Well, our 2 weekends of garage sales are over and we made a grand total of $1,200!!!! We are thrilled and thankful to everyone that came by and bought things and everyone that donated items-thank you again so much! This money will help to pay for bringing baby "A" home. (Found out this week we can't post her real name until we pass court in Ethiopia-it is a government rule, same reason we won't be able to post her picture anywhere on-line until we pass court).
So, next thing is we are starting "ZACHARY'S CAN/WATER BOTTLE DRIVE" for all of September.....any of you that I work with, you could just bring them to work and I can get them from the parking lot after work, anyone can leave them on our front porch, or we would be so willing to pick them up, SO SAVE THOSE CANS!!!! Zachary is so excited and we think this will really give him a chance to get involved and feel a part of it.
Many people have asked us, "Why Ethiopia" and so we figured we would just post our answer on here so that it can get answered to a lot of people at once. Here are some facts:
There are 4.6 Million orphans in Ethiopia
One in 10 children will die before their 1st birthday, in the USA, 7 out of 1,000 will die in a their first year!
Ethiopia only has 1 doctor per 24,000 children!
Ethiopia's average life expectancy women: 50 years, Men: 48 years In America an average person will live to be 78!
These are just a few, you can find more on the side of our blog page. We know there are so many kids in need of homes here in the US, but for the most part, they will go on living and at least have a foster home. We had in fact signed up to adopt a bi-racial infant from a company in Alabama when we were unable to get pregnant, but then we got pregnant with the twins, so we had to pull our application. So we do think that the US adoptions are very needed and can be very wonderful too, so don't get us wrong.
That being said, the Ethiopian kids will either starve on the streets, die of malnutrition or disease, there are not lots of foster families like there are here, and they don't just get medical care and food like we have access to here, even their drinking water is bad!
After thinking through this, we know that by choosing to adopt from Ethiopia, we are not just adopting, but actually saving her life, because of all of the poverty. Yes, there is lots of poverty in America, but it is on a different level with different circumstances. Also, after seeing what woman and young girls do to their bodies and their unborn here in America, we actually feel safer going with Ethiopia! This sounds funny, but it is true for us as we consider the risks verses the benefits.
Our US system can be very messed up with how they often keep kids in foster care for way too long while waiting for the mom to get back on track, and then the kids are dealing with so many issues by the time they are finally adopted. On top of this, they can then have to deal with the issues that they may have due to the behaviors of the mom during pregnancy. This isn't to say we don't believe in US adoptions, we do and we are so thankful that their are families that adopt from the US-these are wonderful families too, with many wonderful things to offer children. We just chose to go with Ethiopia after much thought and consideration.
The Ethiopian culture is very different than here in America. The Ethiopian people HIGHLY value children and they don't want to give them up, in fact, one of the things that you have to realize during your time in Ethiopia is that people will come and just take your baby from you just to see and talk to it and show them off to others...they say do not be alarmed by this-this is their culture, kids are one of the most important things there! Also, they are typically not doing the things that we do to our bodies, they are just in poverty. It kills me to think of a mother having to give up her child just so that the child will be fed!
Anyway, these are some of the things that drew us to the country. The poverty, the value for children, the generosity of the people and the wonderful cultrue they have. We hear they are some of the most generous people! They all help each other, and share what they do have-we could all learn a lot of lessons from them and their values. On top of this, we are just drawn to the beauty of the people-we think they are very beautiful and we are really begining to have a love for the country as we learn more and more about it.
Some have also asked if we are worried due to the AIDS crisis in africa (720,000 kids have been orphaned due to AIDS). Yes, of course we thought this through, but after much research and talking to other families that have adopted from our agency, we are at peace with this. The orphanage and US government tests the kids a total of 3 times before they can come into America. The US doesn't allow them to come if they are positive for HIV-unless this is a HIV adoption and then I don't know what the rules are. If a test is positive in a baby, it is nearly almost always a false positive because it has picked up the mother's anti-bodies, and the baby is really negative. So, if they are negative, they are almost always really negative. Our testing system is pretty accurate now. We are leaving this in God's hands and just have to trust in Him and in the system to give us a healty baby girl!
That being said-SAVE THOSE CANS!
