We started our new Sunday school year today. My husband and I have taught together for a few years, and I have taught other classes with other people.

We didn’t know these children, but did have the siblings of a couple of the kids in our previous class. We decided to do a “get to know you” type of thing with the kids, and asked questions about favorite color, favorite food, and many other things. One of the last questions was “Who are the members of your family?”

I thought it would be a safe question and take into account different family scenarios. One of the girls named the family members and then said that there would be another child in her family. Not really knowing the child, and trying to cover all my bases, I asked her:

“Where is the child coming from?”

She looked at me as if I had sprouted a second head, and said:

“From my mom.”

All the kids agreed with her that this was the natural place that children came from. I then explained that I had kids, but none of them came from me.

We had a brief discussion about foster care and adoption, and the kids thought it was great. They also found it very interesting that of the four children that had passed through my home, only one was an infant. They were a bit baffled that you could “get” a child at a stage other than infancy.

We also discussed that the kids that come to my house are sometimes here for a few days, and others end up adopted. Again, this was a bit of a baffling concept for them.

This was not the lesson I intended to teach today, but the opportunity presented itself, and I took it. Someday one of these kids may become an adoptive parent, and they just might remember the Sunday school teacher who first told them about adoption.

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