FOVC

While we were in Ethiopia, we traveled south for two reasons: To get a glimpse of where Bereket lived before he came to us, and to meet our brother and friend, Desalegn Daka, who runs an organization called FOVC, which stands for "Friends of Orphans and Vulnerable Children."

We had never met Desalegn in person, but we had corresponded considerably via email. Desalegn is a 29 year-old man from a village called Shanto. Shanto is in an area called Damot Pulasa, about one hour's drive from the city of Soto in southwest Ethiopia. Shanto's population is about 8000 people. Desalegn is one of two people in the HISTORY of the village to graduate from University.

Even though Desalegn has an engineering degree, he has chosen to return to Shanto, with the hopes and goals of saving the orphans there.

We experienced so much during our time with Desalegn. The village is in a very remote and beautiful area. Apart from Desalegn's efforts, there is no opportunity for education for the children of the village. We didn't see any vehicles in the village. We were the first white people the children had ever seen!

Dave became acquainted with FOVC after an economist with OxFam (a UK development organization, similar to World Vision or USAID) confirmed it is a legitimate and worthy organization. There is no end to the amount of support and help needed by FOVC. Desalegn has been reaching out to the west since 2006, but we are--to date--the first people who have responded to his pleas for help. Dave is trying to help by serving on FOVC's board, and by trying to get a website going for them.

Desalegn has put together a comprehensive and extremely well-written plan for FOVC. (If you are interested, I would love to send it to you! Please?) He is well-regarded by local government, and FOVC has been given almost 2 acres in Shanto. He has already erected a primitive school building, and hopes to be able to add an orphanage.

FOVC's goal is to keep the children in Ethiopia. Desalegn wants to accomplish this by providing education, health care, job training for widows, stipends for local families who take in orphans and etc. (Much like Hanna Fanta's model for Children's Heaven....but far-removed from Addis, and with none of the connections to people and resources that Hanna has been able to develop.) FOVC is currently serving about 25 orphans and a handful of widows. Of course, there are more children who need help. If Desalegn can find a way to construct the orphanage, FOVC will be able to help many more orphaned children.

Here are some pictures (well, lots of pictures) from our incredible days with Desalegn:

On the way. The farmers tied these oxen together and drove them in a circle to flatten the teff.

The countryside is so beautiful.

A huge difference from the sights of Addis!

The city is Soto. The ferenji is Dave. The habesha is Desalegn.

The chick is me. Everything else explained above!

On the way from Soto to Shanto Village,

this guy really hoped we buy his carrots.

When we arrived in Shanto, the FOVC children came to greet us, singing a welcome song in English.

Here come the beautiful children with their teachers.

In the school room.

Another shot of the school room and the teachers.

Here I am with "Beauty," one of the widows that FOVC helps. (That's Desalegn on the left.)

Dave blowing up rocket balloons,

much to the delight of the children!

Some of the children up-close.

The children performed cultural dances for us while they played a drum and sang. The green skirts are what remains of school clothes from a few years ago. There haven't been funds to buy school clothes since then.

These little girls were--truly--lovingly eating gummy bears, bite-by-tiny-bite. They would eat the ear off a bear. Then they would wrap up the bear and put it in their pocket. Then they would get the bear back out and eat another ear, or a tiny part of a gummy foot. I think they had never had candy, and they made it last!

Sweet little girls dancing.

Because of generous friends and loved ones, we were able to provide a laptop and camera,

as well as some other gifts to Desalegn for FOVC.

Some of the posters outside the FOVC classroom.

Entrance to Desalegn's office.

A teacher showed us  the daily schedule at school.

Desalegn and the staff and the children presented Dave, Bereket and me with traditional Ethiopian clothes.

When we had finished visiting the FOVC project site, we walked through the village. We caused quite a stir!

The view out the car window as we prepared to leave.

After we left Shanto, Desalegn took us to a food market that was a 20 minute drive from the village.

These women are showing off their garlic!

After we looked around the market, Dave and Bereket and I got back into our clean, air-conditioned car and began the journey back towards Addis. Desalegn got on a bus for a long, hot, dusty ride to Shanto. The level of need and beauty we had witnessed was nothing like I have ever seen or imagined. In some ways, I was so sad to leave. Much to my shame, I was relieved to leave, too.

Desalegn and the staff and the children are heavy on our hearts. We would love to organize a trip back to Shanto Village, to take friends or others who are interested, and to try to help these people help these children.

As we drove north towards the Lake Country,
we passed a troop of baboons!

International Adoption Clinic

Hello from the Land of "Long-Time-No-Post!"

Dave and I took Bereket to the International Adoption Clinic at Children's Hospital in Denver this week. What a fantastic experience! What a blessing to have our son evaluated by a whole team of specialists. Here are the major things we learned:

* Bereket is not four years, four months, even though that is the birth date on his birth certificate. He might even be older than FIVE years, four months....but we are going to go ahead and move his birthday UP exactly one year. So, our son is five, not four years old! (On testing, Bereket flew through every item through the five year category. The inventories are substantially different for six years and older, so they didn't test further.)

* The team highly recommended Bereket start kindergarten next year. They said he will be very fluent in conversational English, but he should still have ESL services, because a conceptual grasp of language is very different.

* They also highly recommended we form a short-term relationship with an Amharic speaker, who could work as a translator for us. They believe Bereket is attaching and adjusting sooooo well, and he is extremely resilient. But at the same time, he has suffered a tremendous loss. And it's a loss we know next-to-nothing about. If we can gain an understanding of his history before he forgets it, it will likely help us parent him in the future. And I think it will be a gift to him, too.

* Regarding his size: He would be an average-size four year-old. He would be a slightly small five year-old. If he is six, he is pretty small. But he will catch up, much as Amelia has.

* They determined Bereket is extremely smart (yup), completely darling (absolutely) and super busy (ditto).

Everything else is coming along just fine. I think the most difficult aspects of our life as a family of six aren't necessarily related to Bereket's adoption. Rather, it's the fact that he's a boy, and a busy/curious one at that. We seem to be on the move more than ever now. Our life was super-busy before Bereket came home. Now we live at warp speed!

The Road to Woliso (Amelia's Home Town)

Our first trip outside of Addis was a one-day journey to Woliso,

where Amelia was born.

Unfortunately, we don't know anything about her birth family, or exactly where she was born. So we couldn't visit the exact places where she started her life. It was still wonderful, though, to see where she came from.

The country-side is way different from the "city-side!"

It was market day. All along the 2+ hour drive, the roads were filled with people who were walking--with whatever they had to sell--to the nearest market in the nearest village.

There is a beautiful vacation lodge near Woliso called the Nagash Lodge. Truly, there are probably just a handful of similar places in Ethiopia. Here is the entrance gate.

The view along a path at the Nagash.

There was a Treehouse Coffee Bar!

Bereket waiting patiently for chai-dabo

(tea and bread, a very favorite snack!).

The Coffee Bar is built into a huge old tree.

See the huge, um, rodent?

(Hint: It's sunning itself on the upper left-hand side of the rock!

I couldn't convince Dave to scamper up beside this guy so as to demonstrate how BIG it was!)

A cuter rodent.

A view through the trees....beautiful!

A view from the Tree House.

Stone gateway leading to the lodge buildings.

Real, wild monkeys. So, like, AFRICA!

The lodges are built in the style of traditional Ethiopian homes.

Beautiful day!

Dave takin' it all in.

With the hotel employee who proudly showed us around.

The ceiling of one of the lodges.

Back out the big gate.

We thought this roadside bread shop looked much like a patisserie in France. Only, of course, it's in Ethiopia!

And now we're coming back to Addis.

We enjoyed our beautiful trip to Woliso, and the time we spent at the Nagash Lodge. We also saw a lot of pain and suffering there, but it seemed...disrespectful to snap pictures as we traveled through the town. We realize Amelia's first family certainly lived a more difficult and painful life than the un-real life we saw inside the gates of the beautiful vacation spot. We will never know Amelia's first family, but we love them nonetheless.

We can't believe we're back at Sele Enat!

This is the first moment we saw Bereket.

He was waiting in the doorway for us!

He looks shy but happy. (Trust me, he's not REALLY shy.)

First exposure to a Happy Meal toy.

With his caregiver.

These are the cooks in th kitchen at Sele Enat. (I know I have no excuse whatsoever not to cook every night!)

Daddy and son getting to know eachother.

Funny face.

Getting ready to leave Sele Enat.

Poignant painting on an exterior wall of the orphanage.

In the van, headed to the guest house.

Dog Paddling

Well, now that we've been home for two weeks, it's probably time to write a blog post!

There is so much to say, it's hard to know where to start. If I had to give a word picture, I'd say we've been dog paddling.

For the first week we were in Ethiopia, I was really sick much of the time. After stays in two hospitals and a stop at a clinic, and completely by God's intervention, we found a doctor who could help me. One doctor said I was in serious condition, another said critical condition. Either way, I was really sick!

Soon, I will post pictures and share a bit about our amazing experiences, particularly during the second week, when we traveled around southern Ethiopia.

Here is a synopsis of how things have been since we got home:

The first few days = Nightmarish and terrible (shaded further by intense jet lag, sickness and being incredibly tired, I'm sure.) Regrets, doubts and second-guessing abounded.

The first full week = We all realize Bereket is a good boy. But the language barrier is a tough one! His "boy-ness" is nothing like "girl-ness," either....

Second week = Two year-old Amelia realizes Big Brother is here to stay, and he is cramping her style. What this looks like: she wants full access to everything that belongs to Bereket, but she wants to give him no access to anything that belongs to her, that she has ever looked at, touched or briefly considered. So.....life is OK with Bereket, but pretty much hell on wheels with Amelia!

End of second week (aka right now) = We can say that life is good. Not entirely easy, but good. Bereket is kind, considerate, helpful, eager to learn, eager to please and unfailingly gentle with Amelia. (Like a good brother, he does tease her occasionally, however.) He is also full of energy, on the go (even when we are all sick and would love some time to rest) and more physical than any daughter we've ever had.

Still, I was able to tell Bereket, "I love you" when I tucked him in the other night....and I meant it!

Amelia is coming around. She and "Brother" hold hands in parking lots, she laughs and smiles at his antics. She has even discovered that Mommy's lap is big enough to "nuggle" (that's "snuggle" if you don't speak Amelia-ese) two kiddos. She is happy to see him when they have been apart, and she's happy to scream at the top of her lungs if he crosses her in any real or perceived way.

Bereket started preschool yesterday and he had a fabulous day. Everyone's school schedules are now aligned, so Mom can actually go to work, in her office, without little kids, for two full days each week. Hallelujah!!!!

About the big girls: This has not been an easy transition. But I'm so proud of them--neither has second-guesssed our decision to bring Bereket home. They are helpful, they have been great role models, and they love their new brother already.

Yes, we've been dog paddling. But our noses are up out of the water a lot more than they were just last week.

We Have Left on a Jet Plane!

It's early Tuesday evening and we are sitting in the Houston Airport, waiting to depart for Dubai. After a quick night in Dubai, we'll take a 4 hour flight to Addis Ababa. We arrive Friday the 22nd at noon Addis time. We expect to meet Bereket early Friday afternoon. (That's just Thursday evening U.S. time!)

(We just watched a bomb-sniffing dog from the Houston Police Department go through our plane and the baggage with a fine-toothed, um, dog brush. We like that in a police dog!)

We thank you all for your love, prayers and support. Because of so many kind expressions from so many of you, I have to say: we really feel so loved, so privileged, so honored, so blessed. Who are we, that so many dear people would join us in our family's journey, in so many special and touching ways.

We still don't know if we can update the blog from Ethiopia, but we will have email and Facebook.

Pray for our girls! Pray for us! Pray for our son!

And to God be all glory, great things He has done.

Getting Ready & What to Say?

In just four days, we will be on our way. Like all traveling families, we have so much to do!


How to pray:

• For Bereket, that his heart and his little self will be ready for us...as ready as he can be.
• For our initial time with Bereket. Fortunately, we will be spending the first week in a guest house with nine other IAN families and their children...many of whom are Bereket's friends. During the second week, Dave and Bereket and I will travel to Sidama together. Thankfully, we will be surrounded by Ethiopians who can, hopefully, help us translate!
• For our girls while we are gone. I am struggling with fear (which is, by definition, a lack of faith) when I think of leaving them for two weeks.
• For my mom, who will be Grammy-ing the ship while we are away.
• For our faithfulness, that we will discern the assignments laid out for us, and that we will accomplish them to God's glory.

What to Say:

• Friends, and friends of friends, have come through so beautifully in these days leading up to our trip.
• We have been given a laptop and a new digital camera to take for the ministry in Sidama, and a laptop for Children's Heaven.
• We are simply very overwhelmed and humbled, to be trusted by God and by people, in these ways. We promise to look with our eyes, ears, hearts and minds for the best opportunities to make the greatest impact.

We can Facebook and email while we are in Ethiopia, but I'm not sure about blogging...

Humbled

Yesterday was a whirlwind day....helping the students work with the Chick-Fil-A cow yesterday morning, then setting up at the restaurant, then back to the school, with the cow, to work with the students again.

The fundraising event succeeded beyond our wildest hopes and prayers. We had hoped to raise $300-$400 to bless the children we will spend time with.

Instead, Westview students and families, and our friends and neighbors all came....and a total of $1000 was raised!

(1-17-10 Update: The final total
has amounted to over $2000.)

We praise God!

We are humbled, and we promise to be good stewards of this gift. We cannot wait to discover what we will do with these gifts.

We could not be more impressed by the students and families at Westview. We understand this is the biggest fundraiser Chick-Fil-A has hosted. We love our school! The group of girls (and one guy) who helped to plan and organize this event were unmatched; these kids were there from the initial planning about a month ago, till we closed Chick-Fil-A down last night--incredible! And all of the families who turned out in droves--amazing!

Thank you, Everyone. Thank you for coming, and for eating, and for giving! Together, we really will be able to change a bit of the world for these precious children.

Chick-Fil-A! Tomorrow! Come Eat for Ethiopia!

Eats for Ethiopia Tuesday!--are you coming?

Lots of updates

Whew! Our heads are spinning around here!

We bought our plane tickets today! We're flying on Emirates and leaving in less than 12 days--January 20--and returning February 3. Dave will be traveling all next week, and the two days before we leave...so I have lots of details to take care of without his help.

It's a long time to be away from the girls....even though they will have each other, Grammy, their familiar home and their crazy routines. I hate the thought of being away from them for so long. God, keep them safe!

And yet, I yearn to be in Ethiopia. Can't wait to get there. Can't wait to see what's gonna happen, what God's gonna do. In addition to the fun and joy of traveling with NINE families from our agency, we'll get to see Hana Fanta, go to Children's Heaven, visit the big market, go to the fistula hospital and the leper colony...all the stuff we treasure from our last visit.

Additionally, we will spend several days in the Sidama region. It happens to be where Bereket is from. Also, it's the location of this relief organization that Dave is now connected with. The emails Dave gets from these hopeful people are just unbelievable.

At our repeated insistence that we would like to bring something to help this organization, they have requested a digital camera and a laptop. Oh man! We can swing the camera. But we think the laptop is out of our reach at this time.

If you have a laptop you could donate, I can assure you it is for a good and desperate cause. (We can provide more information if you're interested!) If you don't, and you are a pray-er, would you join us in praying that God will provide?

May God Bless It

See the email (below) Dave received from a guy he is working with Southern Ethiopia. Don't you see why our hearts love Ethiopia so?

Father God, please use this "chance" encounter for your glory and for these folks' blessing.

We don't know how this will play out, and will or won't happen....but hope we will be open, discerning, obedient...and even fruitful.

Dear Dave,


I am very sorry for being late to respond your email. I was out of the town for sometime and now I am back.


Dear Dave, I really thank you for what you are doing for us. God bless you and your family for everything you are doing for us.


I am eagerly waiting to see you, your beloved one and your son. I hope we will have the best time together getting to know each other and as well as you will learn more about my vision and my community.


As I am a member of Wolaita Zone House of Councils, I can give you full information about the business/economic environment in my area of Ethiopia and what we believe you might do to assist/empower our community in creating economic development in our country.


Regarding to my location, currently I am working this project in Southern Ethiopia, Wolaita Zone, Damot Pullassa Woreda/District. Wolaita Zone is one of 13 Zones in Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region/SNNPR/.


Finally I thank you very much for your intention to bring something for me from your country. But as you have no much space, please don’t bring anything for me. However, my staff and I have prepared cultural clothes of Wolaita Zone for you and your wife. I think you will be interested on that. In addition to that our orphans are prepared to well-come you when you arrive to our project area.


Dear, if you are interested I will join you at Bole International Air Port and say welcome (Lory's note: I think this would be an 8 hour journey for him). If you are Ok with my idea please let me know that.

Thank you in advance.

Faithfully yours,

Desalegn Daka

South Ethiopia

Wolaita Soddo

A Picture of Our Son!

We received Little Boy B's birth certificate this morning. I booked flights a couple of days ago. It's pretty official!

So, I think we can tell you that our son's name is Bereket. His birth certificate says his name is Bereket David Howlett. So, we have decided that we will keep his daddy's name as his new middle name: David.

Also, I "think" it's ok to share a photograph now....?

How cute and sweet is Bereket David Howlett?

Yesterday, we picked up a fleece and a vest to go with his winter coat.

He's going to come home soon!