Journey with Us

Why Ethiopia?  One thing Andrew and I feel strongly about is not simply adopting a child to fulfill our desire to grow our family – we are adopting to take care of God’s children.

We are called to care for orphans and, however excited and freaked out we are, we are moving forward to fulfill this calling.

Here are some  staggering facts that I had read from a new adoption friend’s blog about Ethiopia:

• An entire generation of parents are no longer; there are 4.4 million + orphans
• One in six children in Ethiopia die before their fifth birthday
• 44% of the population of Ethiopia is under 15 years old
• 1.5 million people are infected with AIDS (6th highest in the world)
• Drought struck the country from 2000-2002 (first year no crops, second year no seeds, third year no animals)
• Half the children in Ethiopia will never attend school. 88% will never attend secondary school.
• Ethiopia’s doctor to children ratio is 1 to 24,000.
• In 1993, after 30 long years of war, Eritrea broke from Ethiopia and became an independent nation leaving Ethiopia landlocked without any major seafaring ports.

I can’t save all 4.4 million. But we can make a difference for one. (Maybe 2 – we are open to siblings).

 

 

And so it begins…

I have decided to change the “prego journey update” title to “adoption journey.”

After almost 6 months of knowing we were supposed to start the adoption process but feeling frustrated because it seemed that every avenue we started to pursue felt like a closed door, we finally feel like we have some God-given direction.

Through a well-established Christian international adoption agency called Holt, Andrew and I have begun the process of adopting through the country of Ethiopia. 

I will give you the short version of the story:

A few weeks ago we had dinner with our dear friends, the Crowleys, and they asked how they could pray for us regarding adoption. I shared that i was incredibly frustrated b/c it felt like every avenue we tried to pursue seemed like we hit a wall. I know they prayed b/c that night I woke up at 3:00am and thought one word: Ethiopia.

I tried to put it out of my mind because I had previously thought (and still do a bit) that the difference of a black child growing up with white parents would just be so difficult for the kid. But that Sunday morning I did some research online and cried when I saw the picture of the Ethiopian boy on one of the adoption page… but was still skeptical.

I sent the link to Andrew thinking, “maybe he will open it and feel something amazing.  That will be our confirmation.”  Well, Andrew saw it but there were no tears, no heart-strings pulled.  (It was a Sunday, after all and he was very busy – no time to really look at the email). 

So I went to church that night praying… “God, I am asking for a miracle of confirmation. I pray in expectation that tonight you will do something miraculous. Some random stranger is going to walk up to me after service and say something like, ‘I don’t know you, but I think you should adopt a black baby.’ ”  It was going to be amazing.

But 1st service passed…. 2nd service…. no strangers.  No one held a sign in the back of the service and told me what to do.

A bit discouraged (because I had prayed in faith after all) I went home and my husband was great to encourage me to keep praying.

2 days later, Andrew shares with some people in his new Masters class (yes, he started school again) that we are thinking of adopting and could use some prayer. A few minutes later, a stranger walks up to him and says… “Hey, have you ever thought of adopting from Ethiopia?”

God spoke and we are listening.

We have turned in our application with our first non-refundable deposit. We have attended our first parent training class. I am in process of getting paperwork together. We are moving forward.

Thank you for praying us through the journey thus far. We need more… and lots of it.

Zion

One of Andrew’s love language is hiking. His birthday was a couple weeks ago so we went to Zion National Park in Utah. It was incredible.

Andrew was a little huffy about pulling off on the side of the freeway to take this one but he did well to humor me.

This is a hike through an area called “The Narrows.” Cliffs on either side, walking through a river. Although I was sick of my feet being wet after 6 hours, IT WAS AWESOME.  So beautiful.  Never seen anything like it.

This part kinda freaked me out the first time through, but on the way back we just let go and swam with the current.

Just another amazing hike.

An amazing birthday celebration week with my husaband.