Adoption thoughts: Corruption, Ethics and Agencies

Adoption thoughts…I have SO many of them.  I don’t pretend to be a know-it-all regarding adoption, but my experience is pretty extensive and I’m often  asked for my opinion on things because of that.  I’ve had about a million thoughts mulling around in my brain over the past week.  This post is just my attempt to get them out of my head.  This post is geared towards international adoption as that is the type that we completed and the type that we are contacted about most often.

Corruption & Ethics

It happens.  This is not a shocker to anyone, I hope, who has considered/is considering/is in the process of adopting or who has already completed an adoption.  I mean, we all think it won’t touch us and our case is not corrupt, but that’s just plain foolish.  How can you know?  Especially with international adoption.

Many parents who adopt internationally get background information on their kids and their birth families.  Sometimes it is all perfectly in order and other times facts just don’t quite match up causing some red flags, but nothing that looks too corrupt or unethical.  So, we plod on–especially if it is our first international adoption.  We want that baby/child home, with us, their family.  Problem is, they have another family.  A family that made a decision.  Here’s the question…WHY did they make that decision?  Why is adoption what they chose for their child?  I used to think it was as simple as having no choice (which still kills me)–i.e. you keep your child and they die or you give them up so they could live.  This is unacceptable and does happen, but I am learning that far more often than we’d like to think, adoption happens because the birth family wants something more for their child–something they cannot attain for them in their country of birth–and so they choose to place them for adoption.  The real kicker is that many times, these birth families do not have a full understanding of what adoption means and they make an uninformed (or even misguided purposefully–by the agency) decision without really comprehending the consequences.

What is it that they want for their child?  A life in America.  Ugh.  Now, I am glad I was born and raised in America.  I know that I have many privileges and advantages because of this, but it’s not the magical place that so many non-Americans dream it to be.  Ethiopia, is not an exception.  We were recently asked, in all earnest, if there were flying cars in America, but not like it was a question, more like this person was verifying a fact.  That’s just one example of the ridiculous things people assume to be true about America.  So, when a family chooses adoption simply to get their child to America, they often believe life will be a cake walk for that child simply because they are in America.  Fallacy #1.  Additionally, many families clearly do NOT understand that adoption is permanent.  They either seem to think their child will return as an adult to provide or that they will send $ back to Ethiopia to help provide for their family.  Fallacy #2 (most of the time).  Sadly, I believe that this lie is often propagated by the agencies we all hire to help facilitate our adoptions.  It’s not the US workers that go in and lie, but the nationals.  Where there is $ (and let’s be honest, there is LOTS of $ in adoption), there is corruption.  Where there is corruption, we need to be concerned about ethics in each and every single case.  Just because paperwork looks above board, does NOT mean that it is.

Lies are being told.  Birth families are lying about their situations in order to get their children adopted into America.  They are going so far as to claim that a birth parent is deceased to make their child appear more “adoptable”.  Can you imagine the agony of being the mother who has to pretend you’re dead in order to get your child to America?  You send your child off to another land where they will be told, all their life, that you are no longer living.  Sad, sick, wrong.  You may hope that one day your child will show up again and learn the truth, but there are no guarantees, especially with life expectancy being so short here.  My heart grieves for all of those mothers who made this decision, through false pretenses and with false expectations.  Part of me wants to say…”Shame on them, they should know better”, but most of me just aches for them.  It is hard to fathom having such an ideal view of America that I would part with my child and tell such untruths just to get them there and then to have to live with that decision.  Sincerely, unfathomable.

You might think that hiring a finder and having them search for the birth family after the adoption is complete would help verify the story you have received on your child.  Often, this is not the case.  If a birth family has already lied 4-5 times to different agency workers, government officials and courts, they will most likely continue to lie to a finder, as well.  There are also cultural differences that come into play here that cause a breakdown in truth.  I won’t get too into those because I don’t know everything about the Ethiopian culture, but I know that they come into play–things like lying, how it’s viewed here and directness.  One thing I can say with certainty is that if a question is not asked directly, you will not get an answer.  You have to be very blunt if you want to find the truth and that is just not the Ethiopian way, so truth is often just missed because the right question was not asked.

My opinion is that corruption is rampant in international adoption and ethics are compromised.  You cannot guarantee an ethical adoption unless you, yourself, travel to the country and interview the birth family in their native tongue while understanding almost everything about the culture.  Since that can’t happen, what can we do to protect ourselves and our children?  Investigate!  If you see red flags–even in the referral paperwork–start asking questions.  Don’t rest until you get an answer.  I know that when you are waiting for your child and all you can imagine is holding them in your arms, it’s easy to sweep this stuff under the rug.  We did.  But, when your child is older and they find out the truth and ask you if you could have done anything to clarify things before they were taken from their first family forever…what will you say?  What will I say?  I don’t know.

We also have to ask ourselves…are we okay with lies and unethical behavior if it leads to something wonderful?  I mean, if the birth family wants their child in America, why should we stop them?  I can give you a list of reasons, but this is for each adoptive parent to answer for themselves.  I don’t want anyone to think I’m advocating that international adoptions be stopped.  I am not.  I LOVE adoption.  I have my life because of adoption.  I was adopted.  But, there are so many true orphans in the world.  Children who desperately NEED parents.  I just want corrupt adoptions to stop.  Children who live in a two parent home where they are loved, cared for, well fed and school would have been attended…those children don’t NEED to be adopted.  They just don’t, but they are being adopted…daily, while true orphans wait and wait and wait.

Agencies

I probably get an email a week asking me what agency I’d recommend.  LOTS of people read this review I wrote of ours–Holt International Review and then email to ask what agency I would recommend.  The simple truth is…none.  I don’t think it matters.  I used to think that there were a few that were okay, but the further down the path we get in reviewing Ethiopian adoptions, the more clear it becomes that ALL agencies have ethics claims against them and so few stories are brought to light that I know what we do hear is just the tip of the iceberg.  Now, there are definitely some agencies I’d steer clear of–those with claims of abusing the children in their care, those that don’t have an actual license to operate in the country they’re placing children from, etc…–but there are places that name them, so I don’t need to here.  After ruling out those agencies, it’s pretty much a roll of the dice.  Pick one and determine that you won’t just believe everything they tell you.  If there are red flags in your case, ASK QUESTIONS.  For the sake of your future child, do all that you can to determine that they truly are an orphan.  At the very least, go in with your eyes a bit more than slightly opened.  Assume that there will be fraud and untruth in your case.  Dig for it.  If you can live with what you find and justify proceeding with the adoption to your child one day, go for it!  Just have as much of that information as possible ahead of time.  It is painful to discover the truth after the fact.  I have seen too many friends discover the truth later and it is heart breaking.  We will investigate our own case in the coming months and I’m already dreading what truths may lie ahead of me and how I will justify these to my daughter.

I won’t endorse any agencies and I won’t tell you which ones not to use either.  For one thing, it has been 2.5 years since we adopted.  So many things have changed and I’m just not up-to-date on the latest information.  For another thing, I believe there is corruption in all agencies, so I just won’t tell someone who to use and give them any false hope that it’s an agency without corruption.  I don’t want that responsibility resting on me.  Adoptive parents simply need to know the truth and then make their own best decisions from there.

What I really want to communicate to those considering adoption and those who already have adopted is this:  corruption is rampant, it runs deep in international adoption.  For your child’s sake, seek the truth–before they come home if possible or after if it’s not.  Yes, it is expensive, time consuming and often heart breaking, but your child deserves the truth.  You deserve the truth.  No doubt, you set out to adopt with just intentions.  We all deserve better than this.  We deserve agencies that are ethical.  Agencies that see a batch of 20 kids from the same community with the same “surrender” date and go…huh, this doesn’t seem right and then ASK QUESTIONS.  But they’re not doing it.  They see all those red flags and just sweep them under the rug, too.  Why?  For the sake of the kids?  Nope, for the sake of the bank roll.  Let’s be honest, they don’t care about our kids.  That was clearly demonstrated in our case.  My eyes are opened SO much more widely than they were when we started this process.  Do I think I still would have adopted Kayla had my eyes been more open in the first place?  Yes, I do, but I would have searched out some truths first.  I have the very unique privilege of living in my daughter’s birth country and I can now seek them out without hesitation or additional travel costs hindering me, but even if I didn’t have that privilege, I would do it.  She deserves the truth and so do I.  Knowing my own true history, as an adoptee, has meant the world to me.  She deserves the same opportunity and I don’t want to be the one accused of unethical behavior in her eyes.  Truly, how she sees me and my role in all of this is my greatest concern.

Spring Break and Easter

Last week the kids had off school for spring break.  We had a great week.  We are so grateful for our little car that allows us to get around and explore Addis a bit more.

On Monday, we didn’t do much.  Chris was all over the city searching for a second water tank, a pump and all the other needed parts so that we have fewer water outages in the future.  It is all hooked up now and we are so grateful for that.  Just $350 an we don’t have to worry so much about running out of water anymore.  The second tank gives us an extra 2.5 days worth when the city shuts us off and allows us to have water trucked in if we ever do run completely out.  That costs around $15 and we will gladly pay it to have water if we ever run out.  The other tank was too high up for the water guys to fill, but this new one is on the ground.  Now, we just hope and pray the system works like it should.

Tuesday, we went to Edna Mall.  Malls here are not like malls back home.  It just means a larger building with a few shops and maybe some attractions.  Edna Mall isn’t about the shops at all.  In fact, I think there were only a few and nothing of interest to us.  But, they have an arcade there and a movie theater.  The boys have been begging us to take them, so we did.  We played at the arcade, the kids climbed around on the play structure, we ate a fast-food type meal (ew) and then went to the movie theater.  It was a great day.

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Chris was asked to lead a CPR refresher course for the staff of the Hilton in Addis.  Since he agreed to do it as a volunteer, we figured maybe they’d let the rest of us swim for the days that he taught, so he asked.  They said that would be fine and they’d cover our lunch.  We scheduled it during spring break!  Unfortunately, the pool was being cleaned on Wednesday, but we were treated to great pastries for breakfast, played a small playground at the Hilton in the morning, had a phenomenal lunch and then headed to a much large playground across the street from the hotel for the afternoon.  There were some other kids there to play with and my three had a great time.  They haven’t played in a park since we got here since we had no way to get to one.  Now that we have the car, we can explore the “green spaces” of Addis.

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On Thursday, the boys went to a birthday party of another one of the MKs (missionary kids) here while Kayla napped and I got ready for company.  While we were living in Marshfield, we met a family that lived in Tanzania and had an adopted daughter from Ethiopia.  She was in the same class as Gavin and we formed a quick friendship.  They were traveling through Addis to head to the US for a couple of weeks and were able to come for dinner on Thursday.  It was great fun seeing them and just reminded us of what a small world we do live in…from Marshfield to Africa, Gavin and Mimi get to remain friends.

Friday, we were back at the Hilton and this time the pool was open!  The water is very warm, spring fed, almost like bath water.  The kids played in the water in the morning and after another fantastic lunch.  We felt very spoiled, but thoroughly enjoyed every moment of this rare treat.  Even Chris got to enjoy the pool with us for a bit after his classes were done.  It was a great ending to a week off from school for the boys.

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Saturday brought an egg hunt with the rest of the members of our team.  The kids had a great time hunting for eggs and we enjoyed the company.

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Sunday brought another egg hunt, this time with loads of candy from the States that my mom sent, and very full Easter baskets.  We attended an international church, had a quick lunch out and then headed home for as traditional a meal as I can muster up here.  We missed family, but we knew that would happen.  All in all, it was a great week of fun and celebration and there was no better way to end the week than to remember exactly what Jesus did for us all those years ago, or for the people around us that so desperately need to know about His love for them.

A little rain, a little pet and a little hail

Okay, well a LOT of rain, a little pet and a LOT of hail, but that didn’t sound as “cute”.

Weather here is perfect, but boring.  Ever since we arrived, it’s been 75-80 and sunny every single day.  Lovely, for sure!  Tedious, a bit.  We were actually just discussing how we were looking forward to rainy season for two reasons:  1.  Less dust, 2.  Some kind of weather change.  Don’t get me wrong, we are NOT complaining about 75 and sunny,  but when it did rain (we’re in the short, much more tolerable than regular, rainy season right now) we were ecstatic.  Coming from WI, you experience four drastic season changes.  I do NOT miss winter and I do NOT want to see any snow here, but I guess we did miss some kind of change.

It rained for the first time a few days ago.  We were a little too excited about it.  It has rained for at least 1 hour/day every day since then.  We still enjoy it.  The first day, my kids were dying to play in the rain.  We let them.  Our guard must have thought we were out of our minds, but be laughed a lot, mostly at Reily because he was so full of joy to be playing in the rain.  They got soaked, I took pictures.

First rain

Reily’s joy says it all

One of our “pets”

Oh, just a little hail storm…in AFRICA!

Since the swamp next door was drained and mostly filled, all the frogs that called it home became homeless overnight.  A couple of them hopped over into our compound.  Chris caught one and I caught the other.  They became our pets.  Gavin, especially, loves having them and checks in on them often.  I can’t imagine easier pets and I’m just hoping they’re not the poisonous African frogs.

Oh, strangest thing we’ve experienced here yet (and that’s saying a lot since SO much is strange to us) is hail.  I was sitting in bed thinking…that rain sounds an awful lot like hail on all the tin roofs around us.  A few minutes later it got a lot louder.  I looked outside and it was hail.  In Africa.  Reily exclaimed, “It’s raining ice!”.  Yes, yes it was.  Up against our black gate, it looks like a blizzard.  That kind of weather change would send me into a depression.  The hail melted in a few minutes, but it was fun to experience (from inside the house) and didn’t do any damage since it was just pea sized–good thing for my cute, little car.

T.I.E.

Next door, there is an empty piece of property–no house on it.  I think the owner is now wanting to build a house, but the property keeps filling with water.  They pump it out daily, which makes a mess in the street, but no one seems to care enough to stop it.  They have construction materials blocking our road most days.  We just had to shovel a pile of rocks out of the middle of the road because they were blocking our way home.  I don’t know why that seemed like a good place to dump them, but I guess it did to someone.  Just two days ago, they began putting in concrete forms (?) to start the foundation.  I don’t know how you put a foundation on top of 6 inches of water that appears overnight every.single.night, but this guy has a plan apparently.  The first day, it looked like this (after pumping):

That’s not any kind of foundation work I’m familiar with, but T.I.E.

Yesterday, we woke up and it looked like this:

See the problem?  That much water ends up on top of whatever fill they put down the day before no matter what.  Won’t it just rise over the concrete they lay?  I’m no construction expert, but this just seems like a bad plan and those forms don’t look like they’re for an in-ground pool.  T.I.E.

Hobbies

When I was a little girl my parents got me a book of all the birds in North America and a journal.  I would sit and look out our windows for different birds and then I would identify them with the book and write the date/type down in my journal.  I don’t think I wanted to be a birdwatcher, but it was a wholesome activity that my parents got me interested in.  When we would go on vacations, we’d look for new birds.  As an adult, I still love to watch for birds.  I don’t spend the time looking them up in any book or writing down what I’ve seen and where, though I’m often curious what kind of bird it is (just don’t have the right book for African birds now).  There are some beautiful birds here and Kayla and I really enjoy finding them and taking photos of them.  Getting them to stay still long enough for my poor camera skills is quite the trick, but we caught a few of one beautiful bird yesterday.  Kayla describes this bird is, “The little bird with the small green that flew away.”.  It makes sense to her!

I haven’t really thought much about “forcing” hobbies on my kids.  But maybe if I do get them interested in something wholesome, they will end up loving it and it will carry them through for a lifetime.  I certainly don’t want video games or tv watching to be their only hobbies in life (which is totally what they’d choose if the choice was theirs to make right now).  What are some wholesome hobbies that you remember doing as a kid or that your kids love?  Resources are pretty limited here, but I need to get my kids started.

Life in Africa

Posted this on our other blog yesterday.  It got a great response, so I figured I’d share it here, too.  Oh, we still don’t have water.  Day #2.  Blah.

Okay, the question we are asked most often is…how is life in Africa?  Well…it is interesting.  I know that many people want to know what life is REALLY like, not just the unicorns and rainbows version.  Before I get to it, I want to start with a disclaimer:  I’ve been very hesitant to post too much about the frustrations of daily life here.  I don’t want anyone to think we’re miserable or even feel sorry for us.  We are glad we are here, most of the time.    When we were traveling WI to raise our budget, we heard from so many people that they admired our willingness to sacrifice and could never do what we were doing.  We thought they were being ridiculous.  Now, we know better.  It is a sacrifice.  Missionary life is different.  Different = hard.  Different also = wonderful.  Sometimes, it’s a real fine line between the two.  Overall, we love it here.  We are glad we are here.  We cannot imagine being anywhere else.  With that being said, here’s the nitty gritty.  REAL life in Africa (at least for the Meehan five).

Let’s start with home.  We live in a lovely home.  It is nicer than I imagined it would be for our budget and we feel so blessed to have found it when we did, for the price we are paying.  That said, after living in it for nearly 8 weeks we now know what it was this price and why the owner was so anxious to get it rented.  It was/is not finished.  There are three showers.  Before you start wondering WHY a missionary family would need three showers let me tell you this–only one of them works.  So, we have one shower and two empty stalls.  T.I.E. (This is Ethiopia).  Of course, that shower is only working when we have water.  The city has been rationing the water daily for a few weeks now.  It comes on at night, but if the pressure is weak, our tank doesn’t fill.  That’s happened three times now.  We have gone without water.  Today is the third time.  No showers, no laundry, no dishes, no house cleaning, no toilets flushing, no hand washing.  It gets old after about 24 hours.  After 48, we kind of start to panic and get cranky.  Yes, I know that people (including some just down the street from us) have gone much longer without water, but we are just not used to this yet.  I don’t know how one gets used to this.  The worst part is that we know when the tank is only good for three days if we really conserve, so we don’t do laundry until it fills back up and now the boys are wearing dirty clothes again.  It’s not the end of the world, but it is out of my comfort zone.  Then, there’s the electricity.  It goes off daily.  Sometimes for 5 minutes, sometimes for a few hours, sometimes several times in one day or maybe even several times in one hour.  You never know when it’s going to go out and you never know when it’s going to come back on.  Try to plan a weekly menu and sticking to it with that little glitch constantly coming up.  Our stove does have two gas burners, so that’s great, but the oven won’t work and neither will the microwave.  Thank goodness for peanut butter sandwiches.  (Even if the good peanut butter is over $6 for a small jar).

The food…food here is INSANELY expensive.  Well, the stuff we are used to is.  Fruits and veggies are CHEAP.  If we were vegetarians, we’d eat for next to nothing.  Carbs are also cheap.  If you want to cut carbs completely out of your life, come here for a month.  By the time that month is up, you won’t crave them anymore.  You’ll wish you would never see another carb again in your life.  I didn’t know it was possible to get sick of eating carbs.  It is.  We’re over it now, but the first month we were here, before I learned how to cook with what I could find, we ate so many carbs that I couldn’t stand the sight of them anymore.  My grocery budget is higher here than it was in the States.  Granted, with each passing month, I’ve lowered it a bit more than the one before because I’m learning how to shop more wisely and figuring out cheaper options, but it’s still expensive.  In order to get most of the items on my list, I have to visit two grocery stores and one or two different suks (little shops/stands).  Even there, things are rationed.  We are often told that we can only buy one two cup bag of milk instead of the four we’d like.  There is almost nothing pre-made (except for carbs–we even have to bleach all the produce, so that is a process).  I am learning how to make things we crave from scratch.  Totally from scratch and all by hand.  I’m expecting a hand mixer soon, but for now, I literally just use my hands to mix everything.  Fortunately, I’m good at cooking and baking, but baking has never been a passion of mine.  Still, if I want something, I will try to make it at least once to see how it goes.  So far, I’ve made poptarts, hot pockets, pie and sherbet–all with great success.  Saturdays are reserved for baking.  My kitchen just becomes a disaster and we pray for electricity so that the stuff can actually bake.  So far, we’ve had decent luck there.  Of course, we also need water so we can clean up the kitchen.  T.I.E.

Paperwork?  We’ve made it no secret that we are waiting on paperwork to get our work permits and residency cards before we can really dig in and start doing what God has brought us here to do.  So, what’s that process like?  Why is it taking so long?  I don’t even know if I can adequately describe it.  I’ll just use one example.  We needed health checks to submit with our paperwork for work permits.  They needed to come from a government hospital/clinic.  A friend told me about one that specialized in these, so we got directions.  First, we needed passport photos.  We got those taken Sunday and picked them up Monday.  Next, we went to the office where we will be working so that they could issue us a letter requesting these health checks.  Then, the real fun began.  We had a map with no street names, of course, and headed off to find this government clinic.  We drove all over the city and never found it.  Turns out, we drove right past it at least once, but the sign had no English, so how could we ever have known?  We did find another government hospital and went inside hoping that someone would take pity on our lost-ness and help.  Someone did and we were directed to an office on the third floor.  We went, they directed us to an office in another part of the compound.  We walked there.  That man directed us somewhere else and had a lady take us.  Guess where she took us?  Back up to that third floor office.  It was a “no”, yet again.  So, we went back to the office in another part of the compound.  The man in charge there took us to some other office on the 2nd floor and there was a sign stating that all the staff was in a training for the next two weeks.  Of course.  We wondered if all this stair climbing was the physical exam!  That man asked us to come back at 8:30 the next morning to see if any of the staff could help before starting their training.  Okay…T.I.E.  The next day, we decided to go a different route.  An Ethiopian man who works closely with our organization drove us to a clinic he knew about.  They could not help us and told us we’d have to submit urine samples and have our blood drawn.  Peeing in a cup is something I can do anywhere, having someone stick a needle in me is something I’m a bit more hesitant about.  Not because I don’t like blood or needles, but if you had seen these facilities, you would have hesitated, too.  I was moved to tears at the first hospital because of the great need for medical care and the lack of it.  I found myself wishing that Chris knew the language and could just help everyone.  He would be so great at that.  God has a plan…but now I’m way off topic.  We asked our friend to try finding the original clinic where we would not have to do lab work.  He knew right where it was (PRAISE GOD!).  We drove there, he confirmed that we could get the health check we needed without lab work with two different employees, but was told we needed to come back in an hour.  No problem, it was lunch time anyway.  We ate lunch and then went back.   They asked him to run and get two copies of the forms we needed because they didn’t have a way to copy them.  T.I.E.  We waited.  He came back and then went to the next window where we had to pay.  We waited some more.  We went inside with our receipts and they gave us papers to go get blood samples and give urine.  UGH!  No, not happening.  He tried to reason with them and learned that they had just changed their policy (perhaps just for us on that day???).  Chris and I were ready to leave, but he suggested he talk to the doctor to see if there was anything that could be done.  He tried.  The doctor said “no”.  Then, two women (maybe nurses) told everyone to leave the room except for me.  Okay…  I sat down nervously, she asked why we didn’t want to have labs done there.  I told her I was nervous about the needles being sterile.  She asked my height and weight, filled out the form and sent me to room #7.  Same for Chris.  We took our papers to room #7, they stamped them, made them official and we have our health checks.  I am dumbfounded.  I still don’t know what happened there, but we are just grateful that it’s over.  At least, we think it’s over.  I suppose the government officials could ask why there are no lab results reported and then we’re back at square 1, but we’re going to submit them as is and see what happens.  So, simple health check, two days.  And that sums up the paperwork process here.  I could go into how we got our drivers licenses, but that would take another 20 minutes.  Let’s just say, we’ve seen God move some mountains for us, but they must be heavy, awkward mountains because they sure try our patience while we’re waiting for them to be moved!

Transportation is another fun issue.  Taxi drivers really like to charge a ferenge (foreigner) price.  We do not really like to pay a ferenge price.  Sometimes, taxi drivers show up when they say they will.  Sometimes, they do not.  We have had some very pleasant experiences with drivers one day and then feel totally ripped off or insulted by the same driver the next.  It is taxing to communicate adequately through the language barrier and frustrating for both parties to get through the cultural differences.  We have kind of exhausted our resources for drivers and so we’re just stuck at home unless another missionary family volunteers to take us somewhere (which they’ve been great about, by the way).  We were hopeful to get our little VW Bug last Thursday, but then we got caught in a language/cultural barrier/paperwork snafu mess that put a stop to the whole deal.  We will try again this week.  Having our own transportation will certainly relieve a lot of the pressures we’re feeling right now and will provide some much needed independence, but I know it will also welcome a whole new world of stress and complication, as well.  There are no driving lanes here.  People just go.  Fortunately, they do not go fast, but it’s still disorganized and chaotic.  We are nervous to drive here, but I’ll get over that in order to be able to go to the grocery store when I need to.  I know the car will have issues.  It was built in 1969, for crying out loud.  I don’t know how we’ll find a mechanic or communicate with them, but VW Bugs are all over this city, so we know that parts are available and they can be fixed.  So, that’s transportation.

Car shopping?  That’s nothing short of a nightmare.  House shopping isn’t much better, we just WAY lucked out and found our house on day #2.  Others have spent weeks looking.  When you go to shop for a car, you have to drive all over the city with a delala (broker).  He calls various people he knows that are selling their cars and they meet you somewhere.  Problem #1 with this is that you have to have a car to get to where you can see the car you are looking at.  Uh huh.  Once you get to the car, you look it over, you examine the engine, the interior and the body.  Then, the owner expects you to start the negotiations.  Talk about awkward.  So, you start.  They scoff and state a price that is much higher.  Higher than we told the delala we could pay.  Why?  Every.single.time.  1/2 an hour completely wasted.  You make nice, tell the owner it’s a lovely car, get back into the one you’re paying to drive you all over at some ridiculous (ferenge) rate and drive off to the next one.  Repeat about 8 times in one day and you have two very burnt out missionaries.  We have done this a few times.  We give up, for now.  We are buying the VW Bug from a British man who is leaving the country soon.  No delala involved.  $2000 cash, our personal cash.  Now at least we can get to see other cars on our own in the future.  There will still be a delala involved, but we will just pursue cars we have seen listed online or on billboards instead of just leaving it all in the hands of the delala who does not understand that we are not being stingy.  This is not our $.  We only have so much.  We know we’re Americans, but we’re missionaries.  We don’t have $130,000 to spend on a 10 year old Land Cruiser.  We just don’t.  Not that we would if we did.

The weather?  I have absolutely NO complaints about that.  It is honestly like 75-85 and sunny every single day.  The weather never changes.  It cools off at night to 50-60.  Every day is the same.  Well, until rainy season.  Then, I might complain.  It rains nearly every day for hours and mud is everywhere, but we haven’t experienced it yet, so I really can’t say how we’ll feel about it.  On the plus side, it won’t be snow and there will be less dust.  Because dust is EVERYWHERE.  Honestly, when washing clothes, the water left gives a whole new meaning to the term “grey water”.  It is disgusting.  Floors have to be mopped at least twice a week.  It’s just dusty, but that doesn’t really bother us.  It’s just life in Africa.  Right now, we’re experiencing the season called short rains.  It rains for about an hour each evening and then through the night some.  The first day it rained, we were ecstatic.  It was just the change in weather that was so welcome.  I prefer the sunshine, but rain is fun.  The kids played outside in it for about an hour that first evening.  I think our guard thought we had lost our minds.  He laughed at us a lot.  We were happy to bring some joy into his life.  Tonight, we went for a walk in the rain to a local shop for some chips and Snickers.  Yep, we can get Snickers here.  Now, who could complain about anything after knowing that?

Oh, bugs!  I could complain about bugs.  The property next door to us is a swamp.  Honestly.  They are planning to build on it, so they drain it every single day and every single day it fills back up with water.  When we first moved in, it was just standing water.  We had so many mosquitoes it wasn’t even funny.  Now, they’re not so bad.  We got a fan, too, that blows all night so I think that helps.  Fleas are a different story.  We live on Farmville Rd. (no, not really, but it should be called that).  There are so many animals traveling our road each day that there are just fleas.  Sometimes, your pants pick them up and they’ll bite your leg 20 times before you know it.  So far, we don’t have a flea problem in our house at all (thank GOD), but we’ve all suffered from flea bites.  I know, EW!  We agree and itchy.  So itchy.  I have prayed for just two days with no bug bites.  God has honored that request.  I should pray for two months without them, or maybe just two years.  I hear the bugs just get worse in the rainy season, but I’m not going to think about that for now.

So, animals.  They are EVERYWHERE.  It is so odd.  This city has anywhere from 4-8 million people in it, depending on who you ask.  Yet, there are farm animals everywhere.  You constantly have to watch for random goats or bulls that will just wander out into traffic.  Our street has donkeys, roosters, chickens, goats, sheep, cows, bulls and dogs…so many dogs.  I have stopped doing a double take every time I see a herd of goats being walked down the road, but it is still odd to me when I stop and think about it.  Adjusting to life in America again is going to be weird.  Animals are kept penned up and they do not roam cities like Chicago freely.  One thing I will miss is the braying of the local donkey.  Have you ever heard one?  It doesn’t say heehaw.  It sounds like it is dying every time it makes a sound.  It is not cute.  It is so strange.  It makes us laugh every time we hear it.  I don’t think I had ever heard one before moving here.  It’s just…something else.

Professionals.  Since our home is still unfinished, we’ve encountered several professionals.  A plumber will come and try to fix three problems.  He will make two worse and kind of fix one.  Of course, he comes with no tools.  We loan him ours, we have all of 5 that we’ve collected since we got here.  In the end, Chris has actually fixed more of the plumbing issues than the plumber has.  He comes every two weeks, or so.  The list was first 6 issues.  It’s now down to three, but a couple more popped up in there in the meantime.  Chris fixed three, the plumber fixed one.  The electrician is no better.  We actually caught him pouring water into a hole in the wall where wires were coming out one day.  What?  We still don’t know.  He comes with one tool.  It is a meter to test if outlets are working or not.  Not.  Actually, he has fixed all but one.  We have no outlet in our kitchen for smaller appliances. They are in a different room.  T.I.E.  We have been told he’ll fix it one day, but we’ve been here 8 weeks, so just when that day might happen is a total mystery and definitely not something we are counting on.

Are you laughing yet? Crying yet?  Do you think we’re nuts?  Honestly, all of this puts a smile on my face as I write it.  This is just our life.  We’re not angry, we’re not frustrated to the point of giving up, it just is what it is.  T.I.E. with our hands thrown up in the air and our shoulders shrugged has become our common response to just about everything.  What can you do?  You can get mad.  You can feel like the most miserable person on the planet.  Or, you can just roll with the punches.  So far, we’re doing a pretty great job of rolling with the punches and there have been a LOT of punches.  I mean, we’ve had our days where we’ve tossed around the idea of giving up, but we’re still here.  It’s probably a good thing that flight home is long and expensive.  It keeps us from booking a ticket in the horrible moments where Ethiopia wins.  We’ve had many more “we win” days than “Ethiopian wins” days, so that’s good.

Now, for our favorites.  The people here are lovely.  We do enjoy them.  We are learning how to communicate–at least the formalities.  We refuse to be here for two years and not learn the language, so we are constant students–just of our surroundings and those around us.  The language here is certainly a challenge.  But, we find it really fun to learn new words and then use them.  We ask how to say things and then we practice.  I’m even learning to read the fidels.  If you don’t know what those are, google it.  It’s a challenge, for sure.  I want to be able to talk to our neighbors, they seem like great people.  I want to be able to communicate with our guard.  He is such a kindhearted man, we can just tell.  I like him.  I want him to know Jesus.  I need to learn how to tell him.  We are often greeted warmly by people we see.  It’s nice to be able to greet them back.  Sometimes, we are called out for being ferenge, but we know how to diffuse that.  We are learning.  We like learning.  We like the people–no, LOVE the people.  Truly, this is a beautiful country with even more beautiful people.  Their nature is just so gentle and warm.  They are very direct, which we are getting used to, but don’t mind.  It’s just different.  For example, if they need something from you, they will just say, “Give me_____.”.  No please, no thank you, no you’re welcome.  It’s just the culture.  I like direct.  I can live with this difference.  Except for when it comes from my kids, that is still not okay.

Speaking of, our kids LOVE it here.  Don’t ask Gavin if he wants to go back “home”.  This IS home.  Reily is in his own world most of the time and he’s happy wherever he is as long as he’s with his family.  Kayla doesn’t seem to notice the difference.  She does often ask if we can go to grandma’s house because she doesn’t get the geography, but she’s such a happy little girl.  I wouldn’t say this feels like home to us yet, I don’t know if it ever really will, but I do know there are a lot of things we will miss about life in Ethiopia when we do head to the States again.  The weather being #1.  The people being #2.

Ministry here is going to be a challenge because of the language barrier, but God will make a way.  We have already been presented with a few different opportunities that we are very excited about.  We’ll share more about those in our upcoming newsletter.  Most of all, we are glad to be where God wants us.  He designed this path, He brought us here for a reason.  We would not be any happier anywhere else because we would not be where God wanted us (even if that location did have spaghettios and frozen waffles).  I promise.  There is no better place to be than in the will of God.  We know that we are.  He gives us what we need to sustain us even in the uncomfortable moments.  He has not left our side.  He has a plan for our lives and we have great peace with that.  I suppose that is why we can throw our hands in the air and just say T.I.E. and embrace the fact that tomorrow is a new day.

So, there you have it.  This is the nitty gritty of our life in Africa.  It is not glamorous, it is not easy.  It is a challenge, even the simplest things can be a challenge.  But, we press on.  No, it is not all rainbows, lollipops and unicorns, but we are content.  Our hearts are at peace.  We are glad we are here.  We truly can’t imagine being anywhere else right now.  If you want to know how to pray for us, please pray that we would continue to be encouraged to press on.  Please pray that our paperwork would come through quickly so that we can get to work.  Please pray that we would wake up to a tank full of water in the morning.  I would really like to do some laundry and take a shower.

Just across the street

The swamp next door–someone was getting water from it for their home during one of our outages

Horse cart, just beyond our wall

Kayla’s first day

After being here nearly two months, it was becoming very apparent that Kayla needed some kind of structure to her day.  She has been begging to go to school for months–trying to keep up with the big brothers and all.  I visited a couple of English speaking, well-run preschools here, but they just cost too much.  We can’t afford it.  Even if we could, they’re quite a distance away and I couldn’t fathom spending so much time (or money) getting her to preschool and back.  A friend told me that there are a couple of local preschools in the area.  Local = for neighborhood Ethiopian children.  They speak only Amharic and are very different from anything we are familiar with, but I decided to visit a couple anyway.  The first one wasn’t quite was I was looking for, but the second one seemed great.  A HUGE bonus was that the owners/directors speak English and can tell me how Kayla is doing day-to-day.  The fee is nominal and Chris and I agreed that it was worth a shot.  Kayla will learn the language and the parts they do teach in English she’ll ace!  She started last week and is loving it, so far.  I still need to find her a school uniform, which I hope to do this week.  We haven’t sent her 5 full days yet, but probably will soon since we have been asked to teach at the Bible college three days/week as soon as our paperwork comes through.

Never in a million years did I imagine this sweet Habesha would be back in Ethiopia attending an Ethiopian preschool when I first held her in my arms almost 2.5 years ago.  God has an amazing plan for her life.  I just know it!

Kayla’s 1st day

Lunchbox

School playground