Monday, 08 December 2008

• Hannah's Hope, Ethiopia

  This is a truly amazing place.  Hannah's Hope is the name of the orphans' home/transitional home where Aliyah was blessed to stay pretty much from birth until we came to bring her home. Mike and I were so impacted by the time we spent there with the staff and children.  We have so many stories that both break our hearts and encourage us, and we came away from the experience with a deeper understanding of the world and the difficulties many of the world's children face.

  Thank you to all who donated clothes and supplies for us to take to Hannah's Hope.  We were really encouraged by your response and hope that you'll trust that your donation is being put to good use!

  [Forgive me -- I can't hyperlink...http://www.allgodschildren.org/adoption/ethiopia/ for more info and pictures.  You can sign up to be a sponsor and support the work they do]    

  Here's the road on the way to Hannah's Hope... we ran into a herd of goats on our way there the first day.  The guy in the red sweatshirt is one of our travel group members...who, incidentally, got bitten by one of these goats as we were walking -- I've never heard of a goat biting anyone before!

  

  Here is Almaz opening the gate.  Almaz is the director of the home and a wonderful Christian woman.  She is the total package-- organized, energetic, humble, funny, and has an amazing ability to motivate her staff to carry out her vision.  She has got to be one of the world's busiest people managing the children's care, managing the staff, playing hostess and tour guide to the travelling adoptive families, bringing the kids to different appointments in the process of getting them adopted... and yet she knows each of the 70+ children very personally and specifically.  This little powerhouse of a woman could seriously be a CEO of a large lucrative business in the US, but instead she has chosen to return to Ethiopia to serve orphans and help give them permanent homes and families.  Almaz is the WOMAN! (by God's grace of course) 

  

  

  Most days we visited Hannah's Hope (HH) in the early part of the day, so the older children were at school and it was mostly babies and toddlers.  CUTE CUTE CUTE!  And really sweet!

  

  This is the covered patio area where they give the infants "outdoor" time.  You should see the schedule they have for these babies -- they seriously get spa treatment!  Besides the usual feedings and diaper changes, these babies are treated to a daily massage while they listen to classical music and worship songs, "sun" time, daily baths, being rocked to sleep and tended to throughout the night!  I think coming to live with us was a DOWNGRADE for Aliyah!!!

  

  Here are a couple of the care-givers called "special mothers".  These are really sweet women who really love the children.  When the children are old enough, they are taught Bible verses, Bible stories, and worship songs.

  

  This is one of the older girls' rooms -- Cute, huh!  As you can see, the staff has really tried to make this "orphanage" as much like a home as possible.

  

  Appliances like washing machines are not common in Ethiopia.  Here are some of the women hand washing the children's clothing and bedding.  For 70 kids!!! I can't imagine....  As you can see there are electric clothes dryers in the background which can handle some of the load, but most of the stuff gets dried the old-fashioned way -- on a clothesline.

  

  

  And of course the children need to eat!  Here's the kitchen with an injera maker.  Injera (pronouned more like "in-JAR-ah" I think) is an Ethiopian flat bread, sort of like a spongy sourdough crepe.  It's made from a grain called t'ef (teff) and it's a bit of an acquired taste, but we really like it!

  

  Mike and I tried to put our optometry degrees to good use... we performed eye exams on most of the staff.  We thought we were going to do a vision screening on the kids, but it turns out the more immediate need was for the staff to get eye care.  They have a lot of dry eye issues... 7000 feet elevation, arid climate, air polution, and HUGE eyes make for the perfect dry eye storm.  We'll be sending them a lot of tear supplement eyedrops, etc.

  

   

  Some of the precious children at HH have already been matched with families and are waiting for court approval.  Sometimes these families send photo albums of themselves to the child so that their new child can see what they look like and become familiar with the home they will be going to. We were hanging out one day and this little girl (maybe 3 or 4 years old) came up to me beaming, excited, and wanting the show me her photo album.  I started sobbing when I saw what it was she was trying to show me.  I was so happy for her that she has a family waiting to bring her home, and I was so touched by HER excitement... this little toddler had such a profound understanding and appreciation for the privilege of belonging to a family. 

  

  While we were looking at her photo album together, another little boy came and grabbed it out of her hands, obviously jealous and angry.  It took quite a bit of strength and some stern words from me to pry it loose from his hand and give it back to the little girl.  I cry when I think of this little boy.  I mean, it was wrong for him to take her book away, wrong of him to be jealous, ... we need to rejoice with those who rejoice, right?  But can you really blame him for wanting to belong to a family? 

  There are other stories... It broke our hearts to hear about children who were relinquished by their biological parents not because they were the result of an unplanned pregnancy, but because after sometimes years of trying to make ends meet the biological parents just could no longer afford to provide the basic necessities for their child.  So they gave their beloved baby up in hopes of a better life for him or her.  There is a teenage boy there at HH now who has lost his mother and is losing his father to HIV/AIDS.  He said his final goodbye to his father on our second day there.  Thankfully he has been matched with a family in the US and will be adopted by them within a  few months, I believe.  These children in their young lives have faced so much more hardship and tragedy than many of us will ever know.  And these 70 young souls at Hannah's Hope are just the tip of the iceberg --  there are millions of orphans in Ethiopia, many living on the streets.  Spending time with this handful of kids just makes me want to tell everyone to adopt, ADOPT, ADOPT!!!!   If you're a follower of Christ, and you've been adopted by our Heavenly Father, you know what it is like to be helpless, enslaved to sin, and without hope.  You also know the joy of being brought into the family of God, being forgiven, given a new name and the promise of future glory.  Please consider granting a little piece of this joy to one or two (or more!) of the world's orphans.  In many cases it makes the difference between life and death... and in all cases it really means the world to them.

   

   

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