Why Ethiopia?

One of the first questions people ask us after learning that we are adopting from Ethiopia is, “Why Ethiopia?” I believe people are curious because while they may know people who have adopted from Korea, China or Eastern Europe they may not be familiar with people who have adopted from Ethiopia. Everyone has different reasons for selecting the country they adopt from, but here is how we came to decide to adopt from Ethiopia:

Last spring (April 2004) we had the opportunity to spend a long weekend in Boston and we stayed with a friend of ours from College. Erica (our friend) is a social worker and has been in the adoption world for quite a long time. We talked with her about domestic as well as international adoption and then when talking about international adoption we talked about all the country programs available. When she began talking about Ethiopia we both had that “gut” reaction that THIS was the country. While in Boston we also had the opportunity to meet a couple who had recently adopted from Ethiopia and we heard about their experiences and met their little girl (Aliyah). We also met the Ethiopia program director for the agency that Erica works for as well as an Ethiopian student who was studying at Gordon-Conwell in Boston. To read more about Aliyah and her parents, click here: http://www.nscn.org/article.asp?iArticleID=9

There was also, of course, an intellectual decision making process that took place. The children in Ethiopia are extremely well cared for and can be adopted at a very young age. The process is very fast and the government doesn’t make the process difficult with a lot of unnecessary red-tape.

We look forward to learning as much as we can about Ethiopia’s rich culture!