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2009 October 13

by Sarah Underhill

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Why Ethiopia?

Ethiopia is ranked by the UN as one of the four poorest countries in the world. The average annual income is less than $160. In Ethiopia, 1 out of every 10 children is an orphan. In 2008, 650,000 children were orphaned by AIDS alone. In 2007, 197 people died per day due to AIDS (71,902 annual). The average Ethiopian woman gives birth to 5.9 children. 1 in 10 children die before their first birthday; 1 in 6 die before age five. More than half of those deaths are attributed to malnutrition. There is 1 physician for every 34,988 people. Girls age 15-19 are seven times more likely to be infected by AIDS than boys of the same age.

The Road to Our Sweet Girl

1998 - Married one year, began talking about adoption
2000 - Mission trip to Africa (Botswana), saw orphans first hand, fell in love with the people
9/2/09 - First serious conversation, realized it was time to act, lots and lots of prayer
9/5/09 - Told kids and Priscillia
9/6/09 - For the first Sunday since orphan emphasis at our church, no crushing sobs when seeing the pictures - we simply weren't obeying
9/7/09 - My birthday - told friends about adoption
9/8/09 - Began researching agencies, homestudy organizations, lots of spiritual attack this week
9/13 - 9/15/09 - Staff retreat where God really confirmed what we were doing about 100 times
9/21/09 - Sent pre-application in to Gladney $300
10/6/09 - Offer from friends to match all donations between now and end of year up to $5000!
10/8 - 10/10/09 - yard sale - $1801.19 - Exactly enough to cover homestudy!
10/15/09 - first homestudy meeting with Catholic Charities $900
10/20/09 - adoption physicals
11/2/09 - USCIS mailed off $830
11/5/09 - got local fingerprints completed
11/9/09 - homestudy meeting #2
11/10/09 - FBI fingerprints mailed $?
11/12/09 - mailed Gladney paperwork and $1875
11/17/09 - most of dossier notarized
11/18/09 - homestudy meeting #3
12/8/09 - received homestudy to review

Tweets

Finished a day at the Rivergate skate center w 5 kids! So fun! I was insanely impressed! They blanked out bad words - very family friendly! 1 hour ago

The AIDS crisis, and hence the orphan crisis, in Africa is often called the modern day holocaust. What are we doing to help? 2 days ago

Who knew putting together a basketball would take so long? Maybe next time Santa will bring it preassembled. Here's to hoping kids sleep in. 4 days ago

Made waffles for breakfast, now lasagna for supper, then tonight will make santa cookies & tom morning's monkey bread & sausage balls! Busy! 5 days ago

Making fudge and thinking of my mamaw and mom. Sentimental eating gets me in trouble. I'll be doing some sentimental working out in January. 6 days ago

We are in the process of adopting a child from Ethiopia – this blog is meant to share the struggles and joys of that experience.

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