Preserving a Family

Adoption Ministry 1:27 was established to partner with the church in Ethiopia to meet the needs of the most vulnerable widows, orphans and families, with the ultimate goal of orphan prevention and family preservation.

International adoption is not the answer to this crisis in Ethiopia.  With the monthly support of ministry partners and by linking arms with the body of Christ in Ethiopia, we strive to help prevent the collapse of vulnerable families.

On this blog in the coming months, we will be highlighting families who are waiting to be ‘adopted’ for $40 per month, which will help to provide the basic needs of food, medicine, shelter and clothing.

Meet Bethlehem**…

Family K-0037

Bethlehem (pictured above in the orange scarf) is a young woman in a desperate spot.  She is a full-time care-giver for her mother who is a leper and has lost her arms and legs to that terrible disease.  Little Ephrata is her 3-year-old daughter who she loves so much.  Securing food for three people is a daily struggle for this young mother living in the community at the city dump in Addis Ababa.  Helping this family monthly will provide for their basic food needs and Bethlehem will give praise to God for you and your kind generosity!

**Bethlehem and her daughter have been adopted!  But there are many more families like hers who are waiting...  For $40 per month, you can adopt this family or another one like hers in our Adoption Ministry 1:27 program.  Please contact us at:

jamie@adoptionministry.net

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Making Adoption Affordable - What YOU can do!

H.R. 4373, the Making Adoption Affordable Act, is a bipartisan bill that would extend the current Adoption Tax Credit that is set to expire at the end of this year.  

From the executive director of Show Hope on their blog:

All over the world, including here in the United States, millions of orphans are waiting, longing for a forever family to take them home. However, adoption can cost between $10,000, and $45,000, and many families with room in their hearts and homes are unable to overcome the financial barriers. Show Hope recognizes this need to help defray the expenses of adoption and get children into forever families. The United States Adoption Tax Credit currently provides up $12,650 to adoptive families. However, the Adoption Tax Credit is set to expire at the end of 2012. If Congress does not act, the size and applicability of this tax credit will shrink dramatically.

If the adoption tax credit helped you or someone you know to adopt a child, or if it could help you in the future to adopt a child, please call your House Representative todayand urge that he or she cosponsor the bipartisan bill H.R. 4373, the Making Adoption Affordable Act. You can reach your Representative by calling the U.S. Capitol Operator at 202-225-3121 and asking for your Representative’s office. If you don’t know your Representative’s name, click here and enter your zip code in the box provided.

As you call your Representative, consider sharing these messages:
• I am a constituent in your district and the adoption tax credit is important to me because…
• I urge the Representative to become a co-sponsor of The Making Adoption Affordable Act, H.R. 4373.
• If Congress does not act – the credit as we now know it – will expire in December 2012.
• H.R. 4373 is bipartisan and it supports all types of adoptions (domestic private, foster care, and international adoptions).
• This tax credit has made adoption a more viable option for many parents who might not otherwise have been able to afford adoption, allowing them to provide children with loving, permanent families.
• Thank you for your support of H.R. 4373.

If you want to learn more about the adoption tax credit go to adoptiontaxcredit.org
And “like” the Save the Adoption Tax Credit Facebook page

Thank you for taking a few minutes to make this important phone call!

Many thanks to our friends at Show Hope and to all of you who will take action today!
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Making Smiles

Moody and Emily Alexander adopted a beautiful little girl from one of YWAM’s orphanages in Ethiopia in 2011, which was our introduction to this amazing couple and their ministry in Ethiopia.  Moody and Emily had already adopted two boys from Ethiopia before they brought Gigi home. 

Dr. Alexander is an orthodontist in Texas who regularly takes teams of dental professionals and volunteers to serve the essentially unmet needs of widows, families and children in several communities in and around the capital city of Addis Ababa.  You can read more about these very dedicated servants of Christ on the website:  EthiopiaSmile 

Adoption Ministry has had the privilege of partnering with the Alexanders and their ‘Smile’ teams to serve both the widows in our Widows & Orphans Home community outreach and also some of the families in our Adoption Ministry 1:27 program.  (You can read about the October 2011 team on our blog here.)  Just this last week, a 54-member EthiopiaSmile team conducted dental clinics for the AM 1:27 families from the Meseret Christos and Bole Bulbula churches in Addis.  Several widows even received eye exams from an eye doctor present on the team and were given free eye glasses. 

We are so grateful to the Alexanders and their giant hearts of compassion!  Love in action = Ethiopia Smiles!

Be sure to read Emily’s blog soli deo gloria to read in more detail about their latest team and see some great video of their time in the village of Dube Bute.
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Links for you

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Help With Language

Amen at Home
An Amharic-English First Words Book

Amharic to English Dictionary
@AmharicDictionary.com
Do an easy search for those daily-use words that will help ease
the transition to English.

Oromo-English Dictionary
@Oromodictionary.com
Help with the Oromifa language

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Six Things Adoption Has Taught Me
by Shaun Groves @simplemom.net
Just six of the zillion things adoption has taught me 

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Grief and Loss

A Journey of Loss, Healing and Redemption
@Babe of My Heart
Little did I know as not one of these online classes really prepare you for what the journey really requires… We couldn’t wait to one day adopt. And how beautiful it would be to open our home and hearts to a child that needed a family. Sure there would be sacrifices we knew…BUT eventually that child would be a “YOUNG” through and through–and it would be easy peasy in the end as our child smoothly fit in our groove as we were consistent and…LOVE would heal all the wounds. We’d have the most beautiful Christmas card you could imagine. Honestly–writing that now…makes me have to take a deep, slow breath…

And Finally, A Post
@meghmiller.com
In the last five months I’ve realized anew that adoption is not a cause, it is a daily commitment. A commitment to run the marathon of healing and redemption alongside the child that God is grafting into your family. (I say ‘grafting’ because it is a process.) It is also a commitment to let Jesus do his therapeutic work in us too as parents.

Not Easy
@LeastComplicated
I can tell you that it is a rare thing when I meet a post-institutionalized, post-trauma child who does not have significant cognitive or behavioral challenges resulting from their life experiences.

Grief
@Ordinary Miracles & The Crazy 8

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Fathers

  

He Knows Who He Is
@AdoptiveDads.org
I am acutely aware that I haven’t gotten everything right as a dad, much less an adoptive dad.  But when my kids can be comfortable in their own skin; when they can talk with me about things that are a big deal and it’s not a big deal – I know that somehow, someway, and often in spite of me, we are headed in the right direction.

A Challenge for Adoptive Dads
@Empowered To Connect
Watch as Michael Monroe talks about the need for adoptive dads to partner with their wives to work together as they lead their children toward hope and healing.

We are incredibly grateful and have deep respect for the adoptive dads who have adopted from our YWAM orphanages.

Happy Father’s Day to each of you!

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Happy Wedding Tesfaye and Helen!

by Jeff Burns


On Sunday, June 3rd, Joy, Mark, Abebe, Abonesh and I had the privilege of attending a very special wedding. Tesfaye, our great friend and our Adoption Ministry 1:27 case manager for Korah, got married to his sweetheart, Helen.

The wedding was part of the church service held in the church in Korah and so we were there to enjoy energetic worship, an excellent sermon (I was told it was since my Amharic is quite inadequate) and a very blessed wedding ceremony. Tesfaye asked if I would take pictures and so I was trying to figure out when church was ending and the wedding was beginning. I was poised in the front and looking towards the entrance when Joy caught my attention and pointed to Tesfaye and Helen who had slipped into the back of the church.



The service was held outside on the front porch under cover of aluminum and a blue tarp extension. This allowed for more people than could fit inside. The ground was covered with colorful shredded paper and there was a string of lights hung as well as streamers looped from the ceiling. It looked very festive!



Much singing, swaying and clapping went along with parts of the celebration. You could sense people’s love for them. Many of the people who came are a part of our AM 1:27 program and I recognized at least two of the families there who had received new beds from Mark Wolbert and the University of Kentucky mission team the week before.









After the service Tesfaye and Helen went inside the church where traditional food was served. Special guests were then ushered in, including Mark, Joy, Abebe and Abonesh. Then others were invited in for a meal as well. Most of these people rarely have enough to eat – they live in Korah and daily food is not a sure thing. For Tesfaye and Helen to provide food for this many people was truly sacrificial and speaks greatly of both their love and of their character.





We enjoyed a great meal and Abebe took a picture of the YWAM guests!

Jeff, Abonesh, Joy and Mark

Abonesh (accountant for AM 1:27) with the bride and groom

Abebe, Tesfaye and Helen

Joy, Tesfaye, Helen and Mark

Lots of young wedding guests!

And so I returned home to unlimited food, a roof that keeps out the rain, a beautiful wife, awesome kids and a renewed desire to make a difference where God puts me. I’m also reminded that there is a battle for children’s lives and futures, for families in tenuous circumstances, for a wonderful newly-wedded couple in the middle of it all and that we are to do something about it. Let’s start with prayer and then see how the Lord moves in us from there.
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Gratitude Beyond Words

by Joy Casey
June 10, 2012


The YWAM Gift Catalog blessed a bunch of people today. I guess a gift catalog cannot bless anyone but is a vehicle for blessing. It is the people who purchased from the gift catalog that actually affected the daily lives of thirteen widows in an obscure village in Ethiopia called T’ede. We have had several purchases of mattresses and blankets as well as bedding, and it was wonderful to see the happy faces of the women when they were each given all of the above plus a new pillow and some coveted buna (coffee) and sugar. They were delighted!
 



 

 
T’ede is a village that Adoption Ministry has been working in for several years and nine children are sponsored there. It has been fun to see the children grow and develop and to establish a friendship with their guardian or mother. When I go to T’ede I look forward with great anticipation to seeing friends. Some of the children who in years past were shy and retiring now eagerly gather around for hugs and kisses and their mothers and guardians call me by name.


The elderly widows are precious! I noticed Mama Gete had new glasses supplied by our missions director, Mark Wolbert. She was so proud!

 


 
Patsy Johannes sponsors a little girl in T’ede.  She came on a mission team last year and got to meet the child she faithfully supports. This year she helped by putting together gift bags for each of the children and she also bought coats for each child to keep them dry and warm during the rainy season.



The children were so delighted with their gifts and immediately put on the new t-shirt that was in each bag. Even though it was a very hot day, on went their new coats and even with the heat they wouldn’t take them off. Patsy hid some special treats in the pockets, too, so they had a double surprise!




These families are the poorest in the village and live a fairly meager existence, so the gifts received today will replace very worn bedroom sets and in some cases be the first new beds they have ever had. Some of the widows were sleeping on a thin blanket placed on concrete blocks!



Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to all the sponsors of the children who helped make this day possible and to all the many people who have purchased items from the gift catalog. Your giving has huge impact on real people and their gratitude really cannot be adequately communicated.
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