Praying for Ethiopian Orphans and Waiting Families

Word has been breaking over the past week with the news regarding Ethiopian adoptions and today it is more official. There are still many, many unknowns, like if the slowdown is temporary or more permanent.

But the news is world-rocking for many families waiting to bring home children from Ethiopia.

And if the number of adoptions out of Ethiopia this year decreases as drastically as some predict, it will mean many children, true orphans, will spend much more time in an orphanage, when there are families ready and willing to adopt them!

If you'd like to help speak up for those that cannot speak for themselves, click here to sign the petition that will be sent to the prime minister of Ethiopia.

There are ethical adoptions going on in Ethiopia, if my husband and I did not believe that with our whole hearts, we would not be in line to adopt from there. But we are, because we believe there are children, more than we can bear to imagine, who have no other good option for a forever family (or even decent medical care) without international adoption. And we know there are good agencies operating in Ethiopia, doing adoptions with the best interest of the children at the forefront of the way they operate.

What do the changes in Ethiopia mean for our family? We don't fully know, yet.

For now we're asked to do the hardest thing.

To wait.

I'd rather hear that we need to go spend a week sleeping on the floor of the American embassy in Ethiopia or make three trips instead of the two (which was already one more than required when we first signed up to adopt) or submit a bunch more paperwork to be able to bring our daughter home.

Because then there would be something I could actually do.

Does anyone like feeling powerless?

But, because I believe in God and what the Bible says, I'm not completely at a loss to do anything.

I can pray.

James 5:17-18, "Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops."

I love that the Bible says "Elijah was a man just like us" because I would never have said "Elijah was just like me," but the Bible says it, so it must be truth!

For now we are going to pray and watch what God is going to do.

I do believe He is faithful and that He led so many of us to this adoption journey for a reason and He will see that reason to completion.

It just will not be on my timetable and may not look like we expected it to look.

I still imagine a day when I will be able to hold my daughter and tell her how long we waited for her, not expecting any gratitude, but so she'll know she's that important, that worth it!


Find more Thankful Thursday here.