We are so excited to share some awesome new happenings in our lives.
Earlier this year, we decided it was time to add to our family again. We’ve always wanted a large-ish family and had it in the back of our minds that it would involve adoption of one or more children, but the details have been a little fuzzy. We started looking into various avenues for adoption--domestic and foreign--and after earnest prayer for guidance, felt led to pursue an international adoption. We contacted All God’s Children International, Inc. (AGCI), a well-established Christian adoption agency and orphan relief organization. As we filled out the initial application, we didn’t have a particular country in mind. We requested info on each country that AGCI works with. After much prayer, we believe the Lord is leading us to Ethiopia. We fell in love with East Africa during our 2007 trip to Kenya to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary (Ethiopia is Kenya’s neighbor to the north); since we’ve been home, we’ve both had a strong conviction that Africa would one day hold a greater significance in our lives than that of a tourist destination—neither of us believed it would be something this significant, however.
Our primary reason for adopting a child is to add to our family. This decision was made before we really even understood the reasons Ethiopia had so many orphaned children available. We did not choose to adopt as a humanitarian act, to get recognition, to draw attention to our family, or to follow any celebrity trend. That people might think that, that our family will stand out, that our child will face societal issues that we will not have first-hand experience dealing with, were all on the “con” side of our pros and cons list when we agreed to go with Ethiopia. At the top of the “pro” list, however, was the fact that, while we are stepping outside of our comfort zone, we sincerely believe that God is guiding us down this road. He has confirmed it to us time and time again over the past few months through a number of so-unlikely-an-occurrence-that-it-can-only-be-God experiences. We are secure in our knowledge that we are in the palm of His hand and we are trusting Him to give every member of our family discernment, wisdom and guidance when facing challenges that may come our way. We are believing in Him to use any challenges, and our responses to them, for His glory.
The process will take an estimated 12 to 16 months. We are currently in the “paperchasing” stage--preparing a "dossier" which requires gathering a huge amount of personal paperwork and information and having a homestudy performed by a social worker, all of which will be presented to our agency and the U.S. government and the Ethiopian government for approval by each to adopt. This will take a few months. Once approved, we will be matched with a child and placed on a list for adoption approval by the Ethiopian courts. This may take several more months, as the Ethiopian courts are not open year-round and they require a lot of supporting evidence proving that a child is truly an orphan before they will grant the adoption. We will travel to Ethiopia to meet and bring home our child shortly after we receive court approval.
Since we commenced the Ethiopian adoption process, we have made an effort to learn more about Ethiopia’s history, culture and the circumstances through which our child will be coming to us (we will introduce you to some interesting historical and cultural facts in subsequent posts). While some Ethiopian children are available for adoption due to Western-type reasons such as the stigma of unwed pregnancy, most of Ethiopia’s orphans are available due to poverty. Ethiopia is one of the five poorest countries in the world; per capita annual income is less than $100, with four out of every five people living on less than $2 a day. Subsistence agriculture is a way of life for 90 percent of its population and yet, despite the prominence of farming, agricultural production is low and extremely vulnerable with cyclical drought. Ethiopia’s population has grown dramatically in the last several decades, from 33 million in 1983 to more than 75 million today. Thirteen percent of Ethiopia’s children are missing one or both parents; an estimated 4.6 million children are orphaned. One in 14 women die in childbirth. Famine, malaria, and other diseases have claimed untold thousands of lives in Ethiopia. HIV/AIDS alone has orphaned nearly a million children. One Ethiopian child in 20 dies in their first month of life; one in 10 dies before their first birthday; of those who reach their first birthday, one in 6 dies before their fifth birthday; half of those who don't survive die from diarrhea. Government aid is limited. Few people have access to basic health care, nutrition, education or even clean drinking water. Ethiopia, like many African nations, is at a breaking point.
While we've generally considered ourselves to be well-educated, well-traveled, and aware of current events, it's only been in the past few months that we've realized how in-the-dark we've been with respect to the magnitude of the current crisis in Africa in general, and Ethiopia in particular. It’s not fair that so many children lose their families because their parents died of a treatable illness. Mothers and fathers with HIV/AIDS die for lack of two pills that cost only 40 cents a day. It’s not fair that parents are forced choose between watching their child suffer from illness or starvation or surrendering their child to an orphanage in the hope that they will have a chance at life. The fact that we will have our lives even more enriched by the joy of raising a beautiful Ethiopian child, in all likelihood because someone else’s poverty has resulted in their having to make a decision more difficult, sacrificial and heartbreaking than we can comprehend, is a concept we struggle daily to wrap our minds around.
We are committed to investing in Ethiopia for the long-term. Over the past few months, God has been cracking open a lot of doors and connecting us with a number of like-hearted people. We are continuing to pray about what direction God wants us to move in, but we know that we will never be content if we are not involved in making a difference.
Our prayer is that, though our journey and by our testimonies, others will be challenged to open their hearts to the children of Africa and orphans of the world and to educate themselves with respect to the seriousness of the crisis in Ethiopia.
We are walking in faith, trusting God for guidance through the adoption process and in our lives in general. We sincerely ask for your prayers for this adoption, our next child (who may or may not be born yet), our family’s future and the future of Ethiopia.
May all of your Christmas dreams come true this year!
