TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2009
AAI Annual Holiday Letter
The holidays are upon us. It is heartwarming to see the cards arriving with smiling faces and we think fondly of the families we have worked with over the years. It has been a year of many accomplishments at AAI.
There will be nearly 300 children in new families this holiday, primarily from Ethiopia. Ghana, Thailand, China and domestically from Washington State. However so many children still wait. On my desk is a photo of five little orphan brothers, the oldest about seven. We don’t have space for all of them at Layla House at the moment, so they are in a small orphanage near Addis Ababa. They will join us as soon as we identify a family for them.
We are finding that the governments of the countries where we work are expecting us to do ever more to help children who will remain without being adopted. We have begun thinking of AAI as a humanitarian organization as well as an adoption agency. Our largest project was completed this year, the Dessie School, which was built in a poor area in northern Ethiopia. With help from AAI friends 1200 children are now able to attend school, and over half of the students are girls.