Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Moving Right Along

Our home study coordinator has scheduled our two in-home interviews for Friday (June27) and Tuesday (July1).  Say a little prayer that everyone will be on their best behavior!

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Blogs of other families

These are some blog links of other families who have adopted from Ethiopia through our agency (AWAA).  I have added them to the Adoption Links and Blogs section on the right side of the blog. The first one is a family that lives in our town (Kidd family).  Watch the video.....it makes you cry it is so touching!  The second and third links are families that recently returned from Ethiopia and the last one is of a family that will be going over this summer to bring their daughter home.  Just gives you a look at what we will be experiencing next year.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

We're Cleared!

We received an email from our homestudy coordinator that all of our clearances have come back (FBI and State).  So now we can start the in-home interviews! Each little step in the process feels like we are getting closer to bringing Ava home!

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Why Adopt from Ethiopia

  • 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 90's the population (3%) grew faster than food production (2.2%)
  • Drought struck the country from 200-2002 (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 1998-2202
  • Ethiopia's doctor to children ratio is 1 to 24,000
  • In 1993, after 30 long years of war, Eritrea broke from Ethiopia and became an independent nation leaving Ethiopia landlocked without any major seafaring ports.

Monday, June 9, 2008

June 9, 2008

This is our first entry in our blog!  Since so many people have asked how things are going with the adoption, I decided to jump into the new millenium and create a blog to update friends and family on our life with the girls and updates on the adoption process.  Keep in mind that all I usually do is surf the net and do email, so this blog will be a work -in -progress project. I have read so many other families' blogs from our adoption agency that I felt like I had to join and be a part of it.