kindness ]

While it's nice (and naive) to think religious people make the most ideal parents, let us remember how some strong faith-based forever parents choose to take-in, shelter and discipline their "saved orphans" found, and collected, from around the world.  Keep in mind, most of these chosen children were home-schooled, too.

• 11 children adopted by Michael and Sharen Gravelle were found to be kept in cages.  In reports, Michael states, "We felt that we were being led by the Lord,"
• 76+ Children adopted by Diane and Dennis Nason; some of the 76 children they adopted have told of being beaten and being shocked with a cattle prod.  The mastermind behind the mass-adoptions:  The Lord told them to.  They were sentenced on charges of racketeering and forgery.
• Brian Edgar died when he was bound like a mummy in duct tape by his adoptive mother as a punishment for stealing cookies.  Brian was nine.  His Aparents, Neil and Christy Edgar, pastors of God's Creation Outreach Ministry, were also charged with abusing 3 other adopted children. Christy Edgar was referred to as a prophet, and reportedly claimed God told her to tie up children as a discipline method.
• Bruce, Michael, Tyrone and Keith Jackson were systematically starved by their adoptive parents, while state child welfare workers failed to make the most basic checks on the children over a dozen years.  The boys were also beaten with brooms, rulers, sticks, shoes and belt buckles.  Members of Come Alive New Testament Church , the couple received $30,000 in annual stipends for doing little more than writing a letter certifying that their adopted children were still in their home.
• Dr Broeckel Sr., a stalwart member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, sexually abused at least 4 of his adopted children.
• Milena Slatten (adopted from Republic of Georgia) was forced to sleep on a bed saturated with animal waste in the unlighted basement, while other children slept upstairs.  According to reports, Milena's Amother, Beth, grew up in a religious home, where spanking was the practice.  Once, after Milena was bruised in a spanking, the punishment continued, but on the bottom of her feet. “People would not know that and not look for bruises,”, the Amother explained.
• Girls adopted by John Henry Thomas and Carol Ann Thomas.  Court documents state that one of the six children reported she was punched in the stomach until she vomited. Others said they were beaten with a tree limb, a cast-iron frying pan and a table leg, documents state. In other instances, one child said she was forced to stand barefoot on a hot radiator, and another child was forced to drink the Thomases' urine, according to police, who said John Thomas also sexually abused a teenage daughter. The children also said they were forced to go without food and sit and watch others eat for days and forced to hit other children in the household, according to police.  Carol Thomas, who received counseling from a minister at Mount Calvary Baptist Church, was charged with failing to protect the children from her husband.  
• After having endured horrible abuse at the hands of her first adopter, Masha Allen (Mariya Nikolaevna Yashenkova) was placed with a troubled and abusive single mother, the protege of a fanatical evangelical judge.
• 5-year-old girl to be adopted by Ernest Richard Davison and Cynthia Joan Davison, had been bound at her wrists and ankles for a considerable time and was suffering from malnourishment. The little girl has Down's Syndrome and suffers from the effects of FAS;  at the time of removal she weighed 21 pounds.  The child was originally placed through the Lutheran Adoptive Services, a private agency.  Three other children lived at the home.
• Children adopted by Earnest and Windie Perry.  Police said the family inflicted heinous acts on the children, including torturing them with jumper cables and denying them food for several days at a time. Windie Perry, a heavily involved member of First Assembly of God, was known to work well with children at her church.  Both she and her oldest adoptive daughter were charged with eight counts of rape of a child and four counts of aggravated rape. Some of the other allegations outlined in an indictment include: "Tying her down to a cot with ropes, handcuffs, and chains," "Forcing a broomstick down her throat," and even "Attempting to ‘cut off' her arm with an axe."
• 13 year-old  Dominick J. (Andrew) Diehl, adopted by Michael and Karen Diehl, was beaten to death by the couple as a result of their fundamentalist Christian belief in strict discipline.
• Rachel Joy Thompson was murdered by Angela Thompson who forced an older sibling to sit on her hunched back for more than three hours, squeezing the life out of her. Thompson told a co-worker "spare the rod, spoil the child".  Rachel was five.
• Eight year old Joseph Beebe died, his body covered with bruises from beating with a bamboo rod. He was one of six handicapped children adopted by Brian and Edith Beebe. All children were beaten with a rod, locked in a room without food or water and sometimes dragged by their hair.  According to the couple, the children were raised in a deeply religious environment and never mistreated.
• Marian and John DiMarias, conservative evangelical Christians, adopted 21 girls from third-world countries. The adopted girls were all impaired; most were deaf. In February, 2003, the State of Vermont learned that John DiMaria had been sexually abusing the older girls for years.
• Four year old Cassandra Killpack (Autumn Blackwell) was forced to drink large quantities of water as punishment for earlier taking a soft drink from a sibling.  The massive intake of water caused water intoxication, creating an electrolyte imbalance that led to brain swelling. Prosecutors said an autopsy showed a cut and bruises around the girl's mouth, indicating a cup was forced on her.  According to reports, Amother Jennete explained to the jury that she felt an obligation to teach Cassandra about consequences.
• Sean Paddock, age 4, was beaten to death by his adoptive mother Lynn Paddock, who had sought Christian discipline advice in the books of Michael and Debi Pearl.
• 9-year-old girl adopted by David Charles Gilmore and his wife Karen, was sexually abused by her adoptive father.  Gilmore was a music teacher and a former Friends (Quaker) youth pastor.
• Five children adopted by John and Linda Dollar were starved and shocked with electricity.  The Dollars also pulled out their toenails with pliers, bound them with chains and strips of plastic and struck their feet with hammers.  According to one report, John Dollar states,"We are sorry that the children are hurt,"  "We are firm believers in the God almighty . . . because of those principles we were led to do certain things."
• Viktor Alexander Matthey (Viktor Sergievich Tulimov), age 6, died of cardiac arrest due to hypothermia after adoptive parents Robert and Brenda Matthey locked him overnight in a damp unheated pump room. Viktor was also severely beaten by his adoptive father. The Matthey's attended a Pentacostal (AG) church and homeschooled their children.
• 8-year-old Lydia and 11-year-old Zariah (or Zacharia) were adopted by Kevin P. and Elizabeth H. Schatz from Liberia in 2007. Lydia had been beaten with a 15 inch tubing for hours for misspelling a word during a home schooling sessions, and died as a result. Zacharia was taken to the hospital in critical condition due to kidney failure, among other injuries.  Media coverage questions the link between the girl's death and the child training, discipline and "chastisement" methods taught by a fundamentalist religious ministry called No Greater Joy, founded by Michael and Debi Pearl.  According to a controversial religious parenting book, "To Train Up a Child," the Pearls recommend that parents spank their children not with their hand, but with a quarter-inch plumbing supply line - the same instrument used on Lydia and Zariah.  [See:  What instrument would I use? ]

With acts like these, (known far too well by far too many an adoptee), calls for yet another orphan crusade (in the name of God and religion) concern me.