Tag: Adoption Page 10 of 24

The Craziest of Love

On August 29, 2013

His love never fails, it never gives up, it never runs out on me.

This story started two years and four months ago.

When I first visited Forever Angels
orphanage to meet Lily, another story began.

I didn’t remember the names of all the kids I met that day,
but I remembered Zawadi. Almost everyone
who meets her does. Five years old at
the time, fluent in both English and Swahili, bright, amusing, and
affectionate, with an infectious joy despite her very difficult circumstances,
Zawadi is a child who makes an impression.

Lily (age 2) and Zawadi (age 5) at Forever Angels

And she was desperate for a family. Zawadi saw child after child from Forever
Angels picked up by relatives or brought home by adoptive parents. And she wanted a Mommy and Daddy too. In fact, she would tell this to Amy H. (the
manager) quite often. “When is my family
coming for me? When do I get a Mommy and
Daddy? Why does Lily get a family and
not me? She is only two, and I am five.”

The truth is, Zawadi would have been selected for adoption
years ago, but she had an unusual family background that made social welfare
reluctant to release her for adoption.
But finally, right around the time we picked up Lily, social welfare agreed: Zawadi could be adopted. She could finally get her family. But would it be too late?

We even considered Zawadi for our family, but eventually
knew that it was Lily that God had chosen for us.

However, I talked about Zawadi whenever I talked about
Forever Angels. And I remember clearly
when I told Lauren, one of my very best friends.

It was on a Friday night, at Youth Group, and I had just
returned from my trip to meet Lily that afternoon.
Lauren and I sat with our backs against the living room wall, a swirl of
teenagers laughing around us. I told her
about Lily, about the orphanage, and about the other children, including
Zawadi. About how she always asked Amy
for a family.

I had no idea that would be the seed.

Lauren went home and looked up Zawadi on the Forever Angels
website. She couldn’t get her out of her
mind. She told her husband, Ben, about
her, and soon he also couldn’t stop thinking about her. On Monday I got a text message from Lauren,
“Can we come talk to you sometime about the adoption process in Tanzania?”

Two years and four months ago, they started the adoption process in Tanzania.

When you are in love with a child, and that child is desperate for a family, two years and four months is a very, very long time.

In October of last year, they finally got to meet her. They spent a glorious two days together. They all fell in love. Zawadi, being quite perceptive, figured out
that Ben and Lauren were her prospective parents. And being the precocious child that she is,
and knowing how this process works, took it upon herself to sit down at the
computer and write her own letter to social welfare, print it, sign it, and
seal it in an envelope. It reads, ““Ples
can loren and ben be my mom and dad.”

It was at that point that I first posted about this story. Back in October, we thought that it would be “any day now.” But instead weeks and weeks went by which turned into months and months.

Instead of getting easier, Zawadi’s story got more and more complicated. Harder. Unprecedented among adoptions in Tanzania. Yet her need for a family never went away.

Many, many times, it seemed totally impossible. I wept and wept with Lauren and prayed and begged God to help. Even writing this now, the tears flow as I remember those times of utter despair.

Finally, a few months ago, circumstances arose that meant that Zawadi would probably never be adopted, by anyone.

That’s when Ben and Lauren took the craziest step of love ever, and declared that they would be willing to be long-term foster parents. Long term, as in, Zawadi’s entire childhood.

People do that in America all the time, but this is Tanzania. And they are American. They knew the future would be uncertain and risky and there would be no guarantees.

But they loved Zawadi with a crazy kind of love. A never-stopping, never giving-up, always and forever love.

Back in February, at our amazing spiritual retreat, Ben taught the students that song:

His love never fails, it never gives up, it never runs out on me.

During the past few days, those words keep running through my head.

Because two days ago, the day before school started, Ben and Lauren brought home this little girl.

To love unconditionally, now and forever.

I can’t stop smiling and I can’t stop crying.

How they love her.

How He loves us.

Compliments

By Amy Medina

On April 30, 2013

In Other

We don’t call people fat. It’s not polite.

I recently said those words to my children during a dinner discussion. They came out of my mouth as instinct.

And then I stopped.

Confused.

Because in Africa, it is polite to call someone fat. A compliment, actually. Having curves is attractive. Being too skinny is not.

These type of advertisements are all over Dar. Dr. Mkombozi (and others like him) specialize in the fine art of preventing theft, getting you a girlfriend, and “male power” (not sure I know or want to know what that means).

Apparently he can also make your…er….bottom…look like this:

I know, I know. Just what you’ve always wanted.

But it’s true. Africans like big. If your wife is skinny, she will probably die of malaria.

It’s just oh so lovely when an African friend tells me exuberantly, Look! You’ve gained weight! And I give a strangled Thank You and smile the Fakest Smile Ever.

But I have African daughters with American parents, growing up in between two cultures. How do I navigate this?

For years, it has broken my heart to see our Tanzanian students fret over their body shape, trying to meet a western ideal, when their own culture (and genetics) already thinks they are perfect.

So this is the deal. I’m going to try really hard to not make fat a bad word in this house. Thus, I apologize in advance if my children call you fat someday. Just smile, take it as a compliment, and remember that we are African. I think Africa’s got the better perspective anyway.

except the Traffic

By Amy Medina

On December 22, 2012

In Other

I recently saw this t-shirt:

Oh yes. That is my life as a resident of Dar, but even more so as an adoptive mama.

A bit of relief has been felt in this household in the past few weeks, as we have acquired two new passports:

If you could only understand what goes into procuring these precious little books of paper. Bringing home Lily’s Tanzanian passport turned into a much bigger undertaking than expected, or necessary. But such is life.

Last week I realized that in order to track down this passport, I would need to go to the immigration headquarters building in downtown Dar es Salaam. I had only been there once, and my perception of it was that it was far, far away. Never never land. Like, the kind of errand that would take me the better part of an entire day to complete. Needless to say, I was not looking forward to it.

I also did not remember how to get there. Gil told me to look it up on Google Maps.

“You can do that here?” I said. I was incredulous. I didn’t believe him. But he was right.

I didn’t know a lot of those streets even had names. But my main shock in seeing these directions is that it told me that it is only 25 kilometers (15 miles) from our house to Kurasini.

15 miles? 15 miles! Like, if I was in America, I could jump on the freeway and be there in 20 minutes? Like I said, my perception was that this place was in Never Never Land.

My second shock came from Google Map’s estimation of how long it would take to get there: 34 minutes.

At this, I had myself a good long laugh. Obviously, that little satellite up there, looking down on good ol’ Dar es Salaam, has no idea that 5 million people live in this city. 5 million people on roads that could handle about 250,000, give or take a few.

34 minutes. Ha ha HA.

So when I left for the trip, I set my clock. 90 minutes later, I arrived. 90 minutes for 15 miles. No wonder I thought it was so far away. And it took at least that long to get back home.

But at least, we are now a 7-passport family. Can’t wait until we are an 8-passport family, when Lily has her U.S. passport. The day that I am done acquiring passports will be a Day of Celebration. You will be invited. But it will take you at least two hours to get to our house from the airport. (Google Maps: 17 miles, 46 minutes)

Hope

By Amy Medina

On October 20, 2012

In Other

There’s another story that has been unfolding ever since I went to meet Lily the very first time. I haven’t been able to tell you about it. I am dying to tell you about it; in fact, I wrote an entire post last week, and when I was done, I realized that it was too much information and I still can’t publish it. Not yet.

But I can tell you this:

This little girl desperately wants a Mommy and Daddy. She is almost seven years old, very smart, and knows all about adoption.

Our good friends desperately want to adopt her. But this is a very tricky, complicated, unprecedented case. And it all depends on the decision of one man, and he will be making that decision any day now.

This is her last chance. If this does not work, she will permanently be transferred to another orphanage, which will be her home for the rest of her childhood.

Many are praying and fasting on their behalf. Please join us!

True Religion: James 1:27

By Amy Medina

On September 19, 2012

In Other

In 1990, for the first half of ninth grade, I lived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Ethiopia is a fascinating, beautiful country with even more beautiful people–people full of grace and dignity that is not seen anywhere else. Its history goes back thousands of years; it even has links to King Solomon, and it is the only African country to have successfully resisted foreign rule.

However, in 1990, Ethiopia was being ruled by a tyrant, and the city was full of horrifying things for a 13-year-old girl to see, even one who had already spent many years in Africa.

There were sections of the city where the islands in the middle of the road, usually covered with carefully manicured grass and flowers in developed countries, had been turned into toilets. Except without the toilets. On a regular basis, you would see dozens of people–men and women–doing their business on the patches of dirt in the middle of the road. The smell was so bad that we always had to put our car windows up.

Beggars and homeless lined the streets. Of course, to a certain degree, this is common in Africa, but usually (as in Tanzania), the beggars are only adult disabled people (which is horrifying enough, of course.) But in Ethiopia in 1990, the beggars were children. They were filthy, in rags, and covered with disease.

I remember once I was waiting in our car while my parents ran into a store for something. Two small children came up to my window with their hands outstretched. The older one, who couldn’t have been more than six years old, had one eye that looked at if it had grown five sizes too big. It protruded out of the eye socket and sort of hung there, limp. Flies covered it. And if the burden that this small child was forced to carry was not enough, she held the hand of an even smaller child.

That image has stayed in my memory for my whole life. I believe it’s one of the things that compelled me back to Africa. One does not see such a thing with her own eyes and not be profoundly affected for the rest of her life.

And yet, in 1990, this was before the AIDS pandemic hit Ethiopia like a tsunami. So for those children on the street? Things just got worse.

Today? “81 percent of Ethiopia’s people live on less than two dollars a day, and 26 percent live on less than a dollar a day, the marker of absolute poverty in the world.”

“By 2010, between twenty-five million and fifty million African children, from newborn to age fifteen, would be orphans. In a dozen countries, up to a quarter of the nation’s children would be orphans.”

We are adopting from Ethiopia. And our agency asked us to read this book:

There is No Me Without You is part biography of one Ethiopian women’s quest to save the orphans of her country, and part history of the AIDS orphan crisis throughout Africa.

It is a deeply moving story and I highly recommend it.

“On dirt floors, in shacks and huts across beautiful Ethiopia, children sat cross-legged together, quietly starving. Experts dubbed them, ‘child-headed households.’ UNICEF noted that the ‘survival strategy’ of the child-headed households was ‘eating less.'”

However, I need to warn you before you pick up this book:

If you are positive you would never want to pursue orphan adoption, then you should not read this book.

If you want to remain complacent about the orphan crisis in the world, then do not read this book.

Because I promise you, this book will completely turn your world upside down, as you sit in your bed weeping at midnight, unable to put it down.

“Mekdes soon told her [adoptive] mother [Mikki] about the day her aunts took her to [the orphanage]. ‘Yabsira cry a little. I am scream.’

‘Why did you cry, baby?’ asked Mikki.

‘I don’t know this Ethiopia. I want my Ethiopia with [Grandfather] and Fasika. I don’t want new Ethiopia.’

‘You were sad,’ said Mikki.

‘No hope, Mommy. I have no hope.’

‘Oh, honey….’

‘Because no one told me, Mommy.’

‘Told you what?’

‘That you are here in America. I will not feel so sad if I know you are here.’

‘Yeah, I was here getting ready, getting your rooms ready. I was here, me and your daddy, waiting and getting ready.’

‘I am cry because I don’t know you will coming.’

Of course, for most of Africa’s ten million, fifteen million, twenty million orphans, no one is getting a room ready. No one will come.”

(I need to add one other comment if you do decide to read the book. Though the author gives powerful and convincing data regarding the history of AIDS and ARVs in Africa, I do believe she is somewhat one-sided. I am not an expert, but I do wish she had been more fair in her approach to patents and ARV’s, and especially given more time to applaud the work of President Bush’s PEPFARprogram, which really has made a significant difference in Africa.)