Day 9: What Ifs & Promises

We got up on Friday morning and I was a basket case. We had to be at Gladney's offices by 11:00a.m. because we were meeting Ruta & Alazar's grandfather. I had put a lot of thought into meeting him and what questions we would ask him. But as we sat in the room together and he stared at my children, there wasn't a lot I could think of to say. I just kept fighting back the tears. Here sat a man who had lost his own child and decided to give them a better life. But I didn't feel like the better option. As Ruta climbed in and out of the chair and Alazar tried to stick a sucker in my hair, I searched this man's eyes for conformation that we were anything close to what he had asked God to provide.

And I doubted it.

The meeting was beautiful and between Le and I, I think we took amazing notes for trying to keep our emotions in check and still parent two tired, hungry toddlers.



Before we left, I had the social worker take our picture as a family of four. It was the first time someone had snapped a pic of the four of us (wow, I look stressed) :
We had enough time following the meeting to get the kid's lunch and drop them off at the guest house in order to make it to Kolfe for our government orphanages tour. I had been waiting for this part of our trip for a long time. I know so many amazing women who sponsor, adopted from and simply have fallen in love with Kolfe, that I had a lot of packages, letters, hugs and kisses to dispense.



The first face I spotted was Erin's Biruk. I almost cried. He was so shy and it wasn't until I explained that I knew Erin, that he actually would stand near me. I dropped all kinds of love on this boy. How could you not....look at that smile.

Then there was Amy B's. sponsor son, Aylalew. DARLING!!! And he was more shy than Biruk! He sent a letter back with me for his sweet sponsor mama.

We spent almost two hours hanging with the Kolfe boys, watching them play soccer and touring their compound. It literally took my breath away to leave. I wanted to mother them all. I wanted to sing them each to sleep and read them a bedtime story. They were each so beautiful, with their own amazing story and I wanted to just be in their presence awhile longer. My heart kept seeing them and picturing my own son. What if this had been Alazar's fate? What if our paths had not be connected? What if these boys never knew the love of a mother?
As we drove away, I laughed at myself for thinking that I could do anything to mother these boys. I was pretty sure that I couldn't parent the little one that the Ethiopian government had already given me. But as I had stood in the midst of so much blind optimism, I promised to let up on myself. Ruta, Alazar, Le & I had a lifetime to figure each other out. My God was still on His throne and HE had called me to Ethiopia, at this time, for a purpose and I was not going to be dismayed by letting the devil continue to remind me of my failures. God doesn't care about my failures or my strengths, He simply calls me to be obedient. It took meeting a group of orphans to remind me.