Thursday, August 17, 2006

Our Adoption Adventure - Part Two

This is part two of our adoption adventure. If you haven't already, you can read part one, here.

Continuing on with Our Adoption Adventure.

When I left off, I was feelling a little doubtful about adding to our already large family.

During this time of doubt, Mrs. D. (from our adoption support group, see part one) stopped me walking into church on Sunday morning and handed me an Good Housekeeping article called, “Coming to America” written by Melissa Fay Greene about a brother and sister in Ethiopia who’s parents had died and had been adopted by a couple in America. I turned the page and my eyes fell onto two of the most beautiful Ethiopian children. I knew then, that this would be our country, our children would come, and they would come from Ethiopia. I went home and found another article by Ms. Greene Hope Lives Here which was actually a prequel to the article I was given. I was riveted; reading it only served to further my conviction that God wanted us to adopt from Ethiopia.

In the fall of 2005, there were only 5 agencies allowed to do adoptions from Ethiopia. I joined several Yahoo Groups and began reading comments and asking questions and researching our different options. We felt that it was important for the agency we chose to share the same faith and convictions as we have. We followed a link from Steven Curtis Chapman’s adoption website, Shaohannah’s Hope to Christian World Adoption.

While CWA's program in Ethiopia was new, they have a long record (over 15 years) of successful adoption stories. We felt comfortable that they were a Christian agency and we were pleased to learn that their child fees for their Ethiopia program had, at that time, been reduced in order to encourage the new Ethiopia programs. We decided to choose CWA as our agency and requested an application. And so before the new year began, we sent off our first chunk of money to CWA along with our application. We received notice that we had been accepted - we were on our way! So began our trek up Mt. Adoption Paperwork, someday soon we'll hopefully reach the summit.

Come back next time to read about our homestudy and about how we went from adopting one child to adopting two.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love it! This is so exciting!

Kelly Curtis said...

What an adventure for you. HOw exciting! And inspiring.

Thanks for visiting my site.

Thankfulmom said...

Ann, It's great to read your story. Maybe we'll travel together to Ethiopia. Keep the story coming!
Lisa

Renee said...

Thnaks for telling me about this post! I can't wait to hear more! You have a LOVELY fmaily!!!

Blessings,
Renee

God's Beautiful Chaos said...

Ann, I am so excited for this next journey! God has your children picked out already! Keep us posted! In Him, Sandra

Anonymous said...

Ann, we have very good friends from Ethiopia! They now live here in the states and we have had the priveledge to meet different members of their families who were here for a visit or some of there friends. They truly are some of the most wonderful people we have met! I am so excited for you! Please keep us posted

Michelle said...

Sounds like things were really falling into place showing you that you were meant to adopt from Ethiopia! What an exciting time that must have been for you - to know that your faith and God was leading you to adopt there. I'm looking forward to reading about the homestudy; I've always wondered what those are really like and what it entails.

Anonymous said...

I read those articles as well and just heard Melissa speak tonight about her new book about Ethiopian orphans and adoption - There Is No Me Without You. It also has a website www.thereisnomewithoutyou.com.

I decided to search some blogs to learn more about her and found your site. As an adoptive parent of two from Guatemala, I appreciate your sharing and good luck.