So, funny story, the last post I wrote was about how excited I was that I had found stuff I could be working on toward our eventual adoption while we waited for our life to calm down enough so we could decide what our plan was. I thought I was just getting a head start, and that
someday, far off in the future we'd adopt. HOWEVER...
Last week we went out to a fancy dinner and made the decision that we're ready to pursue adoption, like NOW! We've spent the last week telling our family and close friends, and that's been really sweet. I don't think it's really sunk in yet, but at the same time it's all I can think about. Have I mentioned...
We're going to be adopting a sweet baby (12months or less) from the BEAUTIMUS land of ETHIOPIA!!!! And we're so excited, we can't wait!
"Why Ethiopia?" you might ask. Well, let me just tell ya... we both just feel our hearts drawn over seas, especially after reading books like
Field of the Fatherless by Tom Davis, and
There's No Me Without You by Melissa Fay Greene, and after learning so much about the world through Compassion International. As for the specific country, a friend of mine who has adopted internationally shared with me that as she and her husband were considering this for themselves, they asked themselves what culture they were most drawn to. After all, this culture's gonna be a celebrated part of your home for the rest of your life. For us that narrowed the search to the continent of Africa. And to be perfectly honest we weren't very well educated about the similarities and differences in its individual countries in terms of culture, socio-economic status, or really anything. So from there we began our search, investigating geography and economics, scouring agencies and programs and prerequisites, until we landed on Ethiopia. This last part of the decision seems really technical, but as we started investigating, we found that it's an ancient, beautiful country, rich in history and tradition, but it also faces the daily struggles of poverty, disease, and famine. We feel both inspired by the beauty of Ethiopian culture, and compelled to reach out to it. They call it the cradle of life, it's people the lost tribe of Israel. Archaeologists and theologians (my dad included) speculate that the arc of the covenant might be hidden in Ethiopia. They have beautiful legends of a dynasty of great rulers descended from a secret union between king Solomon and the famed Queen of Sheba (which I'm finding out may really be accurate). I mean, how much cooler can you get!?!?! Ethiopia's been in our hearts for over 2 years now, we just knew that that's where our baby was gonna be. Now we get to go find it!!!!
If you think of us when you're praying: (I'm anticipating this might need to be a recurring section in our blog) We've hit roadblock number 1. We need to get out of our apartment. It's not fit for a baby, and most likely wouldn't pass a home study. We have a couple of options, but it's a tricky, wait it out sort of thing, and that's hard. Please pray for us.
Below is a picture of the sweetest children's book I've found that deals with the subject of adoption. It's called A Mother for Choco, and as my sweet cousin would say "It's the best!" Does anyone have any sweet books they'd recommend?
