just a quick note asking for prayer...we are selling a bunch of things on craiglist to make some extra money for the adoption. we have literally considered every possible possession that we could sell and actually make a substantial profit. we don't own that many things that are worth much, but i have to say that jamie is the one making the most sacrifice here because he put his two guitars up for sale. if you know jamie, you know how much he loves his guitars even though he doesn't play them as often as he'd like. but if they sell, we'll make some money that will go towards bringing our child(ren) home, and we can buy replacements later. anyway, if you think of us, please pray this stuff will sell.
and if you need a futon, a rowing machine, a bow flex, an entertainment stand, a guitar (or two), a mandolin, or a bar stool (or two), let us know!
Monday, June 29, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
fundraising
we have had about $500 donated to us since we posted 100 people, 50 dollars. while we're still far from our goal, this is still incredible. the first $200 we will combine with money we had already saved plus money jamie won from an award at school to pay our $830 fee to the united states citizenship and immigration services (USCIS). we are waiting to make sure we definitely receive a student loan check we've been waiting for before we send that fee off. we've been planning to use $1900 of that check to pay all of our homestudy and post-adoption fees, but if the check doesn't come for some odd reason, we will have to use the $830 towards our homestudy. the other $300 from what we've raised so far will go towards our first agency fee. we still need to raise $2,200 more, but we are so thankful to have already raised a small portion of that fee.
i found out that donations can be made to our adoption fund online, which is so much easier than sending a check through snail mail. if you want to do that, go to https://www.cwa.org/DonationForm.aspx and select donate to general fund and type in our information. we still really want to fundraise the rest of our agency fee, but if possible, we'd also like to fundraise the $1900 for our homestudy and post-adoption fees so we don't owe that back down the road. thanks to everyone who has given so far.
i'm not sure we've ever mentioned on here that we have noted on our paperwork that we would be willing to accept twins or a young sibling group (with the older sibling not being more than 2 years old). originally, we did this because we knew it could come up down the line, and we wanted to be open to whatever might come up. but now, and especially after reading there's no me without you, i'm actually hoping and praying for siblings, namely because we'd be restoring 2 children back to a loving family. but the other reason is that we know we want more than one adopted child, so if we adopted siblings, we'd have 2 kids without having to endure the process again. the thing is, though, we feel so passionate about adoption that i know we'd endure this process as many times as we feel called to ensure we do all we can to alleviate the orphan crisis in this world.
lastly, a funny story. when i told my mom that i was praying for siblings, her only question was: "but how will you mow the lawn?" it wasn't "do you think you can handle 2 kids?" or "do you have the money for that?" or "how will that affect other plans like having a biological child or career, etc?" no, it was "but how will you mow the lawn?" now, i reminded my mom that mowing the lawn with 2 children would be no more difficult than with one because somebody has to be watching the child(ren) either way, whether there is one or 2. so i assured her i'd mow the lawn on saturdays when jamie is home from work. we're not sure if mom thought i'd be strapping the one baby on my back while i mowed the lawn, but i think it's safe to say that how i'll mow the lawn with one or 2 kids is really the least of our worries. (i hope my mom is reading this and laughing).
i found out that donations can be made to our adoption fund online, which is so much easier than sending a check through snail mail. if you want to do that, go to https://www.cwa.org/DonationForm.aspx and select donate to general fund and type in our information. we still really want to fundraise the rest of our agency fee, but if possible, we'd also like to fundraise the $1900 for our homestudy and post-adoption fees so we don't owe that back down the road. thanks to everyone who has given so far.
i'm not sure we've ever mentioned on here that we have noted on our paperwork that we would be willing to accept twins or a young sibling group (with the older sibling not being more than 2 years old). originally, we did this because we knew it could come up down the line, and we wanted to be open to whatever might come up. but now, and especially after reading there's no me without you, i'm actually hoping and praying for siblings, namely because we'd be restoring 2 children back to a loving family. but the other reason is that we know we want more than one adopted child, so if we adopted siblings, we'd have 2 kids without having to endure the process again. the thing is, though, we feel so passionate about adoption that i know we'd endure this process as many times as we feel called to ensure we do all we can to alleviate the orphan crisis in this world.
lastly, a funny story. when i told my mom that i was praying for siblings, her only question was: "but how will you mow the lawn?" it wasn't "do you think you can handle 2 kids?" or "do you have the money for that?" or "how will that affect other plans like having a biological child or career, etc?" no, it was "but how will you mow the lawn?" now, i reminded my mom that mowing the lawn with 2 children would be no more difficult than with one because somebody has to be watching the child(ren) either way, whether there is one or 2. so i assured her i'd mow the lawn on saturdays when jamie is home from work. we're not sure if mom thought i'd be strapping the one baby on my back while i mowed the lawn, but i think it's safe to say that how i'll mow the lawn with one or 2 kids is really the least of our worries. (i hope my mom is reading this and laughing).
Monday, June 22, 2009
cost of a life
as i mentioned in my last post, jamie and i went to a wedding this weekend in maryland. unfortunately, we didn't take any pictures. i'm really sad about that, but the weather just wasn't cooperative. we got to maryland late friday evening and checked into our B&B, which was in a town with only a volunteer fire department, a couple of churches, and old houses. a large outlet mall had been built across the highway from our little town, so we weren't completely in the middle of nowhere. we had hoped to explore the neighboring towns on saturday, but it rained all day. though we did drive to another town that we heard had a bunch of quaint shops and antique stores, we ended up sitting in the car for 30 minutes waiting for the rain to let up only to realize that it wasn't going to. we got out of the car long enough for us to run in a store and buy me a pashmina because the weather was getting colder, and i had brought a sleeveless dress for the wedding. then we ran down the street to a restaurant so jamie could get a crab meat sandwich. thankfully, the rain stopped just in time for the wedding, which was outdoors by a river. it was a beautiful ceremony. the bride looked gorgeous, the groom was smitten -- i just love weddings. my favorite part of this one was that the couple served their guests communion.
on our 7-hour car ride both there and back, we spent most of our time listening to the audio version of there's no me without you. as i knew he would, jamie became obsessed with finishing the book and wanted to listen every spare chance we got. it's just that good. i became a crying mess again, even though it was my second time reading the book. jamie got teary-eyed in several places and probably would have begun blubbering if not for his man pride. one of the stats that hit us both was that the united states gives a measly $75 million in foreign relief every year. now, i'm not trying to be an america-hater. but here's the thing: a whopping $150+ million was spent on barack obama's inauguration. and for those who are george w. bush fans, $40 million was spent on his second inauguration. how do we justify doubling the amount of money we spend to help struggling nations to throw a party for our president? or how do we justify even spending more than half of our relief budget for a presidential inauguration? it is terribly ridiculous.
a few other things i've found ridiculous recently: 1. that i can go into a restaurant and order a half-pound hamburger and fries. seriously, a half pound? how many people would kill to have that much food to last them days? 2. that we send bags of clothes we simply don't want anymore to goodwill. it's great that we give our stuff away, but sometimes we take for granted that we have the resources to actually own something. 3. that i have advil in my medicine cabinet that i can go get right now and take for a headache and people in africa don't.
i think it's time we all start being thankful for our large portions (and perhaps a bit offended that restaurants actually think we need that much food); our clothes, no matter how worn they are; our everyday medicines; our houses with ragamuffin furniture (ie, furniture that isn't necessarily stylish and doesn't match at all aka our furniture); our cars that get us where we need to go even if the radio is broken (once again, that's ours); and our families, even if they are a little kooky sometimes. maybe you all are there already, but i'm certainly not. when we decided to make an offer on the house we're buying, jamie said, "well, this house is $50,000 less than some of the others we've seen. that's 2 more kids we can adopt!" he was half-joking, but i think it's a good way to live. what if we all started measuring what we think we need in the currency of life? instead of saying to jamie, "i need to buy these cute earrings," what if i put that money towards buying AIDS medicine for one sick person in africa? don't get me wrong, i'm not saying we need to become ascetic and deny ourselves of every pleasure. but what if we considered the cost of a life more often than we consider our own wants? i think that'd be pretty revolutionary...
on our 7-hour car ride both there and back, we spent most of our time listening to the audio version of there's no me without you. as i knew he would, jamie became obsessed with finishing the book and wanted to listen every spare chance we got. it's just that good. i became a crying mess again, even though it was my second time reading the book. jamie got teary-eyed in several places and probably would have begun blubbering if not for his man pride. one of the stats that hit us both was that the united states gives a measly $75 million in foreign relief every year. now, i'm not trying to be an america-hater. but here's the thing: a whopping $150+ million was spent on barack obama's inauguration. and for those who are george w. bush fans, $40 million was spent on his second inauguration. how do we justify doubling the amount of money we spend to help struggling nations to throw a party for our president? or how do we justify even spending more than half of our relief budget for a presidential inauguration? it is terribly ridiculous.
a few other things i've found ridiculous recently: 1. that i can go into a restaurant and order a half-pound hamburger and fries. seriously, a half pound? how many people would kill to have that much food to last them days? 2. that we send bags of clothes we simply don't want anymore to goodwill. it's great that we give our stuff away, but sometimes we take for granted that we have the resources to actually own something. 3. that i have advil in my medicine cabinet that i can go get right now and take for a headache and people in africa don't.
i think it's time we all start being thankful for our large portions (and perhaps a bit offended that restaurants actually think we need that much food); our clothes, no matter how worn they are; our everyday medicines; our houses with ragamuffin furniture (ie, furniture that isn't necessarily stylish and doesn't match at all aka our furniture); our cars that get us where we need to go even if the radio is broken (once again, that's ours); and our families, even if they are a little kooky sometimes. maybe you all are there already, but i'm certainly not. when we decided to make an offer on the house we're buying, jamie said, "well, this house is $50,000 less than some of the others we've seen. that's 2 more kids we can adopt!" he was half-joking, but i think it's a good way to live. what if we all started measuring what we think we need in the currency of life? instead of saying to jamie, "i need to buy these cute earrings," what if i put that money towards buying AIDS medicine for one sick person in africa? don't get me wrong, i'm not saying we need to become ascetic and deny ourselves of every pleasure. but what if we considered the cost of a life more often than we consider our own wants? i think that'd be pretty revolutionary...
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
little by little
i had forgotten that jamie and i had a little bit of money laid away in an adoption account. we made a budget for the summer, and we agreed that the surplus from anything we bought under budget would go towards our adoption. for example, we budgeted that my textbook for greek would cost $120 (you know how expensive textbooks are these days); luckily, i found the book on amazon for $20. anyway, with the surplus money plus a financial award jamie won at school plus the few donations we have already received, we'll be able to to pay our fee to the USCIS! we will post when we officially write the check and send off the paperwork, but we are thankful to those who have helped us make this small goal.
we are still, however, a long way from our big goal. to make things more manageable, however, we're going to start posting our progress towards one small goal. instead of saying we want to raise $5000 towards 3 or 4 different costs, we'll give the amount of money we need for one specific (smaller) goal. so, for the next while, we're going to be raising money towards our first fee to the adoption agency. we need $2500. that's $50 from 50 people. we'll blog occasionally about our progress towards this goal. if you want to help us, email me at browle6@wfu.edu or leave a comment.
i did want to say a little about how we are trying our best to be wise with the money we have. i want to assure everyone that we are trying to live as modestly as we can. we haven't bought new clothes in months, we aren't buying any new furniture for our house for awhile (except for a kitchen table, which we found on an awesome sale), and we try to eat cheaply, though eating healthy and eating cheaply is almost impossible. all i'm trying to say is that we are being so careful, and, in some ways, i see this blog as a way for us to be accountable for what we're spending. we can't ask for help if we're not being responsible in the first place.
this weekend, we're going to maryland for the wedding of a friend of jamie's. we found a bed and breakfast that cost the same as hotels in the area, so we decided to consider this a belated first anniversary trip. we'll post pictures when we get back. in other updates, i'm rapidly approaching the end of my first session of greek. i must brag on myself a little and say that i made a 100 on my mid-term exam. this was a big deal to me since many people told me greek was a language for people who do well in math. and, well, if you know me you know that i'm horrible in math. let's just say that exam is hanging on our refrigerator. jamie is going to a bar exam class every morning and then studying all afternoon. when he comes home, he relaxes by playing a video game he found online. he's a little obsessed with it now, but the demo will run out soon. we also received the audio version of there's no me without you in the mail a couple of days ago, so we listen to that for about an hour every night before bed. i'm pleading with all of you: please, please, please read this book.
we are still, however, a long way from our big goal. to make things more manageable, however, we're going to start posting our progress towards one small goal. instead of saying we want to raise $5000 towards 3 or 4 different costs, we'll give the amount of money we need for one specific (smaller) goal. so, for the next while, we're going to be raising money towards our first fee to the adoption agency. we need $2500. that's $50 from 50 people. we'll blog occasionally about our progress towards this goal. if you want to help us, email me at browle6@wfu.edu or leave a comment.
i did want to say a little about how we are trying our best to be wise with the money we have. i want to assure everyone that we are trying to live as modestly as we can. we haven't bought new clothes in months, we aren't buying any new furniture for our house for awhile (except for a kitchen table, which we found on an awesome sale), and we try to eat cheaply, though eating healthy and eating cheaply is almost impossible. all i'm trying to say is that we are being so careful, and, in some ways, i see this blog as a way for us to be accountable for what we're spending. we can't ask for help if we're not being responsible in the first place.
this weekend, we're going to maryland for the wedding of a friend of jamie's. we found a bed and breakfast that cost the same as hotels in the area, so we decided to consider this a belated first anniversary trip. we'll post pictures when we get back. in other updates, i'm rapidly approaching the end of my first session of greek. i must brag on myself a little and say that i made a 100 on my mid-term exam. this was a big deal to me since many people told me greek was a language for people who do well in math. and, well, if you know me you know that i'm horrible in math. let's just say that exam is hanging on our refrigerator. jamie is going to a bar exam class every morning and then studying all afternoon. when he comes home, he relaxes by playing a video game he found online. he's a little obsessed with it now, but the demo will run out soon. we also received the audio version of there's no me without you in the mail a couple of days ago, so we listen to that for about an hour every night before bed. i'm pleading with all of you: please, please, please read this book.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
100 people, 50 dollars
a few days ago, i wrote a post about a book i had started reading called there is no me without you. that day, i was 30 pages into the 427-page book. last night, i finished. i literally could not put the book down. i wept often, i became indignant at many places, but i also laughed. it was an incredible story of suffering and loss, redemption and hope. i learned a lot about ethiopia's history, a lot of about the origin and spread of HIV/AIDS, and a lot about how the western world has failed africa and its people many times over. but i also grew to love haregewoin teferra, a woman who was no stranger to suffering and loss herself, because she used her one life to help others. i loved haregewoin because she stood firmly in her convictions. when her friends told her she was crazy for using her savings to care for orphans rather than to retire comfortably, she didn't listen. when people shunned her for taking in AIDS orphans, she didn't care. haregewoin teferra was a step ahead of the rest of humanity in so many ways because she realized earlier than the rest of the world that just because a child is poor, orphaned, and possibly infected with AIDS does not mean that child shouldn't have a chance at life.
this afternoon, i googled haregewoin wanting an update on her orphanage since the book only went through the events of 2006. imagine my sadness when i read that haregewoin died suddenly in march of unknown causes. i wept for her beautiful life, but also wept for the children she had left behind. she had become their mother, and now they had lost her in addition to the parents they had lost first. reading haregewoin's story has made me all the more anxious to get through this adoption process. if you have been reading our blog, we have been in sort of a stalemate since we decided to begin this process, and we are now humbly asking people to consider helping us so we can expedite the process. let me explain:
in april, we made the decision to apply to christian world adoption after several months of feeling nudged in the direction of adoption. at the time, we had carefully planned out where the first adoption fees would come from. however, in may, we found the perfect house and decided to make an offer on it knowing that it would mean disrupting our adoption plans. but the house was a great deal, and we have since found more confirmation in buying it because our friends the macoskos, who live across the street from our new house, also decided to start the process to adopt from ethiopia. what we would like to do is raise enough money to cover the front-end adoption fees so that we can get to the point where we can apply for grants (you can't apply for grants until you've completed a homestudy) that will help us the rest of the way. many couples do fundraising to cover the cost of their entire adoption, but we want to pay the bulk of it with the income we receive when jamie starts working in october so that we don't take resources away from couples who will need money on down the line more than we do. here is a list of all costs related to an adoption, with the costs we'd like to raise in italics:
$350 -- application to CWA (paid already)
$30 -- criminal background checks (paid already)
$2500 -- first fee to CWA for paperwork
$1250 -- homestudy fee
$650 -- postadoption fee (must be paid to complete homestudy)
$830 -- immigration paperwork processing fee and fingerprinting fee
$2500 -- second fee to CWA
$8500+/- -- adoption fee to ethiopia
$175 -- new passports
$175 -- online required parent training registration fee
$1000 -- postadoption processing fee to CWA
$5000 +/- -- travel for 2 to ethiopia
this does not include small fees like postage and paying for certified copies of birth certificates, etc., and probably some fees we don't even know about yet. but if we can raise $5000, it would enable us to complete our homestudy and begin the work for our dossier. the $830 to the USCIS (united states citizenship and immigration services) is for a document called the i-600A which is our petition for the government to approve us to bring an orphan to the united states and to qualify the child for citizenship. it can take at least 3 or 4 months for that to get processed and approved, meaning the earlier we start it, the earlier we can get it back. once you're approved, you get a fingerprint appointment. after that is done, you're pretty much ready to send your dossier off if all you're other paperwork is done. and after that, you wait for a referral.
we realize that times are tough for everyone. and if we don't raise any money, we will just trust that God has a different time plan for this than we do. but we wanted to ask, knowing that God can provide in this way. what we are hoping is that 100 people would be willing to donate $50 to this "campaign." and we are relying on our friends to tell others -- their friends, families, churches, co-workers, etc. share our blog with them, please. tell them about the child we want to adopt. we plan to use the blog to tell people how the money is used, such as when we write a check for our homestudy or when we send off a check to the USCIS. if you are willing to donate, please contact me at browle6@wfu.edu. if we raise this money, our child will be told many, many times about the wonderful people -- friends and strangers -- who helped bring him home. thank you all in advance.
this afternoon, i googled haregewoin wanting an update on her orphanage since the book only went through the events of 2006. imagine my sadness when i read that haregewoin died suddenly in march of unknown causes. i wept for her beautiful life, but also wept for the children she had left behind. she had become their mother, and now they had lost her in addition to the parents they had lost first. reading haregewoin's story has made me all the more anxious to get through this adoption process. if you have been reading our blog, we have been in sort of a stalemate since we decided to begin this process, and we are now humbly asking people to consider helping us so we can expedite the process. let me explain:
in april, we made the decision to apply to christian world adoption after several months of feeling nudged in the direction of adoption. at the time, we had carefully planned out where the first adoption fees would come from. however, in may, we found the perfect house and decided to make an offer on it knowing that it would mean disrupting our adoption plans. but the house was a great deal, and we have since found more confirmation in buying it because our friends the macoskos, who live across the street from our new house, also decided to start the process to adopt from ethiopia. what we would like to do is raise enough money to cover the front-end adoption fees so that we can get to the point where we can apply for grants (you can't apply for grants until you've completed a homestudy) that will help us the rest of the way. many couples do fundraising to cover the cost of their entire adoption, but we want to pay the bulk of it with the income we receive when jamie starts working in october so that we don't take resources away from couples who will need money on down the line more than we do. here is a list of all costs related to an adoption, with the costs we'd like to raise in italics:
$350 -- application to CWA (paid already)
$30 -- criminal background checks (paid already)
$2500 -- first fee to CWA for paperwork
$1250 -- homestudy fee
$650 -- postadoption fee (must be paid to complete homestudy)
$830 -- immigration paperwork processing fee and fingerprinting fee
$2500 -- second fee to CWA
$8500+/- -- adoption fee to ethiopia
$175 -- new passports
$175 -- online required parent training registration fee
$1000 -- postadoption processing fee to CWA
$5000 +/- -- travel for 2 to ethiopia
this does not include small fees like postage and paying for certified copies of birth certificates, etc., and probably some fees we don't even know about yet. but if we can raise $5000, it would enable us to complete our homestudy and begin the work for our dossier. the $830 to the USCIS (united states citizenship and immigration services) is for a document called the i-600A which is our petition for the government to approve us to bring an orphan to the united states and to qualify the child for citizenship. it can take at least 3 or 4 months for that to get processed and approved, meaning the earlier we start it, the earlier we can get it back. once you're approved, you get a fingerprint appointment. after that is done, you're pretty much ready to send your dossier off if all you're other paperwork is done. and after that, you wait for a referral.
we realize that times are tough for everyone. and if we don't raise any money, we will just trust that God has a different time plan for this than we do. but we wanted to ask, knowing that God can provide in this way. what we are hoping is that 100 people would be willing to donate $50 to this "campaign." and we are relying on our friends to tell others -- their friends, families, churches, co-workers, etc. share our blog with them, please. tell them about the child we want to adopt. we plan to use the blog to tell people how the money is used, such as when we write a check for our homestudy or when we send off a check to the USCIS. if you are willing to donate, please contact me at browle6@wfu.edu. if we raise this money, our child will be told many, many times about the wonderful people -- friends and strangers -- who helped bring him home. thank you all in advance.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
summer reading
last night, i finally started a book loaned to me by a lady at church called there's no me without you. if you are interested in learning more about ethiopia and the AIDS and poverty crisis there, i would highly recommend this book. the author is a journalist and mother of five kids (4 biological, 3 adopted) who travels to ethiopia after reading a ny times article about the millions of children left orphaned by AIDS. she meets a woman named haregewoin who has become well-known in addis ababa for opening her home to orphans, and the book tells the story of haregewoin and the children she saves. one review called this story "the schindler's list of our time." the author is an incredible writer, but what is most striking about the book is that it is so real. it will make you acutely aware of the pain and suffering that so many in our world face, and it will ask you to consider what you are willing to do about it. the book is so good that only after reading 30 pages last night, i quickly got on amazon and purchased copies for my parents, inlaws, and an audio copy for jamie so that he doesn't have to hear me say "oh, let me read you this part!" every 30 seconds while i'm reading to myself.
let me share a few of the statistics she quotes:
81 percent of ethiopia's people live on less than $2 a day.
26 percent of ethiopia's people live on less than $1 a day
20 percent of ethiopia's 65 million people can't afford to eat even once a day.
in 2002, ethiopia's spending on health care, per person, per year was $2.
in 2000, 11 percent of ethiopia's children were orphans.
between 2000 and 2020, 68 million people in africa are expected to die of AIDS.
by 2010, between 25 million and 50 million children in africa (from newborn to age 15) will be orphans.
in 2006, 4.7 million people in africa were in immediate need of lifesaving AIDS drugs, but only 500,000 had access to them.
a child dies of AIDS or is orphaned by AIDS every 20 minutes.
and she writes:
"presumably you can make a variety of calculations and graphs with numbers like eleven million and twenty-five million, but hats off to anyone who can begin to imagine what this really looks like, what this means. who was going to raise twelve million children? that's what i suddenly wanted to know .... the numbers wash over most of us. this is happening in our time? we, who have read the histories of the armenian genocide and of the holocaust and of stalin's gulag, who have lived in the epoch of the killings in cambodia, bosnia, and rwanda, find ourselves once again safely tucked away. we may feel a vague sad tug of common cause with human misery on the far side of the tropic of cancer, but we are disconnected from it by a thousand degrees of space and time. this is true even in the hardest-hit countries, because even in the highest-prevalence countries of asia and africa, there are comfortable citizens -- including elected leaders -- keeping their hemlines above the rising waters."
it's funny to me how God brings to my mind things i said in the past that were just clearly stupid. i can remember saying one time that i just didn't have the same passionate calling to africa that other christians do and didn't think i ever would. and i also said one time that i wouldn't go to africa until i was ready to die (that statement was really ignorance and selfishness at their best). and yet here i am, devastated by africa. and i continue to grapple with questions about what my life is supposed to look like knowing what i know about africa. the thing is, just because i go without buying a new shirt or eating dinner out doesn't automatically mean things get better in africa. but it's the pattern of my life that i'm concerned about. do my actions continually reflect a care for myself or for others? do i live with the groaning, suffering world in my mind or with my own comfort in mind?
i don't know how to make things better in africa. even as jamie and i anticipate rescuing one child from the devastation, i know that won't keep many more children from losing their parents to AIDS or poverty. we must adopt because there are children who have already lost parents, but i have to wonder what can be done on a larger scale to ensure that parents do not continue to die. i realize that i am not saying anything original, i am only verbalizing for myself the battle so many western christians have with trying to negotiate their mostly easy, comfortable lives with what is going on in africa. how can we change the fact that the world trade organization, with the backing of the united states, has placed intellectual property rights on the composition of anti-AIDS medicines, making getting those medicines nearly impossible for people in africa since they can't afford to buy the rights to make the medicines themselves? i don't have the answers about what we can do to prevent such injustice and suffering, but i am reminded of God's words, spoken through isaiah:
"woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless" (chapter 10, vv. 1, 2).
let me share a few of the statistics she quotes:
81 percent of ethiopia's people live on less than $2 a day.
26 percent of ethiopia's people live on less than $1 a day
20 percent of ethiopia's 65 million people can't afford to eat even once a day.
in 2002, ethiopia's spending on health care, per person, per year was $2.
in 2000, 11 percent of ethiopia's children were orphans.
between 2000 and 2020, 68 million people in africa are expected to die of AIDS.
by 2010, between 25 million and 50 million children in africa (from newborn to age 15) will be orphans.
in 2006, 4.7 million people in africa were in immediate need of lifesaving AIDS drugs, but only 500,000 had access to them.
a child dies of AIDS or is orphaned by AIDS every 20 minutes.
and she writes:
"presumably you can make a variety of calculations and graphs with numbers like eleven million and twenty-five million, but hats off to anyone who can begin to imagine what this really looks like, what this means. who was going to raise twelve million children? that's what i suddenly wanted to know .... the numbers wash over most of us. this is happening in our time? we, who have read the histories of the armenian genocide and of the holocaust and of stalin's gulag, who have lived in the epoch of the killings in cambodia, bosnia, and rwanda, find ourselves once again safely tucked away. we may feel a vague sad tug of common cause with human misery on the far side of the tropic of cancer, but we are disconnected from it by a thousand degrees of space and time. this is true even in the hardest-hit countries, because even in the highest-prevalence countries of asia and africa, there are comfortable citizens -- including elected leaders -- keeping their hemlines above the rising waters."
it's funny to me how God brings to my mind things i said in the past that were just clearly stupid. i can remember saying one time that i just didn't have the same passionate calling to africa that other christians do and didn't think i ever would. and i also said one time that i wouldn't go to africa until i was ready to die (that statement was really ignorance and selfishness at their best). and yet here i am, devastated by africa. and i continue to grapple with questions about what my life is supposed to look like knowing what i know about africa. the thing is, just because i go without buying a new shirt or eating dinner out doesn't automatically mean things get better in africa. but it's the pattern of my life that i'm concerned about. do my actions continually reflect a care for myself or for others? do i live with the groaning, suffering world in my mind or with my own comfort in mind?
i don't know how to make things better in africa. even as jamie and i anticipate rescuing one child from the devastation, i know that won't keep many more children from losing their parents to AIDS or poverty. we must adopt because there are children who have already lost parents, but i have to wonder what can be done on a larger scale to ensure that parents do not continue to die. i realize that i am not saying anything original, i am only verbalizing for myself the battle so many western christians have with trying to negotiate their mostly easy, comfortable lives with what is going on in africa. how can we change the fact that the world trade organization, with the backing of the united states, has placed intellectual property rights on the composition of anti-AIDS medicines, making getting those medicines nearly impossible for people in africa since they can't afford to buy the rights to make the medicines themselves? i don't have the answers about what we can do to prevent such injustice and suffering, but i am reminded of God's words, spoken through isaiah:
"woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless" (chapter 10, vv. 1, 2).
Saturday, June 6, 2009
one year
tomorrow, jamie and i will have been married for one year. it's pretty crazy to us that we've made it through that proverbial "first year of marriage." and so without further adieu, i present to you some of the best (and worst) of our first year:
1. our belated honeymoon to china. who cares that we didn't take a honeymoon right after our wedding? this trip was worth waiting for. jamie's team unexpectedly won the silver medal, and we had a blast touring beijing, xian, and shanghai.
2. our first married fight. not far into our marriage, we had our first fight as a married couple over a speaker system. yes, a speaker system. we bought nice surround sound speakers for the apartment, and i decided they were ugly after jamie had spent a bunch of time installing them. it's funny looking back on that fight now, but it wasn't at the time.
3. adopting hudson. we are so glad we added another dog to our family. his separation anxiety was a nightmare at first (we would have $1200 more in our adoption account if it weren't for hudson's 2 visits to the emergency vet), but we're happy to say that hudson is one of the 'best" parts of our first year.
4. buying a house. we won't close on our house until august, but we're proud to say that this year has ended with a wonderful house under contract with our name on it.
5. getting screwed by a furniture company. we paid $600 for a couch that we never got. we happened to be watching the news one night and saw that our furniture company had gone bankrupt and likely used the money we paid for our couch to pay off their debtors. we never got any compensation. that really sucked.
6. new friends. we like to tell the story of meeting our friends the burkholders in a mattress store. right before we got married, jamie and i went to buy a mattress. our now-friend jared just happened to be working that day, and we just happened to strike up a conversation about faith. we found out that jared and his wife, janelle, were new to the area. a week or two after our wedding, we had dinner with them at the village tavern. we've been friends ever since.
7. deciding to adopt. some people like to get through their first year before thinking about kids, but we just couldn't shake the desire to start a family and the calling to adopt. we've already been thinking of names for our little boy and hope to begin calling him by name when we decide on one. we hope by this time next year, we will be nearing the time to travel to ethiopia to bring him home.
8. miscellaneous. we've traveled a lot for rowing in this year -- to philadelphia (a lot); chicago; st. catherine's, ontario, canada. we shared the year with family in north carolina and ohio. we went skiing twice, played the wii a lot. we tried to cook, but also found a love for an italian market down the road from our apartment. we both completed two semesters of school and managed to make good grades. we experienced lots of life stages like graduations, weddings, birthdays, and the deaths of family members.
it has been a crazy, chaotic, blessed year. we are so glad we've lived it together.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
a little progress
i finally figured out how to upload pictures from another website onto the blog! we found this oar with pegs on the pottery barn kids website. we have been thinking about how we might decorate the baby's room after we had to answer a question in our autobiography (part of our homestudy) about it. originally, we had thought about doing a safari theme with pictures done by children's artists of animals one might find in africa. then we thought that might be carrying the africa thing a little too far. then we thought a nautical theme would be great since jamie has a love for rowing. i stumbled on this oar, and now i want it for our nursery! seriously, it's probably a little too early to buy anything, especially since we're watching every penny these days, but there's certainly nothing wrong with daydreaming. the nursery at our new house is already painted yellow, which we really like since we have no idea what gender any of our children will be except for baby number one (who you should obviously know now will be a boy). our plan for decorations is to find stuff that can be easily hung and taken down so we can change out the decor if the next child is a girl. our new house also has a great sunroom that extends most of the length of the back of the house that the previous owners used as a playroom for their three kids. we've also found some great children's art that we want to put in there so it really feels like a children's area. we kind of got obsessed with this company called oopsy daisy that produces these huge canvas murals. lots of them are cute but educational such as this one:
anyway, enough about our future decoration plans. we had dinner with another couple at our church adopting from ethiopia. they just sent their dossier off, and they are officially number 16 on the wait list. we continue to be so blessed by hearing other couples share their story about how they decided to adopt, and to hear how God has provided for them financially through the process. it's also really nice to have someone who can answer our questions about homestudy paperwork, which we are muddling through at the moment. earlier this week, i finally sat down and finished my part of our autobiography. it ended up being over 50 pages long, namely because i felt the need to be verbose on every single question to ensure that our social worker wouldn't need to ask for more details later. we're also going to the clerk of courts office on friday to get criminal background checks, and we're planning a trip to see a notary early next week to have a bunch of papers signed. i also called our doctors today to set up appointments for us to be examined so they can write a statement saying we are in good health and fit to be parents. we are eagerly awaiting a loan check that should arrive in early july that will allow us a bit more freedom in our bank account, enough to write a $1200 check that covers all homestudy fees. our plan is to get most of our paperwork done, so that our social worker can visit us in early august when we close on our house and complete the homestudy for the most part (there will still be some other papers and such to finish). once the homestudy is done, we can start working on our dossier, which is all the paperwork that gets sent to ethiopia. please keep praying for us to be wise with our time and especially with our money, and that we would continue to learn patience throughout this process. oh yeah, and you can also pray that the government allows the $8,000 new home buyer tax credit to be used towards a down payment. this is going through congress, and we're waiting to hear if it will pass in time to apply to our house. if it does, all the money we've saved for our downpayment could go towards our adoption.
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