Why Ethiopia you ask?

In case you are wondering why we chose Ethiopia - here are some of the reasons below.

Above all we felt God lead us directly to Ethiopia.  It is a perfect fit for us in terms of their qualifications for adoptive families.  We started out wanting to adopt from a Spanish speaking country because of the fact that I (Amy) can speak Spanish and have a general understanding of the cultures that go along with it.  However, after we chose our agency, that limited our selections to Costa Rica and Colombia.  Both countries require extensive time spent in the country for court (6-8 weeks more or less) and we absolutely cannot do that for multiple reasons (job, kids, dogs, money, etc).

When we had our phone orientation with Debra (the lady that used to live in Mt. Airy - see earlier post for this info) at Gladney she walked us through the different countries after asking us about our preferences.  For us, cost is definitely a huge factor, length of wait time from start to finish, and we want to be able to select the gender and age range for our child.  Some countries don't allow you to select as much as Ethiopia.  In addition lots of countries have parent ages, health requirements, length of marriage, and income requirements that you must meet to adopt from their country.  We are a perfect match with Ethiopia.  They are one of the faster countries for adoption, minimal travel (2 trips of 7 days each) and less expensive.  We are able to select male and 0-12 months (at time of referral).  This means however that he could be 2-3 months older than that by the time we have him home with us.  In addition they have their own orphanage so they know exactly what is going on with the care of the children.  The children are tested for HIV multiple times.  During the day the caretaker to baby ratio is 1:3 and night 1:4.

But like I said before - above all else - we felt strongly like God led us to Ethiopia and we are comfortable in that.    

Some other various additional facts that are all the more reason why to adopt from Ethiopia include:

• One in six children die before their fifth birthday

• 44% of the population of Ethiopia is under 15 years old

• 60% of children in Ethiopia are stunted because of malnutrition

• The median age in Ethiopia is 17.8 years

• 1.5 million people are infected with AIDS (6th highest in the world)

• 720,000 children have been orphaned by AIDS alone, and there are 4.6 million orphans in Ethiopia.

• Per capita, Ethiopia receives less aid than any country in Africa

• In the 90s the population (3%) grew faster than food production (2.2%)• Drought struck the country from 2000-2002 (first year no crops, second year no seeds, third year no animals)

• Half the children in Ethiopia will never attend school. 88% will never attend secondary school.

• Coffee prices (Ethiopia’s only major export) fell 40-60% from 1998-2002.

• Ethiopia’s doctor to children ratio is 1 to 24,000.