Moral Outcry

Five hundred yards from where Jesus was born in Bethlehem sits the Holy Family Hospital. It was known as a rescuer of orphans who, by all accounts, should have been killed if their parents had listened to their culture.

This was where my life began.

Many are fascinated by the fact I was born in Bethlehem. When I was young, they asked, predictably, “was it in a manger?” A couple years ago, I found out the answer was yes. They called the area where the babies were kept, the crèche, or manger. Today, it’s a full maternity hospital, but when I was born, the crèche was a place for abandoned children. One story said:

“The ‘La Crèche,’ as the orphanage is called, is committed to the care of children, most of whom are illegitimate and rejected by Palestinian families, ‘ashamed’ of a daughter’s pregnancy out of wedlock.”

I’ve have had brief email correspondence with Sister Sophie, the nun in charge who told me I was “placed in the crèche.” Otherwise, I was met with stunning replies from government offices in Jordan, where my adoption was processed. One wrote an official letter, saying if my birth were discovered, even now, “great harm” would come to my mother. The tone was so matter of fact, that I believed it.

I was adopted at 6 months by a 53-year-old single American woman who worked for the U.S. Foreign Service, possibly the CIA for some of her career. My adoption papers declare my mother (the woman who adopted me is my mother, by the way), to be 10 years younger than she was. The Catholic church had to issue her, as a Protestant, a dispensation to adopt a baby born in Israel through a Catholic court in Jordan. The only mention of a father said, “the name and whereabouts… are completely unknown.”

My mom and I stayed in Jerusalem until I was five. My earliest memory was her pushing me down in front of our window because of gunfire on the streets of the Old City. I rode camels and went to Catholic school. I learned French, Arabic, and English—at age 4, in Kindergarten (I flunked Arabic with a 65—at age 4, in Kindergarten). Perhaps my 95 in English was prophetic of the two college degrees in English I would get, along with a ten-year career as a teacher of a language that was never supposed to be my own, had I been raised in “my culture.”

I came here with a “green card” because my mom didn’t understand the process to make me a citizen. Thus, I grew up a Palestinian girl, from Israel, in the United States.

After my mom died in 1995, I wanted a passport. The U.S. couldn’t give me one because I was never naturalized. Israel said I did not have an Israeli identification number. Jordan said I was born in Israel so they couldn’t help. The U.S. issued me a Travel Document, declaring me “stateless.”

After 9/11, being a Palestinian made me an object of a whole lot of prejudice. I grew afraid to let anyone know that my Americanized name and accent were not my culture. In 2003, I became a naturalized citizen of the United States.

My story is crazy. I was born, almost certainly to an unwed mother in the Middle East, who I’ve been told repeatedly, should have been killed simply for being pregnant out of wedlock. I’ve heard this from Jordanian officials, hospital staff, and friends knowledgeable about the culture. When I hear terms like “rescuing orphans,” that’s more than a pro-life theory. I try to imagine what might have been had I lived there. But I’d have been dead. That’s clear based on the law and culture. Had I lived and stayed there, I would, doubtfully, been raised Christian.

It took a lot of years to turn cultural Christianity into revelation of Jesus, but it happened, and my life is given to prayer and Life. I’d say that based on the options, I got the best end of this deal. I was served justice because even without a family, I have Jesus.

You ask me why adoption matters? You ask me why a woman shouldn’t be allowed to kill a baby? My mother was supposed to be killed for being pregnant. I’m sure grateful she didn’t opt for a secret abortion.

I don’t write what I write theoretically; it’s my life. I was definitively called into the Life movement at a Call event. This has gripped my heart since. I don’t think I’ve touched the depths, but my spirit knows more than I because the Holy Spirit has done this.

The day I was conceived He knew me. He knew me in the womb before my birth mother knew she had a crisis. He saved my life and picked me from a crèche of abandoned babies in an orphanage to bring me to the States and call me to Him. He gave my mom courage to risk her life (I think I got my warrior gene from that woman). And he gave a band of nuns and priests the money, prayers, and ability to operate a home for orphans in a war-torn culture without its own home. In the heart of Bethlehem that manger existed for other babies that would have been killed, just as Herod went after Jesus.

Abortion. Adoption. Orphans. Nations. It’s not a textbook; it’s personal. It’s how God shaped my life. And every prayer, every dollar, every work of justice in the name of Jesus, matters. True justice for me was not being raised in my culture. It wasn’t having two parents and a dog. True justice was being brought to Jesus. Anything I missed that our culture says I “should” have is nothing compared to “the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil. 3:8).

For me, a manger was my path to justice twice.