Hey All, It's been awhile, I know, things on the adoption front have been very disappointing lately. The wait times keep going up, our agency is now saying we should expect to wait 18-24 months for a referral. We have currently been waiting 10 months. We would appreciate your prayers, especailly for our children as they wait. My heart aches to have them home in my arms. On a completely different note I leave with a few touching things Abe has said in the last few months that reassure me that God has a plan and a purpose in the waiting. During Holy Week we attended a drama of Christ's crucifixtion. Abe wept through much of the performance and on the way home he said something like this, "Mom if you or i had to die, you know we haaaad to die, I would die for you", then he turns and looks at his brothers and says, "I would die so you can have mom." I thought my heart would melt right there, Abe had wept because he had understood just how big a sacrafice Christ had made. He understood that God gave Jesus to die so we could live. Several weeks later Abe said to me in an extremely serious voice, "Mom I need to tell you something really important," he pauses for dramatic effect and then says, "I LOVE YOU!" and throws his head back and laughs like he just said the funniest thing in the world. That's our Abe the son we waited on for almost 2 1/2 years and worth every minute, and so we'll keep on waiting for the next two, praying all the while that God will bring them home soon.

He's HOME!!!

Ben made it home safe and sound. The boys and I are so gald to have him back. Hope you enjoy reading about his journey, if you have any interest or would like to know more don't hesitate to ask. Ben really feels a calling to help the "least of these" and if you would like to be invovled in some way we'd love to help you get started or point you in the right direction.
Blessings,
Leigha

How Can You Help!

Friday morning we went to a government orphanage. It was a very different environment that the other places we've been. The Ethiopian government has decided to focus more on reunification (meaning trying to keep orphans with families) instead of international adoption. Unfortunately, this is slow and often impossible process which means that the orphans suffer. Even more unfortunately, it sometimes means that orphans are placed in back in situations where they are unloved or abused or even worse. I don't want to be overly critical of the Ethiopian government. While I don't agree with some of their practices and policies, they are faced with a HUGE problem and they do a lot of things really well. That said, international adoption is not the perfect solution for every situation. God's plan was for families to stay together and to love and care for one another. Sadly this doesn't happen nearly enough, thus the world's orphan crisis. There is no one solution to the problem. One of the best aspects of this trip has been to see so many different people doing so many different things that really do work and really do make a difference. The fact of the matter is that this probably is the solution--lots of people following their individual callings with love and compassion while seeking justice for the oppressed by trying to meet not only physical needs but more importantly break the "orphan" spirit that tells the least of these that they don't matter, that they aren't valuable, that they are worth loving, that they don't have hope or a future.



After leaving the government orphanage, we ate lunch with Jimmy and Rachel Gross, American missionaries who are getting ready to open a home-based children's care facility. It is similar to what has traditionally been called an orphanage, but it will be smaller in scale to facilitate more of a family environment. They took us to see the facility that they are going to use. It was an incredible place and they were able to rent it for an incredible price. We were the first guests to see it, which was very cool because One Child campaign contributed the first funding to the project. The timing of the gift was far more significant than the amount because Jimmy received it (totally unexpectedly) on the same day that he made the final decision to go ahead with the project. The gift was a wonderful confirmation of their calling.



It is now Saturday morning, and I get to climb on a plane and head back home in about 16 hours. It has been a great trip, but I'm ready to go back to my family. Thanks to all who have followed my adventure and prayed for me along the way. Please don't forget all of the wonderful children and amazing caregivers I've been posting about after this trip is over. If anyone would like to talk about you can make a difference in these people's lives, please talk to me when I get home. Caring for orphans is one of my deepest passions, so I love to talk about. It would be a pleasure for me to discuss with anyone who will listen.

more from ET

We started this morning by going to Compassion Family International (CFI). It is a children's care facility near our guest house. Caleb sponsors a little girl there. There were about 25 kids there this morning. There are about 50 others that CFI care for, but they were off at school. The kids were fun to play with because they were excited to see us, but they all have families so they weren't so starved for affection that they were able to just have fun with us. After that we went to a kindergarten that is provided in a very poor part of Addis by Kids Care (they also run the orphanage where Sam lived for 7 months) to meet with the founder who is named Aster. She is really an amazing woman, but she had something come up so she had to leave before we got there. The kids same some songs for us and performed their letters and numbers in English. The staff then served us a coffee ceremony. In the afternoon we head out to Holetta, wihch is where 4 Tracy Mihnovich's came from. We got to see the orphanage they lived in while the adoption was processed. We walked through the community a little bit and there were some places where you could feel the evil. We got to see the site where a grain mill is going to be installed soon to bring economic opportunity to some of the poorest women in the country. The installation has been on hold since last July because the government has been coming up with excuses not to turn on the power to the building. While we standing the building talking and getting ready to pray about the situation, 2 government officials came in and told us that the electric meter would be installed Monday. They even stayed & prayed with us. After leaving Holetta we drove back to Addis to have supper with Tara Mowen and her 3 boys. Tara has been here about 8 weeks while the adoption of 2 of their sons is finalized. There adoption stories are pretty cool and can be found at http://mowensjourney.blogspot.com/ It was nice to see Tara, Jacob, Kaleb & Isaiah. We made back to the guest house by about 8:30, so I'm hoping to get to bed a little earlier tonight. Thanks!

More ministries within ET

Yesterday afternoon we went to Hope for the Hopeless, a Children's Hopechest drop-in center for street kids. There are about 15 boys and 2 girls who stay there. One of the girls in named Meron. Part of her story has been documented in a video at http://onechildcampaign.showitsite.com/#/alem-house/ Meron is the teenage girl who is the second in the video to share her story. She has one of the most horrible stories I've ever heard, but she is one of the happiest, most magnetic people I have ever met. While her story of redemption is certainly one of the most dramatic on the planet, the sheer number of lives that have been healed here is staggering. Some of the boys at the center shared there stories with us, and common themes from them and most of the other kids we have spoken with are as follows: born in the countryside, one or both parents died, they walked many (sometimes hundreds) of miles to Addis in hope of finding work, once in Addis they find no work, since they have no work & no money they sleep on the streets, it is very cold at night so they sniff glue or gas or drink alcochol or smoke cigarettes or chew chat in order to feel warm or at least forget that they are cold, during the day they beg for money or steal, bigger kids beat them up, they are alone and very afraid. Every single story is heart-breaking, but the great part is that the stories of the kids who get plugged in with the amazing ministries we seen don't end there. For these kids, the story continues often like this: Someone from the ministry found me on the street, he can and talked to me every day, after a while I started to trust him and came to the shelter he offered me, they gave me food and safety and love and sent me to school, when I started I was last in my class but now I am fourth and next year I will be first. I share this generalization to give you an idea of how lives of helpless children go from very bad to much better here. I am hesitant to do this, because every child is a unique person with a unique person and, most importantly, each was created for a unique purpose and is full of unique potential.



After visiting Hope for the Hopeless, we went to dinner with an American missionary couple who are getting ready to launch a ministry called Bring Love In. It is one of most beautiful models for caring for orphans that I've heard. In addition to the millions of orphans in Ethiopia, there are also (at least) thousands of widows with no one to provide for them, protect them, or care for them. Bring Love In will hire widows to live in homes with 6 to 8 orphans. The beauty of this model is threefold: First, it simultaneously helps widows and orphans. Second, it creates a family environment (rather than institutional care) for all involved. Thrid, the project is very scalable. Once one house is full, they only need to find and train another widow and find another small house to rent. Larger care facilities are expensive and hard to find, so relocation or expansion is extremely difficult. Today we are going to another carepoint/sponsorship facility and then we are going to meet Aster, the woman who founded the orphanage where Sam once lived. Aster has started a lot of other projects, so I am excited to see an old acquaintance and to see what she is up to now. Gotta run--thanks for reading!

more from ET

Tusday monring we went back to the Children's Hopechest care point in Chappa, the same place we had been the day before. We had 2 things on the agenda there. The first was to take pictures of 143 kids that still need to be sponsored. Caleb and I worked on this task while the rest of the team did some activities with the rest of the kids. The culture was a little different there (not as touchy-feely and a little more reserved that the rest of Ethiopia) so it was interesting to see the kids reaction to having their pictures taken. Overall it was fun seeing all of the kids, and we were able to find every kid on the list we were given. The other thing we did was serve the kids a feast. Someone back home had donated funds for the feast. The team bought a small brahma bull (which was referred to as an ox), some injera (a kind of bread unique to Ethiopia) and several cases of soda pop. The bull was walked on to the property Monday afternoon and was then butchered after the kids left. Some of the staff stayed up all night butchering, preparing, and cooking the meal. The main dishes were 2 kinds of stew, one spicy and one not, which were served on top of the injera. We used a bucket-brigade approach to get the plates to the kids once they had been filled. It was a lot of fun and the kids were so excited. Many of them probably only get meat a couple of times a year, so it was a real treat. After they had eaten, each was given a bottle of pop. We weren't sure if it was the best idea, but the local staff insisted. It was the first encounter with pop for many of the kids. Some drank it way too fast and felt bad; other spit it out because the sensation of carbonation was so foreign to them. All of the kids had a blast regardless. The staff then served our team a couple of small but special dishes they had prepared. It was some of the best Ethiopian food I've ever had. The selections included tibs (which is small pieces of marinated beef served on top of injera), a kind of powdery paste made from butter & false banana (which is the root from a tree that look like a banana tree in every way except it doesn't produce bananas), and last but not least pieces of raw fat from the "hump" on the neck of the brahma bull. The Ethiopians told us we didn't have to eat the raw fat, but I thought it would be fun. It was actually really good!



We left Chappa in the early afternoon for the drive (about 5 hours) back to Addis. We stopped on the way and ate a late lunch/early supper at a really nice resort on Lake Langano. The food was pretty good, but they had ice cream which is rare here & was really nice in the middle of a long, hot car ride. Driving is always an adventure here, but it is even more exciting at night. I lost track of how many goats, donkeys, cows, people, cars, trucks, etc we almost hit on the drive. Our driver is a really cool older guy who is really great at what he does. We got back to the guest house about 8:30 and were disppointed to find that the internet wasn't working. It was probably good though because we all went to bed earlier than normal. This morning we went to a couple of different ministries in Korah, one of the poorest slums in Addis that started as a leper colony about 80 years ago. It is next to the city's trash dump from which most of the residents of Korah glean their existence. This first place was called Mission Ethiopa, which was founded by the same guy who owns the guest house we're staying in. Mission Ethiopia rescues women (about 35 at present) from the streets and gives them work makes beads & scarfs which are mostly sold to Westerners. The wages they earn are enough to provide them with housing, food, clothing, and education for their children. The women start each day with an hour or two of praying for one another and their community, singing and dancing. They have truly become a family. It was fabulous to see healing and redemption among a group who had previously been literally some of the most destitute people on the planet. I will be bringing home lots of their handiwork if anyone would like to buy some & support thier ministry. We next went to Empowering Hope which is a day care for single women in Korah. The day care services are provided at no charge to the women so they can go to work. The goal is to try to keep the women from having to give up their children for adoption for no reason other than abject poverty. They have about 60 kids in the program. The children are given 2 meals a day, medical care, some clothing, and some food to support the nourishment of the rest of the family. They also do some microfinance work with some of the mothers to give them greater opportunities to earn a living. This afternoon we are heading to Hope for the Hopeless, which is a Children's Hopechest drop in center for street children in Addis. We are then going to dinner with a couple of missionaries. The trip has been really amazing, but it is starting to get long. I really miss home, especially my beautiful wife and wonderful children. Time goes fast here though, so I know I'll be heading home before I know it. Thanks for reading!

Sponcership Changes Lives

Today we went to a Children's Hopechest care point in Chappa. It was in probably the most beautiful part of ET I've seen. There were about 220 kids there. Only about 1/4 of them are sponsored. One of our team members brought care packages from almost all of the sponsors, so it was really nice to see the kids get a rare treat. We brought soccer balls, t-shirts, etc for the kids as well. The kids were happy, healthy, & well-fed. All of the kids go to school at the care point. Sponsorship truly is changing the lives of these kids, their families, thir communities, and over time will change the entire nation. About the time we left, they brought in a bull that someone back home donated some money to buy fire the kids. It is going to be butchered tonight, and a feast will be given to honor the kids & staff. The kids don't know about the feast yet so tomorrow will be a great surprise for them. We will be back there tomorrow morning and then we will be heading back to Addis in the afternoon. We ate a very late lunch at a really nice hotel on the bank of the Blue Nile. It was beautiful and the river is so big that there was a wonderful breeze coming off it. The project for this evening is to find Tullo who is a little boy in Awassa sponsored by Frances Anson. That's it for now!