The Ethiopian Daughter of our hearts: Such a celebration!

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Such a celebration!

Today I sit here as the luckiest girl in the world! Truly, I am richly blessed and supported in ways I can barely put into words. This week three friends who are also my dear neighbors, hosted a shower for me and for the little girl who will soon adorn our streets with her beautiful eyes and precious smile. My friends, Kim, Michelle and Carrie seriously went all out people and I do mean ALL OUT to get our all boy household ready for a little princess. Take a peak at a few photos below and you will see just how they spoiled me :)

So let me just say that that you have never seen a cuter and more amazing cake!

It made me cry to see the blond momma holding the little cocoa baby complete with curly locks.

Sweet Cakes Design

Here in Grand Rapids, Michigan certainly does deserve a shout out for clever and delicious cake.

The entire top square cake is now in our fridge and we plan to all share it as a family before I depart

next week for Ethiopia.

I'm telling you the entire night was super special!

The table looked extra special too with amazing flowers out of my girlfriend's backyard and

darling cards displaying facts about Ethiopia.

They used fancy ribbons to wrap each napkin and even brewed Ethiopian coffee that we had brought home so that everyone attending could try it.

YOU MIGHT BE WONDERING IF THEY ARE FOR HIRE BUT SADLY NO... THEY ARE ALL THREE BUSY MOMMIES WHO HAVE THEIR OWN BIRTHDAYS AND FAMILY EVENTS TO PLAN. :)

It was such a gift to me to be in a room with so many supportive women. I so appreciate the generosity, the curiosity and the support surrounding our adoption. I cannot help but think that several of us in attendance that night would make a terrific mission team. Most of us are raising little ones but who knows what the future holds. I just know that the adoption of one sweet baby into our hearts and our home has turned out to be so much more than I could have ever imagined.

Even through the questions, the wait and the many program changes this has been a miraculous journey.

Thank you all for making me feel so blessed and so loved.

You guys ROCK!

3 comments:

Mama Mimi said...: My heart just BREAKS for these families in the Nepal program and for all those children just waiting with nowhere to go. :(; August 13, 2010 at 1:55 PM
Amy said...: Precious cake! I am so excited for you to bring your beautiful daughter home soon.
Blessings,
Amy; August 13, 2010 at 8:48 PM
Mama Mimi said...: Gorgeous cake! Don't know how my nepal comment ended up here...; August 14, 2010 at 12:44 AM

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Korah- Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

During our recent visit to Ethiopia I felt very called to the village of Korah in Addis Ababa Ethiopia. There have been numerous rumblings lately about the tremendous need to help the children of Korah who are growing up in and around the local trash dump. The village was established 75 years ago as a place to send people with leprosy who were said to be cursed. Now there is a 3rd generation of people living in Korah with nearly 100,000 suffering from such things as leprosy, HIV, misc disease and of course malnutrition. There are many children of Korah who have been forced to live and work at the trash dump in hopes of finding food and possible items to sell in Korah's center of town. With the start of the Great Hope Church in Korah and the building of a shelter, along with the ministry of local Sammy Liben and Sumer Yates, there is now a feeding program and a sponsorship program in place to rescue the forgotten children of Korah and send them to boarding school where they can escape the horror of the conditions of living and working in a large trash dump. For more information please visit: www.help4korah.blogspot.com or www.p61.org where you can learn more about how you or your organization can help the people and the children of Korah. Please send me a message or email Erin Allen at erin@p61.org to request sponsorship information. I will soon be posting the photos of my day recently spent in Korah. I must tell you it was life changing and beyond anything I have ever done to stretch, change and rearrange myself. God helped me to help the people who I met. Much of what I could offer was nothing more than the snap of my camera or a warm touch or an inviting smile. The needs in Korah are beyond our wildest imagination yet God is over Korah and there is already amazing work being done. I invite you to view the following videos to learn more about the beauty and the needs of Korah's people.

Why adopt from Ethiopia?

It's a fair question and one that people ask frequently. It goes hand in hand with "Why didn't you guys choose to adopt domestically?" Let me explain...

Ethiopia is deep in the midst of ongoing poverty, disease and famine. Ethiopia is the fourth poorest nation in the world with nearly 5 million orphans struggling every day to survive. Nearly 2 million people are infected with HIV and many children will watch their parents die of the disease. One in every ten children do not make it to their first birthday and one in six die before their fifth birthday. Obviously such statistics are staggering and there is no doubt that the country of Ethiopia has a great need to allow families in who are eligible and willing to rescue and adopt their orphaned children.

This journey for us has taken many winding turns. It is the true nature of adoption and in all honesty it is just something you just get used to. For us adoption began as a two fold feeling of wanting to add another child to our family and also feeling God nudging us to help where the need was the greatest. We began researching the high need category right here in the USA. There are numerous differences between a first world (so to speak) and a third world country. Here in the US we have a foster care system in place where children can be placed until adopted. We do not have the same institutionalized orphanages which are often developmentally detrimental to many children. In many countries there is nothing in place to help the orphaned child but the orphanages. Thank God they exist or children would have absolutely nowhere to survive. It also became increasingly obvious that a birthmother in this country would have to select us and we would have to become increasingly more comfortable with an "open adoption." We were not certain that was the right path for our family so we began the lengthy research into high needs countries where we fit the criteria to adopt a female. Believe it or not with three bio boys we did not fit every countries criteria. This adoption stuff is a bit crazy but you have to follow the laws. :) Nepal and Ethiopia both immediately began to tug at our hearts. We knew that adopting from either country felt right. We began with Nepal but soon realized the it was Ethiopia where we belonged all along. We made a country switch-a-roo and here we are today.

A couple of other tidbits about Ethiopia that made us feel such a strong connection. Ethiopians value and love their children and their families. That is not always the case. Many countries throughout the world place little or no value in children. In fact many countries are totally unwilling to deal with the orphan crisis at all. Ethiopia is one of just a handful of African nations currently to allow the adoption of children. Ethiopia has followed the Hague Adoption Convention and places great importance on the welfare of their children. Ethiopia's government has also acted with integrity so far in complying with timelines and requirements that are reasonable for all parties, agency, adoptive family and the child. This is a good thing as many countries have lengthening timelines or have closed their doors to international adoption altogether.

So Ethiopia has stolen our hearts. Their needs are so great but the passion to live appears to be greater. I am beginning to understand what some say when they say, I need Africa more than Africa needs me. I am feeling that and sometimes I cannot even verbalize why. We need Ethiopia. We need to be stretched and have our hearts broken for the orphan, the widow and the least, lost and lonely. With two trips now ahead we continue to prayerfully ask God to make us vessels. Use us to be the hands and feet of Jesus in places where people and children need us most.

I want to also say that there is no right or wrong when it comes to following you heart into the land of adoption. It's just like anything we do in life. We have all been given the powerful gifts of choices and free will. Adopting a child no matter where he or she is from is a very personal and spiritual journey. If you are being lead to seek adoption for you and or your family- just do it! How can one human being ever regret such an endeavor!

{Our Family}

We are a family of five who are feeling the call to add another sweet bundle of joy to our world. Our hearts and our minds are carrying another child who is currently in Ethiopia. She is thousands of miles away yet we know she is meant to round out our family! She has already been chosen for us as we have been chosen for her. We wait with great anticipation, with excitement and prayers. With three boys ages 9, 7 and 5 there is rarely a dull or quiet moment around here and we are all eager to open our hearts to the beautiful little one we will call Ava.

We are following God's lead as we make our way through all the hoops to Ethiopia and back with the daughter and sister of our hearts.

{Ethiopian Facts}

*There are approximately 5 million orphans in a country less than twice the size of the state of Texas.
*Only 24% of households have access to safe drinking water
*One in ten children die before their first birthday.
*In the 1980's one million Ethiopians died of starvation
*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
*Children and family are honored above all else
*Between 60-150 million kids live on the streets
*82% of the population survives on less than 1 dollar a day
*1 in 3 people are HIV+, the average life expectancy is 37

{Adoption Timeline}

08/28/10 OUr daughter is HOME!
6/28/10 Our first travel court date!
6/16/10 OUR FILE IS FINALLY OPEN!
5/14/10 We are told we will be the first official family to travel twice to Ethiopia.
5/12/10 All referral paperwork in. Now we wait for court date.
5/5/10 We get our referral call!
4/8/10 We are number 7 on the girl's list
3/5/10 We are number 10 on the girl's list.
2/7/10 We are number 13 on the girl's list
01/07/10 We are number 17 on the girl's list.
12/06/09 We move down the list to number 21.
10/15/09 We move down the list to number 37.
09/15/09 We begin as number 44 on the wait list for a girl.
09/09/09 We are on the ETHIOPIA List! Yippee!
08/27/09 Our Ethiopia dossier is mailed in. Now we can finally get on the wait list!
07/27/09 had our social worker here again for the redo home study UGH!
07/18/09 receive dossier binder and begin the paperchase once again
07/03/09 Agency Paperwork mailed to begin the process again but this time in Ethiopia!
07/01/09 Termination of Our Dossier in Nepal
06/29/09 I contact our agency to discuss our options in changing programs. It was a difficult day to give up on the Nepal dream.
01/23/09 All dossier documents submitted to our agency to be mailed to Nepal
01/20/09 Nepal home study is complete!
08/10/08 We sign initial contracts to adopt through AGCI.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Such a celebration!

3 comments:

Into Our Arms Forever!

Meeting Ava during our first trip to Ethiopia

Korah

Korah- Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

CLICK HERE TO LEARN HOW TO SPONSOR A CHILD

Love this...

Hannah's Hope Orphanage- Ethiopia

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Why adopt from Ethiopia?

{What time is it in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia}

{Check out what our friends are doing in Zambia}

{Our Family}

{Ethiopian Facts}

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{Adoption Timeline}

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