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.  :)