July 4th, 2007 we were at the lake with Brad Williams and his family. He told us an orphan's story who had been abandoned when she was 4 and worked in a little cafe/hostel in Welkite, Ethiopia until she was 14. The girl had been taken in by an Anuak family and they were trying to find a home for her. She was too old to go into an orphanage. They had tried to get her to the US on a student visa but found out they are not issued to Ethiopians. The last resort was to find a family to adopt her. We heard the story and were compelled to help. I had always been interested in adopting but my husband had been hesitant and wanted to have biological children first. However, when he heard Lema's story he knew she was supposed to be our daughter.
That is how it began. And then we decided to adopt a 2nd girl so they could grow up together adn there wouldn't be such a gap between Lema and any other children we may have. Sara was in a video we had seen of the mutual friend Paul who had originally met Lema. Daniel & I knew she was the one. Not sure what it was in a video of 30 or so kids all needing a family. The video was a short bit of the kids playing with tools and singing the tag line to Ziggy's (a hardware store)as a thank you to the donors for the materials used to make a shower for the little orphanage. She had a sweet but quiet demeanor hanging in the background... and she had a brilliant smile.
It was an unconventional way I suppose to go about it. And after 2 years of trying to force it to work in any way possible, they were finally our daughters. This blog will be about our journey - our mistakes and how they adjust to this new life.
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