How Did We Choose Russia and Ethiopia?

I haven't blogged much lately on my site, but I have for several others.

Here is a blog I wrote for my friend, Jamie Ivey. She is doing a series on her blog about how to choose where to adopt.
Go to Dreaming Big Dreams and give it a read!

Meeting God on the Other Side of the World

Here is a blog post I just wrote for Hope in Ethiopia. Give it a read!

Orphans and widows of Zeway, Ethiopia who we support through a community-to-community relationship with our church, Food for the Hungry and the churches in Zeway.

More than Stuck

I went to the documentary film Stuck last night.  A great film providing an amazing overview of the international adoption process and the issues that cause families and children to become stuck in the process.  I have spent many hours and blog posts trying to explain the international adoption process to people, and this film has captured the process logistics and emotions perfectly.

The goal of this film and the organization promoting it, Both Ends Burning, is to put pressure on governments to open wide the doors of international adoption. International adoption has steadily declined over the last 8 years due to many country closings and bureaucracy slow downs.


This is a step towards helping the millions of children who suffer in institutions and on the street, but there is more that is needed to help these children.

In my opinion a holistic solution to the global orphan crisis would be multifaceted as so:

1. Support International Adoption. Not many kids come home through this process. It is not the cure. Even if the cost and the amount of time were considerably better, not everyone is called to adoption.  My opinion is that international adoption is most effective as part of the solution because of the AWARENESS it creates when people bring their kids home.  Suddenly, a Rwandan child is no longer a statistic, but we can see them as a fun-loving, beautiful, God-created child. Along with this is the stories that adoptive parents come home telling about the needs and the love they gain for the people in the country.  This advocacy, in my opinion, goes far to help orphans (though the single life a child is all worth it).

2. Support an organization that encourages and facilitates local adoption.  The U.S. is blessed to have progressed well towards an adoption culture.  There are still obstacles, bents and stereotypes of adopted kids, but we are so far ahead of many cultures.  Kidmia is an organization in Ethiopia that facilitates adoptions in Ethiopia (Ethiopian kids adopted by Ethiopian parents).  They also have conferences that promote the "Spirit of Adoption" theologically as well as emotionally preparing families.

3. Support a group that keeps biological families together.  Adoption is a small part of the answer to the many orphans in the world.  The bigger problem that must be faced is why are these children orphaned in the first place?  And how do we support families to keep their children?  Hope in Ethiopia, a community-to-community partnership organized by Food for the Hungry does just that.  Hope in Ethiopia keeps kids from becoming orphans by supporting HIV widows.  In the Bible, the command to care for orphans is most often accompanied with caring for widows as well. We must see this as God showing us part of the answer to the orphan crisis -- keeping children from being orphaned in the first place by caring for widows. In the States, there is an organization called Safe Families that supports biological families to care for their kids BEFORE CPS gets involved.

4. Support an organization that cares for those aged-out.  The stats are terrible for our foster care kids in the States as well as in other countries.  If a kid grows up as an orphan/foster care kid, chances are good that the cycle will continue, and they will create more orphans when they leave their own children behind.  A couple I know, Robert and Ann Fuqua, mentor aged-out Russian orphans through East/West Ministries. The young men are shown a future and hope for their lives and a way out of the cycle they are living.  There are many opportunities in our foster care system to mentor American kids, for instance, Ready by 21.

5. Provide for a child's physical, spiritual, and emotional needs.  There will always be a time when some children are without a family and need the basics to live. Often this means supporting an orphanage.  I'll have to post about my feelings about orphanages at a later time, but find an organization that does not see building an orphanage as the answer. If we truly want to care for orphans, we'll engage the local community to provide for the children. Hope in Ethiopia has  great success in engaging the local churches in Zeway, Ethiopia to care for the orphans and widows in their community.

6. Final component that I would include is a large dose of prayer. We must pray for the return of Jesus to this world to right the wrongs. The Bible says we will always have the poor among us, and some of the poorest of the poor are children.  I will wait expectantly on His return to truly turn the mess we make of families to the way they were intended.

Okay.  So that is my list.  Quite a bit more than just international adoption and you may also notice that it is a list in which EVERYONE can get involved somewhere.

I do love the film Stuck, and I do think they are on to something and have a great platform which to change the way communities care for children. If you missed the showing of the film in your city, you can download the movie on their website www.bothendsburning.org and invite all your friends to see it in your living room.

The Nookie Game

A tale from the life of my oldest:

Last week, West came home a hot mess. Angry, yelling at me, slapping his brother around, picking at his baby sister. A wreck.  I loaded him up on protein snacks because hunger is usually the driving force behind this behavior.

Scarfing down his peanuts, ham, cheese, and yogurt, the real reason for his behavior came out.

And it started like this:

"I have no one to play with at school. No one is my friend."

"Hmm?" I replied and turned to look full on at West.  Closing the pantry door, I lost interest in that night's dinner plans because nothing tears into my heart like this kind of a statement from my kids.

West's eyes filled with tears and he melted onto the counter and just cried. Big, sad tears, and he said "Neely won't let the other kids play with me. She is playing this game and she won't let me play. I had to sit by myself all recess.  And recess is like an hour long. I sat in the gravel for an hour, Mom."

I'm about in tears myself and I walked around to him and with his arms spread wide, he buried his head in me and held me as he wept.

It was so sad.

We wiped away tears and I helped him come up with some ways of talking with his friends and Neely.  It seemed that EVERYONE else was playing the game that Neely had made up called "Nookie" (yes. I did question this and confirmed it was innocent enough) We also discussed when it was necessary to have a teacher come and help. West was pessimistic for quite a while saying nothing would help, that he would sit in the gravel again the next day.  A spark of hope, however, entered when he said that Jason might help him break open the game for him.  Jason had tried that day, at least.

Later, in the car, West said, "I think I know why Neely won't let me in the game."
"Oh?" I replied.
"It was a long time ago but I was swinging and I told her to get out of the way and she didn't and I kicked her in the head."
"Oh." I responded.  "That will do it."

The next day I picked up West from the bus stop, and he was a new man.  Jason had succeeded in helping him break open the exclusive game.

"Mom!" West exclaimed. "I'm a nummy!"
"A nummy?" I said.  I thought it was "nookie"
"Yes! Neely made me a nummy and the next level is a nookie!"

(I'm sensing some real egotistical tendencies with this Neely girl who makes up games with class systems of nookies and nummies, and where she is referred to as "Queen Neely")

I dug deeper into this level system.  "So you are a nummy. What are the other levels?"

"Well, Mom, there is only one more after "nummy" and that is "nookie".  With the exception of being Queen, you can't go any higher than nookie and I'm almost there.  I went straight to "nummy" and skipped being a devil."

"There are devils in this game?"

"Yes," West answered joyfully. "There are devils but I didn't have to be one. I skipped straight to nummy."

That's my boy.  I always thought he would be able to move easily straight to the top, and a little adversity in doing so only adds great character.

Your One Room Home

It has been a while since I have posted.  This is what I have been up to: AFAH

The conference went beautifully.  Such a blessing and I'm so very thankful to be a part of it.

I've had more time to think  of other things since Saturday, and my mind constantly goes.  Not because I'm all that smart. Probably more of a lack of self-discipline.  But my mind goes and lately, I've been filling it with thoughts about living space.

How much space do we really need to call home?  Here is the game I play several times a day:

Take whatever room you are sitting in currently in your house. Look at all the nooks and crannies and dimensions and imagine what would it be like if that was all you had. Your home was that one room.

I have imagined this in every room in my house. Even in waiting rooms and office buildings.

There would be bunk beds for the boys. Niya would sleep in a bed much smaller than her crib. We would have a full-sized bed. No couch, no chairs. There is usually a sink, a small table or I use a mini-fridge as the table space, and a 2 burner stove.  I can usually fit a small shower and toilet in the space I'm in. No storage cabinets. No dining tables.  However, in some rooms I can fit small versions of those things. Hooks on the walls to store a pan and pot and a couple spoons. A cup and plate for each of us, and a small cabinet for clothes and towel storage.

Visiting Negatu and Johannes in their one room home.

That's it. That is all there is usually room for in a big room.  Crazy as it seems for us, there is still more room than the huts that we have visited in Ethiopia.

This isn't an exercise in guilt.  I don't loathe myself for having more rooms than one or a great deal more storage than a single cabinet. It's a perspective thing, and it keeps me grateful. Very grateful.

Try it in the room you are in now.  Then think about if you could really do it--  live in a one room house. With your family.  Most of the rest of the world does.