Ethiopia's Orphanages Overflowing

We did some digging since my last post to figure out what is going on with our kids. We were excited the Shannons got to see them as they picked up their own kids, an unexpected experience for both of us.

What we have learned is that our kids have been moved to Addis Ababa from the original orphanage in Soddo, which is 8-10 hours south. They were not supposed to be moved until our paperwork was officially processed there (which it has not reached that point yet). However, our agency told us this morning that the southern orphanages are desperate for space because of the increasing number of children they're receiving each day. So in a nutshell, our kids were moved prematurely to make room for more, newly orphaned children. The only reason the orphanage in Addis has room in this crisis is because they're continually handing off children to adoptive families (like us =))

You might say, what in the world is going on over there? It is unfortunate that most of western civilization doesn't have a real appetite for news of this kind, so it is oddly missing from the headlines most of the time. Here's an article that explains Ethiopia's 'toxic cocktail: drought, global inflation, armed conflict and assorted plagues'. Our kids over there were certainly victims of this 'cocktail' with one parent taken by malaria and the other, starvation. Watch and tell us what you think.