Ethiopia Journal - Day 1 - Sunday Dec. 27th

It's been a month & 1/2 since coming home, but I finally got our pictures sorted and ready to go.  While in Ethiopia, I journaled each day, trying to capture just a flash of what we did and/or what I was feeling on each day.  Many of you have asked if I could share a little about our trip and I think this is the best way to do it for now.  So, here I go.......

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It’s about 9:30pm on Sunday night and both babies are sleeping and so is Mikey. I have laid here and tried to go to sleep for the last 45 minutes with no success. My heart is racing - literally - it feels like it's pounding out of my chest.  I think I’ve had too much caffeine today. I’ve had three cups of Ethiopian coffee and two cokes – I think that’s equivalent to about 10 cups of American coffee (I have no real idea, but it seems likely).  Yikes! I don’t know when I will sleep……I think we’ve only gotten 8-10 hours of sleep in the last 40 hours. Adrenaline is an amazing thing……



After coming back to the hotel from the country club this morning, another great AGCI couple Rebecca & Dodd, were heading out the door to go to an Ethiopian church and invited us to come along. How could we say no? I SO badly wanted to go to a church in Ethiopia and this morning would be our only chance. So we hopped into the same cab with driver Tatuk (spelled wrong, likely) from the country club and off the four of us went.

In front of our hotel

Street view of our hotel

Driving in Addis is an adventure, to say the least. Honking is the way they seem to signal and the roads are completely falling apart in certain areas, or at least that’s how it appears. The streets are FILLED with people selling things, walking, running, riding bikes, leading goats up and down the road. It is amazing to see this city awake during the day since it was dead and seemingly empty last night.  A few sights from the drive: 

It took about 15 minutes to get to the church. This place is HUGE!!! It is the International Evangelical Church and it seems the pastor is a missionary from the U.S. who partners with Food for the Hungry. Rebecca & Dodd’s church in Wisconsin played a part in this church’s being planted here in Addis. So cool! The sanctuary of this church, which I would say is about the same capacity as Dayspring (maybe a little smaller) was PACKED! People were standing up in the back because there wasn’t a seat to be found. There was a good mix of nationalities in attendance as well. Obviously a majority were Ethiopian, but there were a number of Caucasians and some Asian people as well. We arrived late for service, so we missed the first part of it, but we gathered it lasted about 1:45 or 2 hours. After service, families and children ran outside to play and people gathered to talk with each other. The grounds of the church are large and there are many buildings and classrooms as well. What a cool experience to see people from all walks of life gather to worship our God!!!

Inside the church

A group of children gathered after service was over

A gorgeous Ethiopian girl at church

After church, we stopped at the Ethiopian equivalent of Starbucks – Kaldi’s. It was a hoppin’ coffee shop with good American type coffee (not at all like the Ethiopian coffee I had drank earlier this morning) and pastries. I can never turn down an opportunity for a cup of coffee!! The four of us got a good laugh at the Starbucks wannabe personality of the place.

Symbol look familiar to anyone?

Getting dropped off by Tatuk with Rebecca & Dodd

We got back to the hotel and had lunch with Rebecca & Dodd – all of us ordering Ethiopian food: me ordering injera & ferfer (which is onion, tomato some kind of sauce that has a little kick) and Michael ordering tibs (a chopped & spiced meat) with injera. It was tasty! Time was nearing 2:30pm, so we headed up to our rooms to get the cameras, freshen up and head downstairs for our orientation with Almaz and get ready to meet our babies!


Orientation actually took a long time – we had to fill out a stack of embassy forms and discuss the rest of the weekly schedule as well as expectations about what we should or should not do the rest of the week. I was getting anxious already about leaving for Hannah’s Hope, so much so that writing on the paperwork with a steady hand was hard!

Reviewing our Embassy paperwork with Almaz

Our entire group preparing their paperwork before heading to Hannah's Hope to meet our kids!

I think it was about 4:00ish by the time we left as a group and walked down the dirt, cobblestone alley to Hannah’s Hope!! It was clear that some local families live back in this alley, as many children creeped out of the cracks of the walls & lean-tos to look at us as we walked up. Our entire group was nearly silent during the short walk. When we reached the rust red gates of Hannah’s Hope, I was shaking and nervous. The orphanage was MUCH smaller than I thought it would be – at least from the pictures. A group of toddler and elementary age children greeted us in the yard with bright eyes and curious expressions. They seemed to sort of stand all together and stare at us. Can’t blame them - we must have appeared to be an awkward and hesitant bunch - everyone still quiet feeling the highented sense of anticipation in the air. I wondered if any of these sweet kids thought they were meeting their new mom & dad today? Were they hopeful they might be going to a new home now? We were only inside Hannah’s Hope for about a minute before my emotions just overtook me and I began to cry. To see these children in person was sweet and hard. I want to run to them and just hold them and bring them all home with us. Ugh.

The quiet walk to Hannah's Hope

Almaz approaching the gate of Hannah's Hope to let us in.

Once all of us were inside the gates of HH, Almaz surprisingly grabbed Michael and I and said you’ll be first! Oh my gosh – I did not expect to be first, and yet here we went. I don’t think any of the families knew how all this meeting of our new children would happen so we all were standing there just soaking in the moment.  We frantically gave Rebecca D. our video camera & Emily V. our still camera to take pictures of us meeting the girls for the first time - they were so willing to be swept away with us & we are SO grateful they were there.  Almaz brought us into a small room on the downstairs floor of Hannah's Hope and then left to get the girls. The room was mostly empty, with a few random stools and such on the floor. It felt sort of dingy & dirty. This just does not feel real……and the very short wait was more than I could take and I just lost it. I started crying, Michael started tearing up and we just held each other just SO overwhelmed – THIS WAS IT!


Not a minute later, through the door came two special mothers with our girls. Both looked around with wide eyes. Zuri was given to me and Zinea was given to Michael. It’s hard to describe with words what this feels like. It doesn’t feel real.……and yet nothing is more real than this. These two girls are now ours! I’m staring at them and crying and trying to soak up every aspect of their features and expressions. Zuri only lasted 30 seconds, maybe a minute before starting to cry, but Zinea laid relaxed in Mikey’s arms. We stayed in the room for 5 minutes or so, just holding and looking at the girls, finally deciding to go outside and hoping Zuri would calm down a little. Her cry was so labored but quiet and yet we could tell she was scared. Zinea was still totally relaxed and already smiling and happy. We learned from Almaz that Zuri was pretty sick and they had been giving her Amoxicillian thinking she has pneumonia again. She has a painful sounding cough and a very drippy, plugged nose. Poor thing – she just looks so uncomfortable and was crying such huge tears. After about 15 minutes or so, Zuri calmed down and fell asleep in my arms. What a relief to me……I hated the feeling of her being so scared and feeling helpless to know how to calm her down. Meanwhile, all 10 other families stood outside with us in the courtyard, all meeting their children for the first time and in various stages of cooing, crying, sleeping and laughing. What an amazing sight to see all these little orphans – these precious babies who had no one in the whole world – become part of a family. Only our God could orchestrate something so beautiful.

Waiting in the room for the girls to come down!

Here they come, around the corner!

After a little more time, I’m honestly not sure how long, Michael and I went inside the house to see the girls’ bedroom. It was upstairs on the 2nd floor. Their cribs were in there with 5 other babies. When we entered the room, there were three special mothers there, one holding a baby, one baby was in a crib, one was in a bouncy chair and two were sitting up on the floor. While we took pictures of the room, the special mothers talked with each other in Amharic, certainly discussing that we were Zinash & Zuriash’s new parents. Michael fed Zinea a bottle in the room and while holding sleeping Zuri, I loved on the other little babies who were watching us with wide eyes. We must have been in their room for about 20 minutes. It was during this time that we learned they called Zuri “donut” and Zinea “Zinu.” We don’t really know why other than they said they called Zuri “donut” because she “is so sweet.” Love it. While there, we thought it was so endearing to hear them speak to the girls in Amharic so softly and lovingly. 


As we readied to leave, the special mothers came to kiss and say goodbye to the girls and almost immediately, a few of them began to cry…..and one even sobbed. To see the love that these amazing women have for our babies and ALL the other babies just overwhelmed me to tears. They kissed and cuddled and hugged the girls like crazy, just soaking in every last moment with them. Seeing this is something that we will never forget. These special mothers are AMAZING and are God’s hands and feet to these children, AND to us, in such a profound way.

Zuri & Zinea's cribs

Two of the girls' special mothers

Saying goodbye

Saying goodbye - this was the special mother that sobbed almost the entire time.  It was clear she was so in love with the girls.

We said goodbye to Almaz and walked back from Hannah’s Hope to the Union Hotel with both girls in our arms. Zinea was smiling and looking around the entire time. Zuri was wimpering and still had a frightened look in her eyes. Back in the hotel room, we played and talked with them, trying to help Zuri fight back the tears. We changed their clothes, gave them a bath, put them in their jammies and held and played with them some more. While undressing them for the first time, we looked at their black, chunky little bodies and it hit me. Oh my word – these babies are now ours! This feels really wild. My mind and heart tell me these are our babies, but it just feels strange. I don’t know them and they don’t have any clue who the heck we are. I don’t know how they like to sleep, what sounds they make when they are happy, what scares them or what makes them laugh, how much they eat when they go to bed……oh my word. All I can do it love them right now. How simple and yet how scary.

Zuri struggled most of the evening with crying jags that would last from 5 minutes to 15 minutes. She never cried very loud and never worked herself up physically to the point of arching her back or anything like that, but for the whole evening, she just cried, wimpered and every time we looked at her directly in the face, she looked back at us with HUGE scared eyes. We decided to order dinner and bring it up to the room tonight to save the girls from seeing anyone else but us, so Michael went downstairs around 7pm to order our food. While he was gone, Zuri really relaxed a little for the first time. I was so thankful to see her calm down. When Michael returned to the room, Zuri turned around to the sound of the door closing and took one long look at Michael and just lost it again. Seeing her new big white daddy completely freaked her out again. So, we spent the next 1 ½ hours calming her down and keeping her as relaxed as possible.

Back at the hotel room right after returning from Hannah's Hope

The girls are bathed, changed and we're trying to stay happy

By the time 8:30 rolled around, it was clear both girls were really tired and it was time for bed. We made their bottles, gave them both their first dose of medicine (both of them appear to have a real nasty flu/infection/?????) and sat down to feed them. They both ate really good, which I was so happy about because I had heard other parents say that sometimes the babies will dislike the new bottles and either refuse to eat or have a hard time eating. As they ate, they both fell asleep. Watching them sleep in our arms……Michael and I said to each other we couldn’t believe how beautiful they are. How have we been so blessed to be chosen as the mommy & daddy to these precious girls?



We laid them down in the Moses baskets the hotel provided, laying side by side on the floor. They both went down without a problem, cuddling their new blankets up to their face as they settled in. By now, it was close to 9:00pm and the dinner we ordered was cold and gross, so we skipped dinner and went straight to bed. The girls did amazing during the night! They got up two times, once at midnight and again around 4:00am, both times taking a bottle and going right back to sleep. Zinea woke up for good around 5:30am, smiling from ear to ear. Zuri slept until 7:15am when we finally had to wake her up to get ready to head to the US Embassy. What a blessing to wake her up and see her big smile!!!! As she stretched and wiggled around, she flashed more smiles at us. She has woken up a new baby, we think.

The girls baskets that they slept in

Zuri sleeping our first morning with her

Michael got a full nights’ sleep, while I on the other hand did not sleep AT ALL (hence this journal entry being typed). I’m not sure when I will crash and burn, but I can imagine it’s only a matter of hours. So, until that happens, I’ll keep enjoying the ride. Tomorrow, onto the Embassy…….