Navigating Church as a Biracial Transracial Adoptee: Guest Post

Guest Post by Torie DiMartile

Two years ago, I walked into my home church in Northern Kentucky and was greeted by a black woman. In the 24 years I attended that church, this was the first time I saw my identity reflected. I stopped at the front door and she smiled, her braids catching the wind and her deep and glorious skin glistening in the fall sun. “Welcome to church. Have a great Sunday,” she said with a handshake. I looked at my mom and we exchanged a knowing glance, one of relief, awe and gratitude.

My parents adopted my sister and me, both biracial, during a time when transracial adoption was not very common. We lived in a white suburb, went to a white church, and were enrolled in predominantly white schools. My parents struggled to ensure my sister and I lived a life connected to our biological families, roots, and heritage. After failed attempts at transracial play groups and a squashed desire to move to a new neighborhood with more diverse families, this beautiful woman standing at the entrance of church meant almost as much to my mother as she did to me.

I sat in the pew that Sunday, a little giddy and a little sorrowful. I felt sheer euphoria at seeing myself represented in a space that for so long seemed to ignore the unique makeup of my family and my unique experience as a brown woman. But I also felt this deep sense of loss. If meeting a black woman at the door before Sunday service could give me such a dizzying spell of validation how would my life have been different if I consistently received positive and empowering images of blackness from the pulpit? How might my spiritual journey have been strengthened if I was immersed in a radically inclusive gospel? How might my understanding of and acceptance of myself have changed had I been able to see Torie more clearly at the center of the story of the Cross?

Many conversations that revolve around transracial adoption focus on representation within the home and school, and rightfully so. These are spaces where your brown and black children learn about where they fit in to both family and society. They learn who they are, their value, and their family history from the teaching they receive at home. They learn who they are as members of a larger society and as participants in an historical narrative from the teaching they receive at school. While these are imperative spaces to infuse with celebratory and inclusive language about race and identity, I wonder how our church leaders are engaging and honoring those same ideas. Where are our black and brown children learning their value as intentionally created diverse beings of the Kingdom? How are church communities ensuring black and brown perspectives and experiences are part of the gospel narrative that is taught and preached?

For much of my life I have been caught between an intense love for and connection with my white family and community in which I was raised and the black community that I felt was severely lacking in my personal and spiritual life. And the more Scripture I read, the more preachers of color I listen to, the more time I spend in the adoption community, the more books and podcasts I read about adoption, race and faith, the more excited I am to reconstruct a healthy and accurate view of God in relation to my racial identity.

Being adopted transracially and struggling to find a faith community in a predominantly white world can be lonely; it can feel ostracizing and “othering.” I’m often straddling two worlds. I’m often asked who my “real” family is or told I’m not black enough, making me feel illegitimate in terms of race and family. I have often felt lost, lonely, misunderstood, and marginalized. But, when I see Jesus for who he really was and is, despite the images of Jesus we are shown and despite the composition of his human church, I see someone who is like me. I see someone who does reflect my experience.

Jesus was brown. I am brown.

Jesus was both man and God. I am both black and white.

Jesus had two fathers. I have two families.

Jesus probably felt lost and lonely in the complex journey he was walking. He was often misunderstood, mocked, questioned, deemed illegitimate.

Jesus was othered.

Jesus was on the margins.

Though I often feel on the periphery as a transracial adoptee and as a woman of color, I’m learning more and more about how these two unique experiences are beautiful reflections of God. The more I lean into my adoption story and lean into my identity as a woman of color, the more I realize I am at the center of the story of the Cross.

About the author:

Torie Dimartile is a doctoral student in Sociocultural Anthropology at Indiana University studying domestic transracial adoptions. She is also a spoken word poet, aspiring artist (seriously, her work is so good), and an advocate for racial justice in the Christian church. Among her other roles, Torie is a sister, aunt, and a transracial adoptee who grew up in a white Italian-American home. She is a voice worth listening to as she moves forward on her “lifelong journey towards an integrated and celebrated racial identity.”

You can find Torie on social media at:

Facebook: Wreckage and Wonder

Instagram: @wreckageandwonder

Website: wreckageandwonder.com

Featured image by John Cafazza with Unsplash

Author photos were submitted and approved by her for use in this post.