Emotions

Fatigued, elated, saddened, despair, excited, scared. Yes, even for me an unabashed logical thinker, I experience all of these feelings in a single day. On Wednesday of last week we had the blessed opportunity to meet our four newly adopted children Ashenafi-9, Shega- 7, Atanfu- 6, Mihertu-5. We started with a four hour drive to the city of Awash in Eastern Ethiopia which is one of the larger towns in this area. My expectations were to sit, view the countryside and talk about how we would handle our first introduction to this little crew. But there was the growing sense of sadness that overwhelmed Chandra and I. We started in Addis Ababa with traffic that makes any American city look like a well-tuned symphony. Then on to view the landscape and see sights the sights like women carrying wood, approximately 50 pounds on their backs for miles. They carry this wood into the city to sell it and in the process contort their backs and bodies. We saw children in control of horse carts on the way to town, mud huts as small as a typical bathroom in an American house, and many, many empty faces. I don't say all of this to portray an image of misery in Ethiopia because it is not that way. In fact there a sense of joy the Ethiopians have that is more rich than we experience. But watching all of this transfixed the two of us. It was like, "Wow, the poverty here is transfixing." We were almost trance-like as we drove for hours. My plan to sit unaffected and view the Ethiopian country did not account for these emotions. We we arrived in Awash, we ate lunch, and prepared to meet the children. We were to have 1 hour and 30 minutes with the group and were not to inform them that we were adopting the four. Simply, we were to treat this as a visit to the orphanage to interact with all of the children. We drove down a remote dirt road in Awash, simply saying a dirt road would have described all of the roads but the main road in the town. The outside of the building was gated shut with glass on top of the walls to keep people from getting in. Entering in, we were escorted to the dining room area with a small table and bench on the side. The social worker came in to describe that we would be meeting with 19 children today, none of them would know we were there to adopt. Slowly they came in, a small group at first including Shega and Atanfu. Then a larger group including Mihretu and Ashenafi. There was this short period of introduction to all of the children and then an awkward pause until my ever adventurous wife broke the silence by getting out the balls and playing with the group. She has an amazing way with children. Graham and I played a soccer game with Ashenafi and the older children while Aubrey, Emmaline, and Chandra engaged the younger children and Shega with stickers, markers, and paper. Shega, we found out later, is the only girl in the orphanage. We had some goals while there. Number one, engage the kids in a game of trace your foot on the paper. This was our simple way to get the shoe sizes for the four. We made a special mark on the tracing from our kids. Number two, use Graham as a measuring stick for how tall they were. Randomly Graham would walk over to one of the four, and Chandra and I would eye up their sizes. They are smaller than we expected. Number three, see how they interact with the other children. In one instance Chandra saw Shega sharing with another younger boy. Amazing concept for an orphan to be willing to give a prized possession to another child. Our goals had been accomplished. We observed characteristics of sharing, caring, kindness, joy on all of their faces. After only one hour we were told our time was up, but it was an amazingly positive and encouraging visit. The realities of the situation were also evident. No shoes. We played soccer with the kids, and they were wearing crocs that would randomly fly off. It didn't stop them from playing. They would continue to run barefoot on the rocks and kick the ball. No English. In fact we aren't even sure how much Amharic they speak. They shared beds with each other. There were 6 beds in the boys room and 17 boys. You do the math. Clothes falling off of them or holes in everything, no toilet, an outside shower, a small dirt play area. Questions begin to arise like who sleeps together? How will we teach them to use a toilet? toilet paper? How will we speak to them? Do they use soap? Have they ever brushed their teeth? How will they react to the city? To bright colors? An airplane? They are important questions that we need to deal with but not now. Not after the wonderful experience. But if not now when? It is easy to see how your mind can go down the never ending rabbit hole if you let it. It is hard to give words to an experience such as this, and I do not give these mental images justice. I hope you catch a glimpse of the roller coaster of emotions that even I, an unemotional male, have experienced here, and I am not even ready to mention the DVD of their home and family history. It is too heavy to even process yet. So in all of this there is a juxtaposition of ideas. The extreme poverty vs. what we know lies ahead for them on the journey.  My response? It is same anytime I see a task so big, so overwhelming that no one person or even team can solve it. Dear God, please... give us strength... give us peace... prepare these kids... prepare our family. You started this journey Lord, give us the fortitude to endure. Amen.