Why Ethiopia?

(This is a picture of a t-shirt we bought from etsy)

Since we started telling people about our adoption, we have been asked many times about how we decided on Ethiopia.Well, that was actually a pretty long and emotional journey. We started looking into adoption about a year ago and were not sure which direction God was going to lead us in. We decided to get as much information as possible about all types of adoption- fostering to adopt, domestic adoption, and international adoption. After going to many information sessions, we just did not have peace about fostering to adopt or domestic adoption at that time. So, we figured God was leading us to international adoption. We actually started in the China program with our adoption agency because that was OUR plan, to adopt from China. Well, GOD had a very different plan for us. We kept hitting roadblocks and finally realized that that was not the direction we were supposed to go in. We just prayed that God would guide our path and show us which country HE wanted us to adopt from. We started researching other countries, that our agency worked with, and Ethiopia kept being brought up. The more research we did, the more we were convinced that Ethiopia was where our daughter was. Here are some of the statistics about orphans (ages 0-5) in Ethiopia that we found:
    
     -There are approximately 5million orphans in Ethiopia right now and about 720,000 children have been orphaned by AIDS
     -1 in 6 children die before their fifth birthday
     -40% of children under 5 are moderately to severly underweight
     -50% of children will never go to school
     -the doctor to child ratio is 1:24,000
     -60% of the country is illiterate
     -nearly 40% of the population lives below the poverty line, living on less than $1.25/day (we pay more than that for a cup of coffee)

Our hearts ached after reading these statistics and we knew that God's plan for us was to adopt a child from Ethiopia. Now I am not going to say that the journey has been easy, it has been a huge rollercoaster, but I know that God is with us and will guide us through this.

"Rescue the perishing; don't hesitate to step in and help. If you say, "Hey, that's none of my business," will that get you off the hook? Someone is watching you closely, you know- Someone not impressed with weak excuses." Proverbs 24: 11-12 (The Message)

Wait List

We found out on August 31 that we are #70 on the wait list. This was our fist month on the list since our dossier was sent to Ethiopia in August and we will get an update the beginning of each month. The number came with a huge range of emotions. While excited we are finally on the wait list, we were also upset by the fact that we were so high on the wait list. The biggest thing we have learned about this journey is that there are many ups and downs. It is a huge roller coaster ride of emotions, but we must remind ourselves that God is in control and he has the perfect child for us picked out and he is weaving our paths together. One thing our social worker stressed to us was to enjoy each day and take advantage of the time we have together, because once we do bring our daughter home life is going to be very different.

One thing that we are both excited about is the start of football season (hence the jersey with the number on it). 

Welcome To Our Blog!!

We would like to welcome you to our blog. We created this blog to keep family and friends, near and far, updated about our adoption journey and to keep a record for our daughter.  Neither of us have ever written a blog before and don't know really where to start or what to write about, so bear with us. I guess we will start from the beginning...

Casey and I met in the singles group at First Baptist Snellville. We became friends and started hanging out. Everyone knew that he liked me, except for me of course (one of my many blonde moments). He finally worked up the courage to ask me out April 22, 2004. He proposed over Thanksgiving weekend, while my family and I were visiting my sister and her family in Texas. We had a great family evening eating pizza (one of my favorite foods) and watched the movie Stepford Wives. We were staying at my sister's father and mother in law's house and he took me onto their balcony overlooking the 13 hole and proposed.

We were married on October 8, 2005 at the Marriot Evergreen in Stone Mountain, Georgia. It was a beautiful and fun night.

We started our adoption journey this past January and are in the process of adopting a little girl, under 2, from Ethiopia. There have been many ups and downs, but we know that God is with us during this process. We found comfort in the bible verse Psalm 84:3- Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself.. So that is why we chose that name for the blog.

Jill and Casey