This is the day...

January 23, 2010 - Today we spent the day at the big kid's care center painting on the walls. It was fun and crazy and at times a bit out of control but the kids had a great time helping. While we were painting one of the girls started singing. She had sang for us before and her voice is nothing less than angelic. It is soft and sweet and simply pure. She was softly singing "this is the day, this is the day that the Lord has made". Slowly another girl joined in and tears just started streaming down my cheeks. Which, I may add, did not help my painting. Here were these girls who have seen more pain and loss in their short lives than I have in my 30 some years and they are able to sing "let us rejoice and be glad in it". And they really meant it - they really believed the words they were singing. It wasn't meant to impress or show off, it was real. Again I was humbled. Again I was reminded of God's grace. It's funny now when I start complaining I hear this voice softly singing and I can see her face and again I am reminded to rejoice...

This is the day, This is the day,
That the Lord has made, That the Lord has made
I will rejoice, I will rejoice and be glad in it, and be glad in it.
This is the day that Lord has made,
I will rejoice and be glad in it.
This is the day, this is the day that the Lord has made.

Learning that to give is better then to receive

Ella has been growing her hair out for some time now. She has always had a TON of hair - she was born with a full head of hair - dark, curly hair. Awhile back we discussed growing her hair and then donating it to Locks of Love. We talked about our friends and family members who have fought cancer. We talked about how when we go out in public a lot of times people stare at our family because we are a little different then other families. We talked about how some kids are fighting hard to be healthy and sometimes the medicine they are on makes their hair fall out and then when they are out in public they get starred at. We talked about how nice it feels to sometimes not be starred at and to not have to explain why you are different. That sometimes it is important to talk about differences and but also how sometimes you just need a little break from all the questions. Then we talked about how Ella's hair could help another child take that much needed "break". So she patiently waited and then yesterday donated about 11 inches. She got in the car and said "Well, I guess I better start working on growing long hair. I think I would really like to do that again." Anders was at preschool while we were at the salon - he got in the car and said "Wow Ella, you look pretty and sweet. I love you even more."

Every 14 seconds...

Every 14 seconds a Child Headed Household is formed. They (the researchers) say that throwing out statistics tends to overwhelm people and that they are more likely to be moved to action or to give if you simply present a picture and maybe a story. So here is mine - this was my call to action. My oldest is six years old and awhile back I was reading the book AIDS Orphans Rising by Sister Mary Elizabeth Lloyd. Short read, and I would highly recommend it - in fact if you live close by I would be happy to lend you my copy. Anyway, her book takes on the the statistic that by 2010 (and that is this year for those not aware) it is estimated that there will be 25,000,000 AIDS orphans. The oldest in the family now leading the household hence the term Child Headed Household. The point is that if the "good" people aren't leading and caring for these children then those deemed "not so good" will.

So here's where my story comes in. As I was reading I thought of Ella, she is six and if Pete and I were to die and let's say we lived in an area with no "foster care" system and let's say we die of a disease that our relatives have not been educated on so they are so afraid of getting it that they refuse to take in our three kids or there are no relatives or they are so overwhelmed by there own situation they just can't help my three... I think you get my point - Ella would be left in charge, she would be part of the every 14 seconds statistic. And this part is what scares me the most - she could do it. If she had to she could. NO DOUBT IN MY MIND. She would step up, she would fight for food, she would discipline, she would sacrifice herself for them. She would do what many her age are already doing, many younger than her. She would step up and at age six be the mom. Now just imagine knowing that you are the mother, you know you are dying and dying of AIDS is not easy. You are fighting, you are trying to teach Ella everything you can before you go so she knows what to do. You know that your relatives will probably be coming to take what you have after you pass so you tell her where to hide things, how to fight for the little you have. You desperately plead with anyone to help you - you pray like you have never prayed before. You hide your own fear so that she will think it will be ok. But you know she will be scared, that she will be pushed to her limits and you just pray that somehow she will make it. You pray that someone will step up and help.

I know that some blogs are fun to read and I think maybe sometimes mine will be but as I watched Ella help me get Anders and Sara ready to go this morning I knew this was a post I had to write. So if you are a parent look at your oldest and think could they do it? and then do something...

It is 2010 and the statistics are out there, it is go time.

There is right now a mother preparing her oldest to lead her family, stand along side her and make a difference. Please step up.

Wordless Wednesday

and they said we wouldn't make it

I have been blessed with AMAZING friends everywhere we have lived. Friends who quickly go beyond the "wow, the weather today is crazy" surface type conversations. Friends who open up, hold me close, laugh with me and many times at me, put up with my strong personality and fill in when family is far away. Friends who run with me, pray with me, share secrets, hopes and dreams. It is hard to be the new kid on the block, even when you are in your thirties. I have learned to not be offended when it takes awhile to be included and that sometimes to be included you just have to ask. That's how I met Tarah. She had spoken at an adoption class and I ran into her one day at Best Buy. I walked up and said "hey, I hear you host a playgroup and we would love to come." She's been stuck with us ever since = ) Tarah was my travel partner on this last trip to Ethiopia. Some said (being that we are both strong personalities) that it was the end. That this could be the end of the girls' nights, play group and though I don't think we have this much pull - the adoption community in the western states. Okay, I made that last part up but I think you get my drift.

Well, we made it and I would travel again with her in a heartbeat. She held my hand and prayed with me one morning. I had been struggling and she didn't ask she just leaned over and prayed. She hugged Sara's birth mom - she sat in a room while I once again met with Ayelech. She let me be silent the whole ride home and we would exchange silent nods on the long drive back to Addis. Both with tears - hearts changed forever. Never to be the same. She loved on the kids and let me process. She has a heart of gold and man, can the woman braid hair. The song below is again by Sara Groves - I think it fantastically details this journey. We have both seen a lot - our safe American bubble has been burst and we will never be the same. But I think that's how its supposed to be - hearts broken by the world so that we realize where our true joy must come from...

Joy Is In Our Hearts
Sara Groves

we were pressed on every side
full of fear and troubled thoughts
for good reason we carried heavy hearts

it is good to come together
in our friendship to remember
all the reasons hope is in our hearts

hallelujah hallelujah
Christ our joy and strength
hallelujah hallelujah
Christ our joy and strength

now with patience in our suffering
perseverance in our prayers
with good reason this hope is in our hearts

hallelujah hallelujah
Christ our joy and strength
hallelujah hallelujah
Christ our joy and strength

oh we saw the face of Angels
many good things well secured
for good reason this joy is in our hearts

hallelujah hallelujah
Christ our joy and strength
hallelujah hallelujah
Christ our joy and strength

for good reason joy is in our hearts

If walls could talk - from the big kids' care center...

Jan. 20th Ethiopia

I am slowly going to add some of my journal entries from the trip - here is one of my first.

Jan. 20th - We really don't have access to the Internet. In fact, we have "rented" a cell phone from one of the guards at the guest house. The staff at the guest house are wonderful and with all the mess of trying to get ahold of CHSFS we really do need one. Yesterday, we attended Timkat with the older kids from the care center. We spent the morning standing in the large field with several thousand people listening to songs and prayers and trying not to lose any of the children (the count back at the van had us minus one kiddo but he was quickly found). The older kids especially try to scatter a bit from the group and I can't blame them. When you are in a large group with a few white women you stand out a bit and scream "orphanage". Stigma is stigma everywhere and almost all kids want to fit in. Once again my tattoos drew some attention - I have a cross on my ankle which is my reminder that I walk by faith and have been told in the past when in Ethiopia that it should be on my forehead. Things important to us should be at eye level. I always reply, with the utmost respect, that I will consider that for next time = ) My other tattoo is an AIDS ribbon held together by a yellow Meskal flower. The Ethiopian flower looks kind of like a daisy and blooms at the end of the rainy season. It is amazing to see - (the end of the rainy season, not my tattoo)the mountains and hills become alive with yellow. That flower is proof that the rains have come - they may come late or there may not have been enough to up the water table but they have come.

Back to Timkat - there were vendors selling sugar cane and the kids each had a piece and devoured it. There were also people walking around with cat tails - Timkat has to do with baptism/ water, anyway, the boys enjoyed using them as guns. Love that!

The first couple of days were spent finding our comfort level. There is no schedule, really no expectations of volunteers and really no direction. I, personally, had ideas of what I had hoped the trip would look like but after walking into the care center those expectations had to go. Instantly we were swarmed by children hoping for attention. They fought over who got to hold our hands, sit next to us on the van, use our cameras. Which, on a side note - some of my best pictures where taken by this amazing young man with a gift for art. While riding in the van there was an older boy sitting in front of me. I would often catch him looking at me when he thought I wasn't looking at him. It took awhile (and with all the people and traffic and closed roads we had a TON of time) but slowly I felt an elbow on my left knee. It was a purposeful touch but it had such a tense feeling to it that I knew as soon as I even leaned in his direction he would pull it away. It is a touch that comes from someone who longs for that interaction but can't take the hurt that may accompany it. I have felt and experienced that kind of touch many times in my work. I don't know if it is more of a "boy" thing or a "trust" thing or a combination of both but I have learned that those times are the ones that are a bigger deal than my purpose. It was at that moment that my expectations changed. Yes, I had things I needed to accomplish, meetings to attend, people to meet, other programs to check out, updates to obtain but it became so clear at that point that sometimes just being may be the most important agenda. To help restore a little trust in humanity, to provide just a brief moment of hope for one person - even in the smallest amount is what matters. Yes, I have some changes I would like to see but sometimes in the stillness of a moment our eyes our opened. Those are the times that the long lasting, forever changes are made and isn't that really what life is about.

Always looking for results...

Tarah sent me a link to a blog this morning and I just had to post a piece from it...

"Do not depend on the hope of results. When you are doing the sort of work you have taken on, essentially an apostolic work, you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect.

As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself."

—Thomas Merton, in a letter to Jim Forest dated February 21, 1966