On February 8, 2010, Tara left with 3 other members of the Adoption Ministry Team to visit Ethiopia and meet up with our partner adoption agency CWA. The trips purpose was to meet the staff of CWA in Ethiopia, learn about the adoption process in Ethiopia, tour the orphanages that CWA financially supports, meet the children we could potentially bring to Bozeman for the Summer Of Hope program in July and to experience the culture of Ethiopia giving us a better understanding of their customs and rich history.

After flight problems, we finally arrived in Ethiopia on the morning of February 10th(Wed.) and were greeted by 2 of the CWAE(Christian World Adoption Ethiopia) staff. Unfortunately, my luggage along with one other team member had been lost en-route and so we filled out the necessary paperwork and left not knowing when it would show up.

We spent the next 2 days in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, getting to know the "lay of the land" and meeting with the CWAE staff. They are amazing people and we quickly became very fond of them all. By Friday morning we were able to retrieve our lost bags at the airport. This was good as we were heading to Hawassa that morning. After about a 3 hour car ride through the country side we ended up at the Shashamene orphanage. They kindly greeted us with a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony(which I highly recommend for all of you coffee lovers out there) and allowed us the privilege of touring their orphanage facility. After about 30 minutes we were back in the car and on to Hawassa which was less than 30 minutes away. We arrived at the CCCE Hawassa orphanage and again greeted with a traditional coffee ceremony. We would take a quick tour and come back the next day to meet the children and stay longer. Then we were onto the Tikuret Orphanage where we would meet the children identified for the SOH program.

When we arrived, we were greeted by a group of children with beautiful, smiling faces. It was hard not to just drop everything and play with them, but we had "work" to accomplish and so we divided up and individually met with children trying to get to know them better so we could help match families in Bozeman with children when they committed to hosting this summer. After many beautiful faces and sad stories(children orphaned due to poverty, disease, death and cultural norms) we neared the last group of kids. The orphanage director then began to speak to us about 2 other groups of children who she wanted to know about possibly being a part of SOH, but thought they maybe too old. We decided to go ahead and meet the kids just in case a family stepped forward and wanted older kids. We first met a boy who was 13 and then we met the 2nd group, 2 girls who were sisters...Meskerem and Zenash.

I looked up as they walked into the room and the most unexplainable feeling occurred in my heart. I was immediately drawn to them and felt an overwhelming and undeniable sense of connection to them. The girls sat down and we talked with them asking the same typical questions we asked all of the children..."What do you like to eat?", "What do you like to play?", etc. Then we asked "Do you have any other siblings?" Meskerem(the oldest girl of the two who was 14) began to explain they had a 10 year old brother named Warku who was living on the street under the bridge with his friends. The director was obviously surprised and after an exchange in Amharic, she translated to us that the girls had a brother and that she would find him and bring him to the orphanage to live. We got to the end of the questions and I found myself wanting to come up with more just so I could be with them longer, but it was dinner time and I didn't want to keep them. We were kindly served dinner by the orphanage...the traditional Ethiopian food of injeera(their staple bread), doro wat(chicken stew), and vegetables. I found myself unable to stop thinking of the girls and after finishing dinner I asked if I could go up to the girls area to talk with them more. There were about 8 girls that shared this large room containing bunk beds and when I came in they were all studying and hanging out. We talked, well, we tried to with the language barrier, they mostly giggled at me because they didn't understand what I was saying except for a few words here and there. We took some pictures together and then retired to our hotel after visiting the boys area at the orphanage.

I was trying to process through the day and what I was feeling and what I sensed God had laid on my heart, which was that he had something in store for my family with this sibling group. I wrestled with so many thoughts wondering if the day had just all come to a head for me and if I had just felt overwhelmingly burdened for the orphans I came face to face with that day. I know now in looking back that what was going on inside of my heart and my soul was so completely unexplainable because it was the closest to the heart of God that I have ever experienced as a Christ Follower. It was excitement, it was love for these children that I didn't know, it was a longing, it was peace. I knew He was asking me to tell Ty about them and so I emailed him and asked him to pray about these kids that I had met. I told him it was a sibling group of 3. It was way more than we had ever discussed previously when we spoke of adopting one day. We were thinking 1 little girl from an Asian country... this was 3 children from Ethiopia! What was God thinking?!