'there is no me without you'

So, I have been busy reading Melissa Fay Greene’s book, ‘there is no me without you’. It’s a great book about the Ethiopian people, their culture, their horrific aids epidemic, and their orphan children. I have not been able to put this book down!!

(I have to laugh because when I bought it on Amazon, one of the reviews clearly stated…..“Warning, do not so much as open the first page if you are facing any pressing deadlines or tasks (taking care of your children, for instance). Your laundry WILL pile up. Your children WILL go to school having eaten cookies and chocolate milk for breakfast. Your dog WILL look at you pleadingly to finally feed him, because you WILL NOT be able to put this book down!”)

Well, that warning turned out to be SO true! I might not have gotten much done around the house, BUT I have been busy learning so much about Ethiopia.!!! :)

Today, while reading, I read something good! I really liked the way it was written and I know it could not be said any better than the way it is written in the book.. ...

1)It is the first recourse of everyone ethically involved with intercountry adoption to place orphans with relatives with friends, or with families within their home countries; no one imagines or pretends that adoption is a solution to a generation of children orphaned be disease. It is one small and modest option, a case of families in industrialized nations throwing lifelines to individual children even as their governments fail to commit sufficient funds or to free up the medicines to turn back the epidemic.

(2)This life-changing opportunity will not come without a price, which the Ethiopian government weighs carefully; the adopted children will lose their country, people, faith, language, culture, and history. A child could end up the sole Ethiopian for hundreds of miles; another, the only child of color in his or her school. But the adopted child will gain the one thing on earth arguably worth more than a homeland; a family.

Need I say more! They will gain a family! A family! Might not be a perfect family, but it is a family that loves God and chooses to obey even when it don’t make any ‘American’ sense! I believe in these statements!!! When I am asked again about ‘Why adoption?’ ‘Why Ethiopia’ and all those other lovely Why? Why? questions, I will now have a ‘somewhat’ kind of answer…
 
I have put my book down for the day and am changing my plans to finally come up with our ‘family adoption brochure.’ Wish me luck……