How and Why?

As my heart continues to ache and break for the children of Ethiopia, I often think about my child and how easily the plight of millions of Ethiopia's orphans could have been her fate. What makes R different from any other child of Ethiopia? How did her birthmother know where to go? How could she bare to give up her child for adoption? And why? Why did I get the honor of being R's mother?

Oh, God, how R's birthmother must miss her.

I think about R's life in the first few weeks, before she came to HH. She was at another Ethiopian orphanage, one which we visited when we were in Ethiopia. I think of my child, in her most helpless moments of her life, without me, without her birthmother, without someone who loved her. It breaks my heart. If you saw photos of me taken at that place, you would see the misery and pure angst written all over my face. I know well that once she came to HH, she was loved by the director, A, and the amazing special mothers who cared for her. As much as it kills me to think of R being at the first orphanage, it kills me even more to think of the children we left behind in that orphanage. (One of these children, T, touch A and I so much that we planned to adopt him after R had been home the required 6 months. That didn't happen, but he will soon be with another forever family here in the States.)

I also think of my other child(ren) in Ethiopia at this very moment. (Our next adoption will be of an older child or a sibling group.) For I know he/she/they is/are out there. Where? What circumstances will bring our journey here on this side of the world together with his/hers/theirs? And how will I be able to go to Ethiopia again knowing I will again be faced with poverty unlike anything I could have ever imagined?

And all this leads me again to try to figure out what my role is in this. I do not know where God is taking me. I do know that my work in Ethiopia is far from done, in fact, has hardly even started. The monthly pledge we have sent to HH or the money we recently sent to another adoptive family to help buy shoes for Ethiopian children is but a drop in the bucket.

But will this "drop" lead to bigger things? I prayerfully hope so.