Surprise!

So, for those of you who don't know, Jeremy and I have decided that it's time for another child. This time we will be doing things a little different. Instead of HAVING a child we will be ADOPTING a child! Surprise! We started talking about adoption before we were married. After having Hunter our plans got put on hold. We feel like God is leading us in this direction. We feel like He is telling us NOW! Now, is the time for you to adopt. We started really discussing this and researching in July of this year. We started filling out paperwork to do a domestic adoption through an agency in Texas. We submitted our application and talked about it every night waiting to find out if we were accepted or not. Then we both agreed. It just didn't feel right. We knew God was leading us in a different direction. After lots of loooooong nights of researching all the countries we thought we qualified for our hearts kept leading us to Africa. Ethiopia to be exact. We know that it will be hard for people to understand why we chose this country. Let me try to explain with some facts we found:

ONE in six children die before their fifth birthday

44% of the population is under 15 years old

1.5 million people there are affected with Aids (6th highest in the world)

Drought struck the country from 2000-2002

(first year no crops, second year no seeds, third year no animals)

Half their children will never attend school

Ethiopia's doctor to children ratio is 1 to 24,000

More than 1/2 their population does not have access to clean water.

Life expectancy in Ethiopia 39 years for males and 42 years for females. The leading cause of death is communicable diseases such as malaria, typhoid, meningitis, cholera, AIDS, tuberculosis, yellow fever.

 One in ten children die before their first birthday

 Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in the world. Over half the population lives on less than a $1 a day. The average income in Ethiopia is US$100 a year. Almost 82% of the population lives on less than $1 a day.

 Malnutrition levels are among the highest in the world.

  Ethiopia is home to 4-6 million orphans, or 12% of all children.

 That is the same number of children under age 18 who reside in Massachusetts, New York State, and Washington DC combined. If every parent in those places died tonight - that would be similar to Ethiopia's orphan crisis.

We know. There are children in America that need help also. Have you ever though about it? What have you done to help a child? We know people will have questions and we are more than willing to answer. But, just know God is in control. He is leading us to this country for some reason. And that reason is to BRING HOME OUR CHILD. 

Over the next several months we will be doing LOTS of fund raisers. We want to let everyone know in advance how grateful we are for your support and know that all donations are going for a very good cause.

With Love,
Jeremy, Abby, and Hunter (of course)