We have recently celebrated National Adoption Week which highlights the many families who have adopted children and the need of many children today to find a loving home. Luke Bacon, who was adopted as a baby, is now married to Becci. They have two daughters and Luke is curate at St John’s Church, Chatham. From his own experience he is very positive about the potential benefits of adoption.
Luke says, “I was picked up by my adoptive parents from the hospital where I was born when I was a week old. I’m mixed heritage, but my parents are both white and Welsh. So, it was obvious that I wasn’t, at least biologically, both of theirs. My Dad often sat me down to tell me about their adventure of driving down the M4 to collect me, of how their car broke down, and how they got to the hospital just before the doors were locked. This became part of our family story. We celebrated that our family had been brought together by the gift of adoption.”
Luke continues, “My parents are not from a Christian background, but they became Christians when they were teaching in Ghana. So, faith is part of our family story. I’m really grateful for being introduced to what faith in Jesus means by their daily life. Over the last 3 or 4 years I’ve been starting to think about race, and particularly about mixed-heritage identity in Britain, and the very specific context that we have as a family. One thing I would say, particularly honouring my parents, is just how sensitive they always were in my upbringing, and are even now, to that complexity. They’re really, really, great at honouring the fact that biologically I’m half-Ghanaian. I think they’re more excited by Ghana than I am and honour the culture of that part of the world.”
“I’m so positive about adoption. It gave me the opportunity of belonging to a loving family and allowed me to be introduced to faith in Jesus. So, earlier in our married life than we expected, Becci and I started the journey of seeking to adopt a young girl we knew. Our daughter, like me, is of mixed heritage. Our, now, older daughter joined our family about 5 years ago when she was 7 and that’s just been so wonderful. The challenge is, ‘How many generations in our family can we keep adoption going?’ because we love it. It’s just such a beautiful way for us to extend our family.”