Why Ethiopia?

First of all, we cannot express to you the joy it gives us to have the encouragement, support, and mostly prayers of so many people as we begin this walk. The outpouring of love just showed us once again, that this is the right thing for our family RIGHT now. No questions..this is God's will for us. So thank you, to anyone who has shown your support to us or even if it was just before God and we haven't had the chance to talk yet, thank you!!

When we shared our news with family and friends it usually went something like this...after some sort of clever or not so clever lead in...
"Well, we are in the process of adopting from Ethiopia!"
Some people just immediately got excited.
Others responded with "Really?! Tell me more.."
Some of my favorite times were when people hugged us and said, that is great, or even teared up.
But of course, no matter what the initial reaction..for many people, there were questions.
We would like to answer some of those questions starting with "Why Ethiopia?"


Let me just first say that a child in need of a family, whether they be in my city or on any of the other continents, is a precious child of God who deserves to be loved, cherished, fed, clothed, and taught about Jesus. While it's tough to say exactly how many orphans there are in the world (see here, here, and here), the estimates in the references sited range from 132,000,000 to 163,000,000. Regardless, the number is staggering and we had to pick a place to start. We picked Ethiopia.


Bottom line answer is this..there is a great need for orphans in Ethiopia. Unfathomable. Heartbreaking.


We felt led to choose this country and went with it. I was so blessed to work at Harpeth Hills Preschool before Brody was born and through that job I was able to watch 3 different families bring home sweet children from Ethiopia. I was familiar with the process and felt comfortable with it.


We borrowed this video from another adoptive family, but I think it just about sums everything up.