No More Counting The Cost: Ethiopia

Showing posts with label Ethiopia. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Wednesday Morning

This is really lame. We have been home 5 weeks and I am just on Wednesday of our trip. Yep, really lame.

Oh well.

Wednesday is Embassy day if you are going with AAI, so that is what was planned for the afternoon. Gail came by the guest house early to finish paperwork, and we filled the morning with a trip to Opportunity House, which is AAI's new house for most of their special needs kids. Most of these kids were at Layla on my last trips, and I wanted to make sure we got over there to see them all.

The kids were of course wonderful, and we all had fun playing with them, praying for them, visiting and saying goodbye to friends, and visiting the house mothers.

Then we found the kitchen and I finally got to do what I have been wondering about for such a long time - making injera. The mothers in the kitchen were great, and let me watch/help. My try at pouring the batter turned out a little on the ugly side (pretty lumpy) but I am still proud.

We finished the morning with lunch at Layla, which is still my favorite thing to do - sharing a meal with all of those kids. Breaking injera together is what God intended for us, and it is so easy to see why.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

She's Back!

Denise Baker is headed back to Ethiopia, and will be blogging once again on Destination Ethiopia. She will be working for Adoption Link and hopes to spend some time at Layla House as well.

If you aren't aware, Denise was a volunteer at Layla last year for 7 months while Marta was there, and has become a friend of ours through our travels there and at home since she came back. She is an amazing person, and such a good writer.

Go and check out what she has going on - you will be sucked into life in Addis in no time.

We love you Deniseye! See you soon!

Monday, April 02, 2007

Goodbye, or Warning, Layla House Is A Dangerous Place

Oh boy.

When I went to Addis this time, I had an ulterior motive, an agenda beyond bringing home Meklit. As I was preparing to leave I had 2 questions posed to me. The first, from Julie Hehn, was "who is next?"

We had some interest in some of the older girls who are still there, and I went with the intent of getting to know them a little bit better, and to see if God would speak to me about whether or not any of these kids were ours. We know that God knows who our kids are, and always has. It is just a matter of listening to Him to find out who they are, then simply bringing them home. No pros and cons, no sweating finances or space in the house for more kids, just hear and do.

So...while Meklit and I were there we spent nearly all of our time, from before breakfast, through lunch and past dinner with the kids at Layla – mostly with the older girls, Marta's friends, to see if one of them was actually a sister.

As I have said countless times before, these kids are nothing short of amazing to me. They have lived difficult lives that we can't even get our heads around, and to come out on the other side with these sweet, loving, nurturing spirits blows my mind. It speaks to me of the mysterious grace of God's love.

The other question before I left came from Denise Baker, wondering if I had met a certain girl and her brother on my last visit. She thought that they would be a good fit for our family, but I couldn't remember meeting the kids, just vague pictures of the girl. So, they went on my list of kids to get to know better.

As I said before, we spent nearly all of our 3 days with the older girls. We had a great time with them, and with a couple of hours left before I knew we had to get back to the guest house to get packed, I was really starting to get choked up. When it came time for us to say good-bye, I started to say to the girls that we had to go now, and... I lost it. Total meltdown - a sobbing, snotting mess of tears. To make it worse, about 1/2 second into my meltdown they all lost it too, and we were all a mess. It just broke my heart to have to leave them behind, and to not take them all with me. They are all so wonderful, and they would be such great kids to have in our family.

Finally we all got it together so Meklit and I could leave. We went out towards the gate and found Ted with a bunch of kids and of course the skateboard. He asked me how I was doing and I lost it again. After a few minutes I explained to him that it broke my heart to leave the kids, and while I could hope and pray for them to get families, there were 2 kids that I couldn't hope or pray that for. I went asking for God to reveal our kids to me, and Lisa and Marta were at home praying for Him to open my heart to our next kids. Well, He does answer prayers, and I was heartbroken to have to leave 2 of our kids behind. It felt to me that I was leaving them there for someone else to adopt, and I just couldn't handle that thought.

Meklit and I got in one last round of hugs and kisses at the gate, promised to keep in touch, and went to the guest house so I could pack really quickly before Nate picked us up to go to the airport. I was a mess again at the guest house, and went through a bunch of tissue while packing. When I was done I figured we had a ½ hour to spare, so we called Nate to pick us up at Layla, and went back for that last few minutes of visiting.

I love being there in the mornings when things are just coming to life, and in the evening when the day is winding down. We joined the kids for their evening prayer time, which is led by the older kids. I love to see the older ones going to gather their younger siblings for prayer, and I got to sit there with Ashenafi on my lap.

Then it was really time to go, and it went much better this time around. Not surprising to me due to the providence of God, Merrily rode to the airport with us. She and I both live in Washington State, and the only 2 times I have ever seen or spoken to her have been in Addis. I asked her how long we would have to wait until we started the process again, and she told me there is a 6 month wait to begin the process again, and of course asked why. I told her I was leaving 2 of my kids behind, and that we needed to bring them home as quickly as possible. She said after she got back she would check into their status, and we would talk.

Needless to say, I now had something to occupy my time for the next 36 hours of travel, and I read Psalms and prayed most of the way home.

God has used times like this with me 4 times, all related to our children, when He reduced me to a messy puddle and in the process transformed my heart. The first time was when Jeff was born, then during the process of adopting Joy, again during the process with Marta, and now at Layla - each time using my broken state to radically change my heart. Really it is more of a new alignment of my heart, a tuning if you will. On the plane home these scriptures gave me peace.

Isaiah 25
9 In that day they will say,
"Surely this is our God;
we trusted in him, and he saved us.
This is the LORD, we trusted in him;
let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation."

Psalms 5
7 But I, by your great mercy,
will come into your house;
in reverence will I bow down
toward your holy temple.

It isn’t something I even pretend to fully understand, and I know it isn’t just about kids. What I do know is that it is about right alignment to the throne of God, and faith in the mystery of His sovereign ways.

Our flight home was uneventful, other than a minor glitch of Meklit being ticketed for Seattle and me for Portland, but a few $$$ and a little time in DC took care of that. She did incredible, ate (and still does) everything put before her, and slept a ton. The staff on Ethiopian Airlines helps you so much with things like the bathroom, and asking what they would like to drink, etc. With a language barrier and being shy, their help was much appreciated.

After our layover in DC, we flew to San Francisco, and then on to Portland. By leaving at ~11 pm from Addis after a long day, the trip is really long considering it is another 36 hours to get home.

I did fine until I saw Lisa, and then I felt the emotions surge through me again. Everyone was so excited to meet Meklit, and Marta was a welcome sight to her I am sure. Josiah held her hand as we walked down to find our luggage. I couldn’t even talk, and when we got down the baggage claim area Lisa asked me what had happened, and in an instant I lost it. What an amazing wife God has blessed me with. I told her through sobs that I had to leave 2 of our kids behind, and her only response was that we had better get to work on the paperwork to bring them home. She didn’t even know their names.

Friday, March 30, 2007

The Last Day

It seemed like I had just got there and really I had. Day three and I was needing to pack us up to leave that night. I packed up all of the things I had brought to donate at Layla, and Meklit, Ted and I headed over for breakfast.

By now when we walk in the kids swarm us, and we are hugged and kissed all over again. What a great start to the day. Meklit is taken by Tsion, and she will again spend much of the day with she, Rahel and Tigist, as Marta’s friends continue to show us love as if we were family.

Ted heads off with a throng of boys in tow to skateboard, and I started to make my rounds greeting with a touch, hug and/or kiss every little face that I could find. I have always struggled to know what I want to do when I grow up, and now I know. I want to be the head of hug therapy at Layla House – that is my dream job. Merrily, if you ever read this, let me know what you think.

Breakfast today was the pancakes Marta had been describing to me. They are very big around, so you get slices like you would of a NY pizza. They are big wedges of pancake that look more like injera than our pancakes, but are denser, thicker and don’t have the sour taste. They are cooked on the injera mitads, and just like injera are not flipped, so the top is the bubbles just like injera.

They are smothered in VERY sweet syrup, and of course there is very sweet tea too. Breakfast is when these guys get their sugar fix for the day, and the dense, sweet slice filled me up.

I let Terefu have my camera for the day after showing her how to use it, and she took ~200 pictures throughout the day.

I spent 2 periods of class time with the 2 groups of combined 4/5 kids in Ku Ku’s music class. He played the guitar, I played the djembe I left last time, and we all sang worship songs that Ku Ku has learned by ear, and taught the kids. We had a great time, and I now have an obligation to get him some music to read.

I also played soccer for 2 periods, and if you are uncertain if the elevation will affect you, play soccer. Wow! I was one tired, hot ferenge.

Lunch was shiro and alecha cabbage and potatoes that was awesome. I could eat like that every day. So good.

After that it was hot so we spent most of our time hanging out in different bedrooms (the kids call them classes, like “J” class, or “H” class, which are really just the room numbers).

Terefu was taking pictures like crazy of everyone, and they were having fun posing for her. I brought my laptop over and loaded them all so they could see a slide show and watch the movies we took too. There is a great one of all of Marta’s friends being silly and saying hi to her, saying goofy things in Amharic that I still don’t understand, and singing songs for her.

While we were there that afternoon there was a film crew capturing Tigist and her siblings getting their family gift bags. What an exciting time for so many kids, to see what they will someday receive. But it must be a scary time for them too - a time when they feel doubtful about it all as well. I want so badly for them all to get homes soon.

If you have ever felt your heart tug towards adopting these older children, you won't regret it. I would take ALL of them home with us if we could.

Going Away

Tuesday evening we went to Meklit's orphanage for her going away party. I was hoping it would be with all of the kids - both young and old, but it was such short notice that they could only have the younger kids and a few of Meklit's older friends.

It was still really good. Lots of singing and praying by the kids, and snacks and my first and only (so far) coffee ceremony.

It was obvious that the house mothers really love these kids, and it is a mixed bag of emotion when they are leaving. Like Denise told me a few weeks ago, it is so wonderful to see them doing well at home, but also hard to see them leave.

This is Hanna clapping with the white wrap on her head, and she is amazing. Such love for the kids, and this fun, playful, affectionate relationship with each of them. She got really emotional when it was time for us to go, and I said I would be back to visit her again. Last time I was there and she was taking a number of kid's temps with an under the arm thermometer I told her I would try to bring her something quicker. I took her a digital one that goes in the ear and she and the nurse were delighted.

The highlight for me was one of Meklit's friends praying over her. I have it on video as well as a number of the songs, so I don't know what she said, but it was so sweet.