As many of you might remember, we
had an adoption fundraiser on Friday, May 17th. It was a
huge success and we are so grateful to our amazing, generous and kind hearted
family and friends (YOU!) for the support. We raised about $7,000 toward our
adoption when everything was said and done!! This is such a huge help to cover
the $28,000 estimated cost!! There is much, much more to that day though…
Ironically, as we were frantically getting ready for the fundraiser that night
we got a call from our adoption agency with a referral for a sibling pair from
far west Ethiopia in a region called Gambela. We couldn’t believe the timing of
this! Really? A referral on the exact
day of our fundraiser? After a week of talking through what seemed like the
biggest decision of our lives, we said yes to the siblings and then started to
program ourselves and Zander and Sienna for a new brother (4) and sister (2) to arrive.
We were extremely excited and it
seemed like they were going to be the perfect addition to the family. Five
weeks later came a curveball. The Adoption Agency called with some news that
their mom had returned to the orphanage where she had dropped them off five
months prior and picked them up. We will never know the details of how her
situation had changed. One way or another she decided she wanted to raise her
children. It was hard news to take because we were so emotionally invested in
them but it was also great news. We were so happy that they can be raised by
their mom...that is the way it should be. Their little faces will always be in
our hearts and we feel so blessed that our lives crossed paths with theirs.
With little time to process and some
difficult news to share with Zander and Sienna (who were talking about Wasi and
Amira every day), we had barely realized what just happened when the agency
called us with the next referral which we accepted immediately. That was June
28th and here we are now. We have been matched with a little girl for a little
over four months. Again, for reasons we
may never know, her mother decided she wasn’t able to raise her and the
orphanage became the only home she has ever known since that sad, fateful 10th
day of her life. Her story is long, she
has been stuck in the system, but timing was perfect to find our family. It seems meant to be. She was about 1 and 1/2 years old back in
June when we first saw her beautiful little face and she looked so healthy. She
is from Mekelle, which is in the northernmost area of Ethiopia, near the
Eritrean border. With cautious
enthusiasm we wait.
It is such a paradox
in our adoption journey how there is such a deep need to mourn what these
children have been through, with no power whatsoever to control their destiny
and the harsh impact of poverty on their lives. It is impossible for us to
fathom how a mother can make a conscious choice to put her child in an
orphanage in hopes that another family will find them and provide them a better
life. This kind of desperation, or perhaps courage and strength, is impossible
to understand and can’t be fully captured in the written word. On the other
hand, we are bursting at the seams with joy and excitement about enveloping her
with love, family, home, opportunity, and all the wonders and blessings of our
lives. What an emotional workout this is J
Fast forward to
today…The process getting our little girl home has been excruciatingly slow but
we are happy to share with you that things are finally moving along in the last
few weeks. I would be happy to share more about all of this over a beer with
any of you. The highlight of highlights in the last couple of weeks was getting
a short paragraph from a Denver adoption agency staff that was in Ethiopia and
had the chance to meet her. It is the first bit of information we have ever
received about her personality…which sounds BIG!
Please tell the Lee's that I want to
be their daughter’s god mother!! just kidding. But I love her! She gives
kisses. She even kisses {one of the babies}!!!! She loves {one of the babies}.
In fact, she is the bossy one in the baby room and is very sassy. She loves to
sing and run around. She also is very caring. I was holding {one of the babies}
and she kept coming up touching his cheek and kissing him! Just some info to
share with the Lees!
My immediate response was
that she sounds like the Ethiopian version of our four year old, Sienna….HA! We
(including Zander) could be in big trouble with two power-house girls on our hands
J
