Trip to A-Hope

We made our trip to A-Hope yesterday. We were able to bring 35 new T-Shirts (thanks Again Trish), 52 bottles of Children's Tylenol, 4 Jumbo bottles of Adult Tylenol, 4 Jumbo bottles of kids chewable vitamins, (Thanks to a matching donation from Sam's Club), 25 stuffed animal's (Thanks Dayna & Eric), 120 pairs of socks & under ware from a donation drive that Zoe did at her school, and $300 Birr from Joshua's $26.00 that he collected from our neighbors and John threw in $4.00 of his money to make it an even $30.00.

This second picture is of Zoe and Abigail (Kidist wants to be called by her American name) taking a tour of the A-Hope facility. This Facility houses 45 children under the age of 10 all of them are are HIV+. They have a second facility that houses kids 10 and up which there are 75 additional children there.

The first picture is of Elissa and her new friend. He grabbed her hand and would not let go. Wherever she went he was there. There was another boy that will stick with Elissa forever. He approached her as we were about to leave, she reached out to hold his hand and just stood there and looked at her with the most hopeless eyes she has ever seen. He knew we were not there for him and the momentary comfort of a hand or a hug would only serve to remind him of what he does not, and very likely, will never have. There were immediately tears in her eyes as he ran away. I tried to get a picture, but could not.

The man on the right in the second picture is Alizar. He is one of the drivers recommended by CWA. He is a Christian and was a wealth of information about Ethiopia. He told us that there are approximately 100,000 people living on the streets of Addis Ababa of which 70% are children. There are no Government orphanages or soup kitchens to get a meal. They are forced to live in the streets as beggars. At almost every stop light they approach the car asking for money. It is not like the people in the states because there is no one to feed them. Their eyes are empty and hopeless no amount of money that we can give them will change the life that they are destined to lead. It is enough to rip your heart out, the problem is so huge the answers, are they attainable?

The Girls

This is the pictures of the girls saying good by to Kidist and Abete. There was singing, dancing, and crying. We are thankful for the visit as it will help give the kids some closure. Not to mention being able to see the dr. sadly Abete is not doing any better. We will be making a dr. appointment as soon as we get home. We did make it to AHOPE today but that will have to wait as our connection is terribly slow tonight. We are going to go out for real ET food tonight. Neither of the kids are very fond of American, not even rice! I had heard this was a great fall back, not for these two. Yikes, I think that the food issues could be one of our most difficult challenges. We will post more in the morning, that seems to be the best connection time.

We got an earlier flight !

We got a flight home on Sunday night! We are ready to get hone to see the boys and introduce the new kids to the snow. Our neighbors have sent pictures of our house with what looks to be about 12" of snow. This should be fun.

Playground trip

We were guessing from Abete's reaction that this was his first trip to the playground. I have never seen anyone laugh and smile so much. The hotel we are staying at has a very nice area to walk around, the playground and a huge hot springs pool. Kidist and Abete love to play in the big wooha (Pool)

We went back to the orphanage today to see the Doctor for Abete and allow the kids to say a proper good by to their friends. Abete was treated as the returning hero and all the boys were asking us to take their pictures. We were asked not to take pictures.

Next we went to the girls orphanage so Kidist could say good by to her friends. There was a much different response when we arrived. The girls all started to give her hugs and cry. The nanny's asked if they could pray over our kids. It was a unique experience. Then all the girls went outside and started to sing and dance and praise God for their friends going to America. They allowed us to take pictures of Kidist and her friends. It was an amazing experience!

I will post the pictures from that in the morning because I have to email them to myself and open them on the computer at my office which is a long process. The Internet here is sooooo slow. I am realizing how spoiled I am to have the T-1 Internet connection at work.

more pictures

I tried to post these last night, but it took me two hours to post the 2 other two and I gave up.

The first picture is of Me, Kidist, Zoe & Abete at the CWA office going through our paperwork before we present it to the Embassy. The Embassy appointment went very well and very fast for us. Please pray for our new friends who's Embassy appointment did not go well. They are Heather and Josh from California. they found out that their finger prints expired on the 25th and will not be able to get the kids out of Ethiopia until the new information arrives from the states. They did have them re-done before they came and have a letter from the imagration department stating that everything was approved, but the Embassy will not accept it from them. They also had all of their luggage lost on their way here and their airline keeps telling them that it is in London and should be here tomorrow. They are on day 4 without it!

The second is of Elissa and Kidist at the orphanage. I don't think they knew we were coming. We were told that as soon as Kidist found out we were there she ran and put on her celebration dress. She is so sweet. (Dave & Diane the girl in the background is our daughter Zoe giving your gifts to Ganet and Zena. We will send more pictures when we get home)

New Pictures

This is our view off our balcony. There is no fog, it is smoke from burning trash so people can keep warm. It is cold in the mornings.

Our first morning

The kids woke up at 6:30. They will fit in good at our house since all of the boys get up at about that time. As an ice breaker Elissa brought some nerf guns that shoot when the handle is squeezed. We spent the first hour shooting each other and laughing. It was well worth the $1.99 per gun.

At this point we are watching Baby Einstein Videos. Kidist is very interested and is soaking up all the information she can. We found out that she has completed the Fourth grade in ET schools. We were told that she was an exceptional student and her favorite subject was math.
We brought a list of common words in Amheric words and we are trying to communicate. This makes Kidist laugh, a lot! She also laughed when she heard that we will probably have snow when we get home, and when we offered to put her dress on Dad. She said one of her favorite things to do is joke, when we ask at the orphanage.

Abete has not had a chance to go to school other than what he was taught in the orphanage. He does know his ABC's. He really wants to ride a bike! Every time we see a bike he is sure to point at it and imitates holding the handle bars. He has a flash card that he keeps in the photo album we sent him of "B is for bike". I was able to speak with a volunteer at the orphanage about Abete, this mans main job is as an Evangelist. He gave me a lot of information about Abete and absolutely adored him. He gave Abete some pictures of his father and another of Abete jumping rope! We are impressed by his physical abilities, he would like to get a prosthetic ASAP. We did have them let him know that we want to wait until we can communicate with him a little better but he is ready to go.

We will go to the US Embassy today to get passports and be able to bring them home. Hooray, actually they will start the process of the passports we should have them in a few days though, then if we can get an earlier flight out we can head home. We have a nice large room here, actually it is two rooms with the connecting door. It is very nice, we are all comfortable hanging out and shooting each other.

Abete just took a bath with Dads help, he does not mess around in there. Kidist is now watching a Curious George video she is quiet and tiny, Ron you defiantly have her beat for height. You have a "little" big sister.

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families. Psalms 68:5 & 6a