Why Ethiopia?

Thru many blogs and books, we have become educated on how AIDS, poverty, and war have created a crisis of unfathomable proportions leaving millions of children orphaned and all alone in Africa.

An entire generation of parents are no longer; there are 4.4 million orphans in just Ethiopia.

Our hearts have broken for these orphans. We feel like God has enabled us to weep for these children.

And now we feel like God is asking us to be one of these children’s mom and dad.

We are excited; we are scared, we are in awe. Us? He wants us?! to be the mom and dad of this little boy? What a privilege! He chose us out of all the moms and dads to be this little boy’s family. That brings tears to our eyes.

• One in six children in Ethiopia die before their fifth birthday

• 44% of the population of Ethiopia is under 15 years old

• 1.5 million people are infected with AIDS (6th highest in the world)

• Drought struck the country from 2000-2002 (first year no crops, second year no seeds, third year no animals)

• Half the children in Ethiopia will never attend school. 88% will never attend secondary school.

• Ethiopia’s doctor to children ratio is 1 to 24,000.

• In 1993, after 30 long years of war, Eritrea broke from Ethiopia and became an independent nation leaving Ethiopia landlocked without any major seafaring ports.

Staggering.

Unbelievable.

Incomprehensible to us middle class Americans.

We (Rob and Su) are not oblivious anymore; we are no longer ignorant.

We have been made aware.

We have grown disturbed and broken over this crisis.

And we’ve come to realize that crazy love takes action.

As one blog we stumbled upon posted:

Love is an action word

Love doesn’t sit idle

Love doesn’t stay where is comfortable

Love doesn’t wait until there is enough money

or until all its ducks are in a row

Love doesn’t worry about what other people think

Love is an action word

The action we feel God is calling us to is another adoption.