A Week I Will Never Forget

It has been less than 48 hours since we returned from Ethiopia.  Our tummies are still trying to figure out what the heck happened, and our sleep cycles may take awhile to return to normal.  We had a great week getting to know our girls and we feel like we started to form a bond with them.  It was hard to leave them there.  It just feels so unnatural to meet them, get to know them, bond a little, and then leave them!  Praying that time goes by quickly, and that their hearts and minds will understand that we're coming back for them!

What we saw in Ethiopia will be burned into our memories forever.  The look that one mother gave Jeremy as she came up to the window of our van is something that I will never, ever forget.  Her eyes said a thousand words.  She had a small child in one hand, and a baby on her back.  We happened to have our girls with us in the van at the time, and our middle daughter immediately grabbed our backpack and searched for food to give to this mother.  We had a gallon-sized baggie full of fruit snacks that we brought for the girls to share with their friends.  Our daughter pulled the bag out of our backpack and motioned to Jeremy to give it to this mom.  Fruit snacks??...But this mom took the bag, walked about 5 feet, threw it on the ground and began ripping the bags open with her teeth to feed her children.  I so wish that we would have had something more nutritious to share with her.  The part of this story I will never forget is how our daughter immediately reached for our backpack and wanted to share what she had with this momma who was desperate to feed her children. 

Our agency has a psychologist and a physician on staff in Ethiopia.  We were able to meet with both of them, and we were humbled to hear more about our girls' story.  The girls have been through more than any child should ever have to endure.  We are so thankful for a God who is big enough to heal hurts and fill in the empty spaces.  We pray that the girls find their identity not in their past, or future, but in their God who gives all of us the grace we need to get through this life.  My goals in this life are to love God with all of my being, and to show my 6 children the love He has lavished upon them, so that they will know Him and be called His children.  

After this past week, I think adoption is glamorized a little bit.  I don't know that people really talk about the hard parts much.  Adoption.  Is.  Hard.  It's hard for everyone involved.  The travel to another continent and back is brutal!  The emotions that everyone experiences are brutal!  Hearing about the life that your adopted child has lived, and trying to process how you're going to help them heal from that is brutal!  The fear involved is almost crippling.  I had to keep reminding myself that God didn't give me a spirit of fear, that comes from somewhere else.  I choose joy and peace.  Another adoptive mom told me that I would probably need to grieve our family as it was before I could truly open up and welcome the girls and accept our family as it is now.  It's not that I'm not excited about our family of 8, I'm just trying to process all of this.  This process HAS to be brutal for the girls.  As excited as the girls are to have a new family, this has to be so incredibly hard on them.

We were excited to go to Ethiopia to meet our girls, and that was a blessing.  What we didn't expect was to meet some of the most amazing people on the planet while we were there.  Our agency alone had about 28 families in country last week.  This meant that not all of us could be housed in their guest house.  We, along with several other families, were housed in a "hotel" in Addis Ababa.  It was an adventure that I'm sure none of us will ever forget!  Who knew that God would call us to Ethiopia and then allow us to meet these amazing families!?!?  Jeremy and I keep talking about how blessed we were to be able to bond with all of them!  We cannot imagine the trip without these amazing people.  God is good all the time.  He orchestrates every detail!