She said what??

I had (another) disturbing encounter with one of our neighbors the other day.  It would be very easy to dwell on my thoughts and feelings regarding this conversation, but I think it won't be hard for you to guess how I felt when I'm done.  It all started something like this:

Her:  So, wasn't it in the plan for you guys to have 4 kids one day?
Me:  Oh, I don't know about that.  We are in the process of adopting, though.
Her (resembling how you might look if you just found the other half of a worm in the apple you'd just bitten into):  Why??  Don't you want to have more of your own kids?
Me (not the first time I've heard this):  Oh, he'll be just as much my kid as my two girls are.

From here, I'll just bullet-point the "highlights" regarding her thoughts on adoption:

• you'll end up with an indigenous child and they are inherently dysfunctional, you know
• an adopted child is similar to a stray dog you've found on the street- you might offer it a home, but you'll never be able to love it like the family pet 

When arguing that you have to be prepared for whatever issues your child might have, regardless of them being biological or adopted, her response was:

• but if you're good, you will have loving and healthy kids
• there's an energy that runs through your body and if you are filled predominately by hate, anger or stress, that results in bad kids and cancer
• here, she used the example of the recent news story in La Paz of an 8 month old baby boy who was so badly abused in one of the state-run orphanages that he died: because his parents were alcoholics, was her logic

You can be sure that I rebutted her arguments as calmly as possible with much personal and Biblical ideas, but she was not to be swayed.  This is an "educated" woman we are talking about.  Her husband is a doctor.  Although she expresses herself forcefully, she is, unfortunately, not the exception.  We will have an uphill battle in a culture who still struggles with racism and less-than-loving views on adoption.  My great hope is that God will use us (and the church) to be a living example of what it means to be adopted.  To realize that the truth of the Bible is that we are His adopted children and are co-heirs with Christ.  We, adopted children, have been promised the same inheritance as God's only Son.  I know our baby boy's tragedy can be redeemed.