We fly home!
Today was the day we fly home. You could tell the kids were a bit nervous. They were bickering with each other and couldn’t play with a toy or us for more than a minute. Almaz and Tseguy came to lunch and dinner, and brought the Gabe Beyenne, who is the director of the Hope Orphanage in Mekele the northern Tigray region of Ethiopia – those families have to fly to that orphanage from Addis because it’s surrounded by mountains.
Gabe is a visionary. Him and his wife are US citizens who came back to Ethiopia to help their orphans. We talked about his calling. His orphanage has more of the older children than the babies because the babies get adopted more easily, but his goal is to care for the children most in need, and if they can be adopted great, and if not, then him and his wife are there. A lot of the kids in his orphanage will probably not be placed for international adoption. I asked him what his orphanage needs most and told him that I would post it here in case someone who reads this blog can help. I included the website link to his orphanage above. HOH has a merry go round, and other outside play stuff for the older kids. He is wanting much of the same to give the kids an outlet for play. I have no idea how much something like that would cost or how to get it over there, but I did want to bring it up in case someone out there can help.
Gabe rode to the airport with us, and was very helpful in getting us to the right gate with all our stuff. The kids were so excited – every time a plane would fly over HOH II, Aman would run out to point it out to us.