We’ve been asked quite a few times what made us decide to adopt again and how we came to decide upon adopting from Ethiopia. For those of you that don’t know our story we currently have four children: Kelli 26, Ryan 24, Luke 6 and Anna 4. (Anna is our little angel who we brought home from Guatemala at age 7 months.)
Our decision to adopt again came from signs that we were getting from every angle of our lives. It started with us watching Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. That particular episode showed a family who had adopted several children from Haiti and the US. The next day at church our minister talked about feeding the hungry and giving them shelter. I had dreams several nights in a row that we should be adopting again. Then we heard ‘Don’t give ’til it hurts-Give ’til it feels good’. Our two youngest kids took on a project of giving to Haiti and not only gave some of their treasured toys, but also gave money that was theirs to spend on whatever they wanted for themselves. Alright already, as a woman I felt my hormones bursting at the seams. The only question in my mind was how many children would we adopt, one or two. Bless Eric’s heart, he was not only willing to broach the possibility of adopting, I found out he was excited about the chance, while also being more realistic about how many children we could handle.
Katie, a girlfriend of mine, told me about a blog written by the father of a tiny Ethiopian boy and their family’s journey in bringing him home. Why not Ethiopia for us too? I read that Ethiopians believe that happiness comes from the inside out. Despite their surroundings they find inner peace that I believe most Americans dream of. There is such a need for permanent, loving families for these beautiful children. By this time I knew that Eric and I would welcome a child into our home and realized too that we would be up for the unknown challenges of adopting a child from Ethiopia. We will be bringing home a child that speaks Amharic, not English, he has lived in an orphanage not a foster home, and there’s a good chance he will have some difficulty attaching to us, but we’ll be okay and he’ll be okay. We’ll do whatever it takes because he’s our son.