The famous evangelist D.L. Moody was preparing to speak when an usher handed him a note. The evangelist thought it was an announcement, so as he took the pulpit he opened the folded piece of paper and found one word scrawled in large print: FOOL....
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(I'm blogging over at CCFL today. To read the rest of the story, click here.)
27 January 2016
12 January 2016
Feeling all the feels tonight
Today we received both good news and not so good news.
The good news from our adoption agency is that the regional authority who previously refused to sign off on our kids' adoption has been replaced by a new authority who sympathizes with our situation and says she won't oppose any appeals we make.
So our team in Ethiopia presses forward, working with their experts on how best to word their latest appeal. We expect to get news in the next few weeks on that. The team says they are "heartened," but they don't want us to get our hopes up too high.
The bad news is that our 10 year old girl has been very ill. In their last update, I noticed that she looked really thin, and her skin and hair had tell-tale signs of poor nutrition.
At the end of December she and other children at her school were given anti-parasitic medicine. Several kids got sick after taking the medication, including M. She had such a bad reaction to it that she ended up in the hospital, in the severe acute malnutrition ward. The combination of poor nutrition and bad medicine were more than M's little body could handle. Her blood counts were terrible, and she required two blood transfusions and a 6-day stay in the hospital.
She's back in the orphanage now, but she will stay home from school for a few weeks until she gets stronger.
If you have ever had a loved one hospitalized, you can understand a bit of what we're feeling. We're so thankful M received the care she needed. At the same time, having your daughter hospitalized for something that could be prevented with proper nutrition and clean water is frustrating. Being 7,000 miles away is frustrating. Thinking about your daughter being hospitalized, without any family to advocate and/or care for her is heartbreaking. Plus, she was in the hospital during Ethiopian Christmas. Alone. On Christmas.
It makes me want to punch something. It is infuriating and annoying and frustrating and disheartening and confusing and I just want her home so she never spends another Christmas alone. I never want her in the hospital again without a parent to advocate for her, I don't want her living in a place where anti-parasitic meds are necessary and yet unregulated.
So while we are glad there was a sliver of hope today in the adoption case, it's horrific that these children, our children, are still in Ethiopia when they should've been here 12 months ago. It's terrible that some people seem to care more about their pride and their politics than about giving kids a safe place to live with a mom and dad to love and care for them.
I could go on and on, but I know you feel the same way. It's maddening.
I don't know how this story will end. Just when I've given up hope, we get a glimmer. Just when I've convinced myself that they'll never come home and perhaps it is for the best, something like this happens, and I know the reason we're infuriated is because we love these children so much.
Love>7,867 miles
Love>nationality
Love>skin color
Love>language
Love>everything
The good news from our adoption agency is that the regional authority who previously refused to sign off on our kids' adoption has been replaced by a new authority who sympathizes with our situation and says she won't oppose any appeals we make.
So our team in Ethiopia presses forward, working with their experts on how best to word their latest appeal. We expect to get news in the next few weeks on that. The team says they are "heartened," but they don't want us to get our hopes up too high.
The bad news is that our 10 year old girl has been very ill. In their last update, I noticed that she looked really thin, and her skin and hair had tell-tale signs of poor nutrition.
At the end of December she and other children at her school were given anti-parasitic medicine. Several kids got sick after taking the medication, including M. She had such a bad reaction to it that she ended up in the hospital, in the severe acute malnutrition ward. The combination of poor nutrition and bad medicine were more than M's little body could handle. Her blood counts were terrible, and she required two blood transfusions and a 6-day stay in the hospital.
She's back in the orphanage now, but she will stay home from school for a few weeks until she gets stronger.
If you have ever had a loved one hospitalized, you can understand a bit of what we're feeling. We're so thankful M received the care she needed. At the same time, having your daughter hospitalized for something that could be prevented with proper nutrition and clean water is frustrating. Being 7,000 miles away is frustrating. Thinking about your daughter being hospitalized, without any family to advocate and/or care for her is heartbreaking. Plus, she was in the hospital during Ethiopian Christmas. Alone. On Christmas.
It makes me want to punch something. It is infuriating and annoying and frustrating and disheartening and confusing and I just want her home so she never spends another Christmas alone. I never want her in the hospital again without a parent to advocate for her, I don't want her living in a place where anti-parasitic meds are necessary and yet unregulated.
So while we are glad there was a sliver of hope today in the adoption case, it's horrific that these children, our children, are still in Ethiopia when they should've been here 12 months ago. It's terrible that some people seem to care more about their pride and their politics than about giving kids a safe place to live with a mom and dad to love and care for them.
I could go on and on, but I know you feel the same way. It's maddening.
I don't know how this story will end. Just when I've given up hope, we get a glimmer. Just when I've convinced myself that they'll never come home and perhaps it is for the best, something like this happens, and I know the reason we're infuriated is because we love these children so much.
Love>7,867 miles
Love>nationality
Love>skin color
Love>language
Love>everything
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