Why Ethiopia In General:
Some details:
-Ethiopia is the birthplace of the drink many of us know and love-Coffee
-Ethiopia is home to one of the oldest civilizations in the world. That's neat!
-Ethiopia is home to more than 5 million Orphans.
-Ethiopia is the fabled location of the Ark of the Covenant
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Why Ethiopia? FINAL SEGMENT
Fast forward to March of 2011. I was waiting on a friend at a medical center. I had some time to kill sitting in the waiting room. All of my classwork was complete, personal stuff etc.
I was actually kind of down emotionally and needed something to occupy my mind. Bill and I had tried to take a vacation in march to have some positive movement in our lives, but there were some serious problems with the vacation....starting with missing our flight....because neither one of us paid attention to the time on the tickets. :(
The classes I was taking were good but really heavy and dark subject matter..so didn't really want to think about that.
We had been getting more and more bad news from the infertility people. Just when we thought we'd hit the bottom, the bottom would give way and we'd be sliding down another tunnel of questions and pain and just anger really.
So, I tried to pray that day. My prayer was something like this:
"God, if you have kids for would you just show us dang it."
And the reply I felt in my spirit was." Well, Jeanette, you haven't exactly been looking."
So, I thought, Hm, I guess I could start looking. And for the next few hours I did. I had been given by friends some websites where you could view photo listings of waiting children and i began to do that.
I started praying for a connection with a child. Maybe a name, or maybe that the child loved music like we do. Something to let me know that the child was meant to be in our family.
I signed up on one particular sight that allowed me to create a profile where I could be matched to children according to our specifications of age etc.
Oddly, I guess I was being too picky, because I didn't get ANY matches.
So, then, I remembered something our friends had said about special needs kiddos. I included them in my profile and BINGO! Matches abounded.
I started looking at photos and watching videos and soon had about 100 kids in my profile. I wanted to parent them all! I knew that wasn't realistic though. So We had to narrow it down.
I was so excited to show Bill.
He was totally on board with a special needs child and so it began. In the end, god did the narrowing for us, because out of the original children I put in my profile, only two remained in five months when we finally got serious about putting in our application.
When we finally made the call about the only two children left in our profile, we foudn out what coutry they were in. Just take a guess!
YOU GUESSED IT!!!
Ethiopia!
So there's your answer.
The kids we felt called to parent were not in Haiti. Had they been in Haiti, we'd be going there. Had they been in Madagascar....off we'd be.
But they were in Ethiopia. So THAT is Why Ethiopia!
Fast forward to March of 2011. I was waiting on a friend at a medical center. I had some time to kill sitting in the waiting room. All of my classwork was complete, personal stuff etc.
I was actually kind of down emotionally and needed something to occupy my mind. Bill and I had tried to take a vacation in march to have some positive movement in our lives, but there were some serious problems with the vacation....starting with missing our flight....because neither one of us paid attention to the time on the tickets. :(
The classes I was taking were good but really heavy and dark subject matter..so didn't really want to think about that.
We had been getting more and more bad news from the infertility people. Just when we thought we'd hit the bottom, the bottom would give way and we'd be sliding down another tunnel of questions and pain and just anger really.
So, I tried to pray that day. My prayer was something like this:
"God, if you have kids for would you just show us dang it."
And the reply I felt in my spirit was." Well, Jeanette, you haven't exactly been looking."
So, I thought, Hm, I guess I could start looking. And for the next few hours I did. I had been given by friends some websites where you could view photo listings of waiting children and i began to do that.
I started praying for a connection with a child. Maybe a name, or maybe that the child loved music like we do. Something to let me know that the child was meant to be in our family.
I signed up on one particular sight that allowed me to create a profile where I could be matched to children according to our specifications of age etc.
Oddly, I guess I was being too picky, because I didn't get ANY matches.
So, then, I remembered something our friends had said about special needs kiddos. I included them in my profile and BINGO! Matches abounded.
I started looking at photos and watching videos and soon had about 100 kids in my profile. I wanted to parent them all! I knew that wasn't realistic though. So We had to narrow it down.
I was so excited to show Bill.
He was totally on board with a special needs child and so it began. In the end, god did the narrowing for us, because out of the original children I put in my profile, only two remained in five months when we finally got serious about putting in our application.
When we finally made the call about the only two children left in our profile, we foudn out what coutry they were in. Just take a guess!
YOU GUESSED IT!!!
Ethiopia!
So there's your answer.
The kids we felt called to parent were not in Haiti. Had they been in Haiti, we'd be going there. Had they been in Madagascar....off we'd be.
But they were in Ethiopia. So THAT is Why Ethiopia!
Why Ethiopia? The Long Answer Part Five:
OK so I said this was a long answer....so for those who have asked me in person "Why Ethiopia?" and I don't know what to say...this is why. Its a lot for one conversation.
So, after reading the book, we kept pressing ahead with our infertility things that were going on at the time, and also, we were both taking classes for various things, so we were really busy. I didn't have time to be looking into adoption or so I thought.
For weeks, there were lots of little news soundbites, etc that kept coming across my path about people adopting from Ethiopia. One family, kept hearing about more siblings of their adopted child and went back to adopt them all!
And eventually, I did take some time here and there to look into adopting from the Congo and Zimbabwe...and it really just wasn't something that was set up and easy to do.
During this time, my husband and I were leading a small group bible study at our church with another couple and TWO different families in the same month contacted me asking for more details about our group and mentioned the fact that they were in the process of or had already adopted Ethiopian children! CRAZINESS!
Ethiopia was everywhere! :)
OK so I said this was a long answer....so for those who have asked me in person "Why Ethiopia?" and I don't know what to say...this is why. Its a lot for one conversation.
So, after reading the book, we kept pressing ahead with our infertility things that were going on at the time, and also, we were both taking classes for various things, so we were really busy. I didn't have time to be looking into adoption or so I thought.
For weeks, there were lots of little news soundbites, etc that kept coming across my path about people adopting from Ethiopia. One family, kept hearing about more siblings of their adopted child and went back to adopt them all!
And eventually, I did take some time here and there to look into adopting from the Congo and Zimbabwe...and it really just wasn't something that was set up and easy to do.
During this time, my husband and I were leading a small group bible study at our church with another couple and TWO different families in the same month contacted me asking for more details about our group and mentioned the fact that they were in the process of or had already adopted Ethiopian children! CRAZINESS!
Ethiopia was everywhere! :)
Why Ethiopia? The long answer Part Four:
Fast forward again to the meeting with our freinds who adopted from Ethiopia. The night we met with them, I remember thinking that I wasn't exactly looking to adopt from Ethiopia specifically. Though I had felt connections with other countries on the African continent at varous points in my life. I had kind of fallen in love with the Congo in college and more recently Zimbabwe and would love to adopt from there. So that's what was in my heart.
However, they gave us a book that night anyway, called, "There Is No Me Without You." a secular but powerful story about one woman's triumphant journey to try and care for the orphans in her country...Ethiopia. I read it right away because I love to read...and I was deeply moved. I cried a lot! The stories were heart breaking. The pictures too. One chapter spoke a lot about older children and how they kind of fall through the cracks in the system and when the age out of the orphanage, they often have no plan, nowhere to go....and no home to move back into. The main character in the book spoke highly of Americans though and said "American's they are the ones. The only ones who will take these older children."
I remember kind of waiting to see what Bill would think when he got to that part. It had a similar effect on him, so there it was. We were considering adopting an older child.
But for me, again not necessarily from Ethiopia. :)
Fast forward again to the meeting with our freinds who adopted from Ethiopia. The night we met with them, I remember thinking that I wasn't exactly looking to adopt from Ethiopia specifically. Though I had felt connections with other countries on the African continent at varous points in my life. I had kind of fallen in love with the Congo in college and more recently Zimbabwe and would love to adopt from there. So that's what was in my heart.
However, they gave us a book that night anyway, called, "There Is No Me Without You." a secular but powerful story about one woman's triumphant journey to try and care for the orphans in her country...Ethiopia. I read it right away because I love to read...and I was deeply moved. I cried a lot! The stories were heart breaking. The pictures too. One chapter spoke a lot about older children and how they kind of fall through the cracks in the system and when the age out of the orphanage, they often have no plan, nowhere to go....and no home to move back into. The main character in the book spoke highly of Americans though and said "American's they are the ones. The only ones who will take these older children."
I remember kind of waiting to see what Bill would think when he got to that part. It had a similar effect on him, so there it was. We were considering adopting an older child.
But for me, again not necessarily from Ethiopia. :)
Why Ethiopia? The Long Answer Part Three:
Strange Dreams:
I am kind of terrible with remembering dates....maybe this has something to do with the fact that I was born on leap year and I don't even have a birthday except every four years...i don't know. Anyway, sometime around the same time that our friend went to Ethiopia, I had a really strange and vivid dream.
In the dream I was talking with my girlfriend Cortnee and she was trying to feed her firstborn son. He was really crying and she couldn't get him stop. She needed a break so she handed him to me and said "Do you think you can get him to stop crying." Magically, I did. He was soon at peace in my arms...however, the crying had not stopped and Cortnee and I were both stumped by this. I handed her son back to her and looked down in his playpen. What do you know, there was another baby in there. A dark skinned little girl. So I picked her up , grabbed a bottle and began feeding her too. She began growing and growing and growing until soon I realized that she wasn't an infant at all, she was more like and elementary aged child. She was just malnourished.
Once she had everything she needed food wise. She kind of hopped down out of my arms and said, "Thanks for feeding me."
I wondered for a long time if this dream meant anything or not.
If nothing else, it meant to me that I was being called to listen for the cries of those who were hungry around me and respond.
Strange Dreams:
I am kind of terrible with remembering dates....maybe this has something to do with the fact that I was born on leap year and I don't even have a birthday except every four years...i don't know. Anyway, sometime around the same time that our friend went to Ethiopia, I had a really strange and vivid dream.
In the dream I was talking with my girlfriend Cortnee and she was trying to feed her firstborn son. He was really crying and she couldn't get him stop. She needed a break so she handed him to me and said "Do you think you can get him to stop crying." Magically, I did. He was soon at peace in my arms...however, the crying had not stopped and Cortnee and I were both stumped by this. I handed her son back to her and looked down in his playpen. What do you know, there was another baby in there. A dark skinned little girl. So I picked her up , grabbed a bottle and began feeding her too. She began growing and growing and growing until soon I realized that she wasn't an infant at all, she was more like and elementary aged child. She was just malnourished.
Once she had everything she needed food wise. She kind of hopped down out of my arms and said, "Thanks for feeding me."
I wondered for a long time if this dream meant anything or not.
If nothing else, it meant to me that I was being called to listen for the cries of those who were hungry around me and respond.
Why Ethiopia? The Long Answer Part Two:
Our first real connection with Ethiopia was really before we knew much about what was going on with us infertility wise. A friend of ours traveled to Ethiopia for a short term mission trip and we supported the trip and excitedly awaited hearing all about it. He had beautiful, life changing types of experiences to share. Pcitures of smiling little faces and lving being enriched and given hope by the ministry.
His connectioon with the trip and minsitry in general was through a church he attended while living in Washington DC. Basically, his friend form church gave up working a decent job on the "Hill" in DC and decided to move to Ethiopia and be there full time to care for boys who were literally living in the sewers.
Today this is a thriving ministry that keeps expanding and being blessed by God.
I'll try to post a link to their information.
As a result of all he saw on the trip, our friend, though single at the time, was considering adopting one of the children who had captured his internal "parent's heart." Little did we know at the time, God was moving in our hearts to make room for children from the very city this friend visited.
Our first real connection with Ethiopia was really before we knew much about what was going on with us infertility wise. A friend of ours traveled to Ethiopia for a short term mission trip and we supported the trip and excitedly awaited hearing all about it. He had beautiful, life changing types of experiences to share. Pcitures of smiling little faces and lving being enriched and given hope by the ministry.
His connectioon with the trip and minsitry in general was through a church he attended while living in Washington DC. Basically, his friend form church gave up working a decent job on the "Hill" in DC and decided to move to Ethiopia and be there full time to care for boys who were literally living in the sewers.
Today this is a thriving ministry that keeps expanding and being blessed by God.
I'll try to post a link to their information.
As a result of all he saw on the trip, our friend, though single at the time, was considering adopting one of the children who had captured his internal "parent's heart." Little did we know at the time, God was moving in our hearts to make room for children from the very city this friend visited.
Monday, May 28, 2012
Our Adoption Testimony Part Two:
Six months passed and one day, Jeanette was waiting on our vehicle to get repaired and she was checking items off of her to-do list which included setting up the next appointment for our medical procedure in New York City. That seemed like a really personal thing to be doing when strangers could hear her conversation, so she waited and didn’t make the call.
She spent the rest of the time reading the book Radical by David Platt. When she got to a section where he describes going to his county foster system and asking how many children needed homes ( 164) and then essentially challenging his church to take in all of those children, Jeanette started weeping in the car dealership and she remembered the two little girls and all of the other children she had put in her profiles. She immediately began looking back at her profiles and discovered that all of the children she had viewed were now in the process of being adopted except for the two little girls. Upon further investigation, she discovered the cost of the adoption at the time was estimated at 35,000.00 . The same as the medical procedure. Jeanette felt like this was a sign and an opportunity to make a choice.
Six months passed and one day, Jeanette was waiting on our vehicle to get repaired and she was checking items off of her to-do list which included setting up the next appointment for our medical procedure in New York City. That seemed like a really personal thing to be doing when strangers could hear her conversation, so she waited and didn’t make the call.
She spent the rest of the time reading the book Radical by David Platt. When she got to a section where he describes going to his county foster system and asking how many children needed homes ( 164) and then essentially challenging his church to take in all of those children, Jeanette started weeping in the car dealership and she remembered the two little girls and all of the other children she had put in her profiles. She immediately began looking back at her profiles and discovered that all of the children she had viewed were now in the process of being adopted except for the two little girls. Upon further investigation, she discovered the cost of the adoption at the time was estimated at 35,000.00 . The same as the medical procedure. Jeanette felt like this was a sign and an opportunity to make a choice.
The choice we ended up making, obviously, was to stop our
pursuit of medical assistance and pursue the adoption of Kumnager and Kalkidan.
We discovered that during the six months we weren’t pursuing them, someone else
was and then dropped their case without any explanation to the adoption agency.
We take that as another sign that God is trying to build a family for these
girls with us as their parents.
We know there are risks involved in this process and
there is no guarantee these girls will become our daughters, but for now, in
our hearts they already are, and we will do everything we can to bring them
home.
We are currently in the fundraising process for our adoption. ( As mentioned in our last post.) Lately, we have been filling out grant forms, collecting documents that the grant managers wish to see etc. So far, we have applied to two grants that are from faith based organizations and they wanted to hear our "adoption testimony". So, we thought maybe you would too!
Adoption Testimony Part One
We were somewhat open to adoption, but Jeanette had some
conflicting emotions about that. Jeanette was wrestling with the idea of never
being pregnant and not having that experience. Jeanette wished to pursue
Assisted Reproductive Techniques, and Bill was willing, but also more interested
in adoption. Jeanette was also really wrestling emotionally with the whole
process and felt like she could not adopt if it were only to ease her emotional
pain or meet her own needs. She only wanted to adopt if it were for the sake of
the children who needed a home.
Adoption Testimony Part One
We feel called to be parents and give children a loving
home. At one time, we thought that would happen through getting pregnant and
over the course of a grueling and expensive infertility process, we discovered
that that would be medically next to impossible for us.
So, for two years, most of our “infertility energy” was
spent on trying to get medical help for our issues. One procedure in particular
was only done in New York City and cost
about 35,000.00 Jeanette had been the
one making all the calls and appointments up to this point and this particular appointment was now just another item on her lenghty to do list.
However, we had invested some time and energy in adoption “work” as well. We had
met with couples who had adopted and gone to seminars etc and had sort of begun
putting feelers out in that realm, including looking on adoption websites for
waiting children.
God was slowly beginning to heal Jeanette and one day in
prayer she asked God if he would just show her if there were children “out
there” in the world for them. That afternoon, Jeanette started getting matches
for a lot of children and put maybe 100 in her profile. But, she didn’t really
do anything about any of them. She wanted to finish the medical stuff first
before pursing adoption full time. Two
little girls in particular stood out to her that day, and they were on her mind
a lot, but she didn’t do anything other than put them in her profile.
In the meantime, Bill continued making
connections with couples who had already adopted, looked into resources for
adopted children and just in general kept waiting and praying for Jeanette to
heal in hopes she would be willing to pursue adoption full time......
After seven years of marriage, we are officially expecting! Two little girls from Ethiopa that is! We are excited to say the least. It's been a long and interesting journey so far, and we can tell you more about that later.
First we want to start posting about our fundraising efforts so that you can begin partnering with us to bring our girls home!
We just set up an online store where you can purchase fair trade coffee and a portion of the proceeds will be donated toward our adoption.
Check out the link below.
https://justlovecoffee.com/about/beneficiary/manchesterethiopianadoption/
Tons of posts coming!
Stay tuned!
Grace and Peace!
-Bill and Jeanette
First we want to start posting about our fundraising efforts so that you can begin partnering with us to bring our girls home!
We just set up an online store where you can purchase fair trade coffee and a portion of the proceeds will be donated toward our adoption.
Check out the link below.
https://justlovecoffee.com/about/beneficiary/manchesterethiopianadoption/
Tons of posts coming!
Stay tuned!
Grace and Peace!
-Bill and Jeanette
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