Difficulties...

It was taking a class on international adoption and on the following week on bonding that I was struck with a hard idea. I realized that this trek we are taking into this adoption is larger than I had thought. Many things came up in these classes. Things such as the hardship to the children who will be leaving their home country, language and culture. They will come to a land where they will not fully grasp who they might have been if they had stayed. Had their parents lived, and they were able to grow up, who knows who they would have been. I mourned for them that day, and since I have mourned for them again. I realize that as they grow older and realize what they have lost they also will mourn.

Yet if we don't adopt them, will they ever be adopted by a black family? Are there enough families in Ethiopia who can adopt? Will they be able to support them if they could adopt? The reality is grim. Realistically if there were enough to adopt them, there wouldn't be so many orphans in Ethiopia (5 million according to BBC and half due to Aids in the year 2005). The average life span for an Ethiopian is only 40 years old!

How tragic that this nation is in this state and yet maybe one of the ways that we help them is by adopting the unwanted and bringing them to a place where they can have health care, where they can be educated, where they can learn to teach others. Maybe this is one way that we keep Ethiopia alive. Not the best plan, but one where Ethiopian children, those with no families to care for them, noone who wants them can find that they are wanted, that they are sought after, that they are worth sacrificing for. Possibly that this love that people and families like ours which can be shared with them, will bless their hearts and make them whole. Not the whole that I would want for them with their mom and dad in their home country, but a whole that is better than living a life as an orphan that noone wants. Wondering what was wrong with them that they couldn't be adopted while others are...

There are no best answers here, only help for difficult situations. That is the trek we have embarked on. Not a best situation, but help for a difficult one.

And maybe in the end they will find love.

Love to you all
So thankful to know that I am loved...

Mari