What Can I do?

I've made some recent posts on the famine and food price situation in Ethiopia, but what can someone do to help?

Here are some suggestions:

1. Get informed. On issues like these we have a tendency to feel very far removed from the situation and we forget what is going on elsewhere in the world. We see this even in the version of the news which we get on TV. It is typically 20 minutes of American news (including human interest stories and fillers) and a 2 minute synopsis of what is happening in the rest of the world. I believe that it is irresponsible of us to hide our heads in the sand or to just say that suffering is something that happens in the rest of the world. It is important for us to become informed. We had a recent tragedy in our church and it is amazing how when all of a sudden something that happens everyday all around the world happens in your backyard there is a shaking that comes. Suffering and tragedy occurs somewhere every minute of every day - we can't hide from that. So, let's become educated on the situation that others find themselves in throughout the world.

2. Pray for these situations. These situations are huge. They really require God moving for them to be changed. There are complex environmental, political and social issues in which we can come to God and ask Him to move, to change hearts and to raise the responsibility level of others in the world, starting with you and I.

3. Choose to Take action. In The Bible we see very clear calls to action. A couple of examples in case you are wondering... James writes in James 1:27 "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James makes it clear how important widows and orphans (and our caring for them) is to God. How am I doing at that kind of following Jesus? I also wonder how am I doing at "[keeping myself]from being polluted by the world." Could the materialism that I engage in actually be contributing to my pollution by the world around me that in turn keeps me from being able to look after the orphans and widows?

Of course Jesus also writes, "Love your neighbor as yourself." We typically do not think of our neighbor as being on the other side of the world, but they are. We know that Jesus was not taking simply about proximity here, rather he is calling us to love humankind with His kind of love.

Choosing to take action starts with an assessment of my self and a desire to respond to a call of greater simplicity in the life I live in order that I might demonstrate Jesus love and His call to the orphans and widows with the resources I have.

4. Ask God for direction, then step out. Perhaps the hardest part in all of this is to know what to do except pray. There are so many practical ways we could respond through various organizations out there. This is an important place to come before The Lord and ask where He would have you give or how He would have you respond. Perhaps He leads you on a short term trip. Perhaps He calls you to an orphanage in Africa to hold babies. Perhaps He calls you to adopt. Perhaps He leads you back to school for training to take abroad. Perhaps He leads you to donate to an organization that is making a difference for individuals who face suffering throughout the world.

I would recommend to you 2 organizations that are doing an amazing job at caring for impoverished children throughout the world. They are Compassion and World Vision. You can find out more info on Compassion at www.compassion.com. For World Vision you can check in with my good friend Jeff Mclain at his World Vision page at http://connect.worldvision.org/siteapps/personalpage/ShowPage.aspx?c=luLVJaMSKpH&b=851285&sid=ffKQIQPsE9JHLUNtGkF. He is a Child Ambassador for World Vision and can fill you in.

I know at this time we all are feeling the pinch of higher prices and the uncertainty of economic issues, however lets be mindful that this crisis affects many throughout our world at much greater stakes than what it does you and I. And then lets act on it.

Food Prices and Famine

I've mentioned in previous posts about the current price of food and the potential for famine in Ethiopia. Here is some more info about that. First, this past week I heard a couple of examples of what it means that the price of food is rising there. This information is from a blog called Owlhaven http://owlhaven.wordpress.com

"Some of you were wondering what food prices are like in Ethiopia right now. Teff, the grain used to make Ethiopian flatbread is horribly expensive right now. It used to be about $30 USD for 220 lbs. Now it is $110 for 220 lb. Bananas are 50 cents US for 2.2 lbs. Lentils are $1.40 US for 2.2 lbs."

It's amazing to think that the price of Teff has increased 400% as well as the current price of bananas and lentils. What do you do when food becomes unaffordable. Here in the US we look and complain that the price of bananas has skyrocketed and is at 59cents or more per pound. So, we pass by the bananas and go to something else. What if you were trying to buy food for your family while only making $1 - $1.50 per day, though? That's the situation for many Ethiopians in the Southern Region (as well as elsewhere in Ethiopia). Food is out of reach, so you're forced to go without.

Now, imagine that food is expensive, your child is malnourished and you decide to go for help. There has to be someone who can help you, right? There are aid workers in the country, however they are faced with a shortage of resources in how to help. Below is a recent print article from The Christian Science Monitor on the tough spot that aid workers find themselves in as well as the harsh reality that many mothers face as they take their children to these feeding centers.

As famine looms in Ethiopia, only the neediest get food aid

By Nicholas BenequistaFri Jun 27, 4:00 AM ET

– One by one, the children are placed on a scale hanging from a makeshift wooden stand.

The mothers look pleadingly at the Doctors Without Borders aid worker, but he keeps his eyes on his clipboard, tallying the figures that determine whether each child is sick enough to eat today.

The scales in a rural clinic in Hadero, Ethiopia, are the latest indicator of the severity of the global food crisis.

There is only enough medicine and high-energy Plumpy'Nut peanut paste for the most severe cases. Outside, hundreds of hungry women and children throng the gates, desperate to go through the same brutal selection process, pushed back by guards brandishing sticks to clear a path for the next in line.

In this African nation, about 10 million people, more than 12 percent of the population, are now in need of emergency food aid after a drought wiped out harvests. But because grain is now twice as expensive as a year ago – if it is available at all – there is not enough food in Ethiopia to feed everyone in need.

Some aid workers are concerned that the combination of forces could force the country into the worst crisis since the infamous Ethiopian famine that killed an estimated 1 million people and was brought home to millions of television viewers across the world in the mid-1980s.

'Prioritizing' aidAid workers and government officials are thus forced to "prioritize," a harsh but necessary part of any relief effort, but rarely as grim a task as in Ethiopia at present.

"People don't know yet how widespread and severe the world hunger crisis is," says David Beckmann, president of Washington D.C.-based Bread for the World. "The gruesome things now happening in Ethiopia may be the first example of a country that's being pushed into a humanitarian crisis partly because of bad weather, but partly because of the high price of food and the high price of fuel."

The World Food Program, for example, is supposed to be doing its part by procuring emergency rations sufficient for 4.6 million Ethiopians, but because of rising expenses it only has the grain, oil, and corn-soya blend for about half that number.

Not much food left to buyEthiopia's foreign-funded welfare system, the Productive Safety Net Program, may get around the food shortage by simply handing out cash to some of its beneficiaries who need extra help this year due to the drought. But even with cash in hand, some worry whether there will be any food at all left to buy.

The shortfall in this so-called preventative component of the relief effort means that clinics like the one in Hadero could be thronged by even larger crowds of women and children in mortal need of intensive, and expensive, treatment.

"It is quite important to inject food rapidly into the community," says François Colas, country director in Ethiopia for the Belgian chapter of Doctors without Borders. "As long as food isn't distributed, we will see people falling into severe malnutrition."

The Ethiopian government said earlier this month that 75,000 children are already in peril from the drought.

Most are now in the country's southern lowlands, though the crisis is spreading to the northern highlands.

Drought-stricken zones have been divided into six priority levels, depending on the prevalence of malnourishment.

The largest aid efforts are now under way in areas in the top two categories.

How villages bear the hunger Still, the crisis does not conform to administrative boundaries, and on the edges of aid operations, some villages are quietly bearing their hunger.

In the Ethiopian village of Kamecho, in one area on the cusp of a priority zone, a young boy jogs along the muddy path, dutifully pointing out the households with malnourished children.

Word spreads that a foreigner has arrived at this remote spot, accessible only by a footbridge.

Parents emerge from huts and fields carrying listless children appear from their huts and fields carrying listless children. One woman marches to the center of the gathering crowd with a bundle in her arms.

She throws the threadbare blanket to the ground and holds up her frightened daughter, the child's lip quivering as her eyes dart from face to face, her bony legs swinging limply below her swollen belly.

She had brought her daughter to a nearby clinic for help, but when the staff discovered that the child was not only malnourished but afflicted with tuberculosis, they referred the child to a hospital 34 miles away in Hosaina.

One staff member, speaking anonymously, says that every week the clinic refers as many as six cases of malnourished children with complications, knowing that most will never make it.

"We refer the kids to the hospital in the hope that they will of course go and be healed, but that is usually not the case, and it is horrible," he says.

Neighbors tell a similar story in Kamecho.

Unable to afford transportation to the hospital, they returned to plow their fields in hope that their children will survive another two months until the next harvest.

The Irish organization Concern says that help may come sooner if it secures the resources to set up operations in the area.

All together, aid operations in Ethiopia will need at least another $300 million this year to fill the shortfall.

The US, Britain, and other countries are likely to step up, but even if these donors provide more funds tomorrow, it will take as long as eight weeks to procure food internationally.

And once reaches the country, truckers are in short supply to distribute the aid, sometimes canceling delivery contracts at the last minute as more lucrative opportunities arise.

Until more aid arrives, government agencies and international organizations are likely to continue to concentrate their resources in the neediest areas – weighing the indicators by the much more convenient statistical scale.

Thinking of Hanna

We had a great day off today spending some time out and about. While out we checked out a few things for bringing Hanna home and then went out to Build A Bear to make her a teddy bear. Joshua, Micah and Caia were off the charts excited to go and make a bear for her. It seemed to be a great exercise in thinking about her and praying for her. They did a great job of trying to think through, "what would Hanna want?" They even tried out giving the bear hugs to make sure it was soft enough for her. This definitely was a bear built with love. It even has 3 hearts...one from each of the kids. Of course we also had to tell everyone we came in contact with in the store who the bear was for and where she was coming from. It was very sweet.

So, here are the kiddos presenting Hanna's bear which affectionately is named "Hope."

After we left Build a Bear, Joshua said to me, "I can't wait until she comes home." Yes my son, neither can we.

A Staple Crop

All around us here in Lancaster County the corn is really starting to grow and it is a continual reminder of how important corn is as a staple crop here.

In Southern Ethiopia it is a much different crop that is considered a staple. The crop is Enset, otherwise known as "False Banana." I first heard of Enset when a friend of ours was showing us pictures from a recent trip to Ethiopia and there were a number of pictures of False Banana. I thought to myself, what a funny name.

It turns out that Enset has absolutely nothing to do with bananas, other than that it resembles domesticated banana plants in its look. The fruit of Enset is not edible, instead it is the root that becomes food. An Enset plant's root can provide up to 40kg of food, thus being a huge staple for many family's diets.

Enset has become a very important crop in southern Ethiopia. While it does grow other places in Africa and Asia, nowhere else is it counted on as a vital crop as it is here. The reason why it is so important to Ethiopia is its ability to resist drought. Enset becomes a crop that can be counted on even if other crops fail. It also has a high yield even though it takes years to mature.

Growing Enset is labor intensive. It takes at least 6 - 9 years for an Enset plant to grow to maturity. This means that plantings must be staggered to insure that Enset is always available. The process for planting, cultivating and harvesting Enset is also intensive, and each family member has a certain part of the process which they oversee in the growing and the harvesting of the root as well as the grinding and preparation of the root to make food.

When it is harvested the root is cut into cubes and is walked through a process of fermentation, pressing and drying. After a number of steps and weeks of fermentation and drying a cake is formed. A family will cut off of this cake what is needed and then grind it into a flour to be used for making bread, injera or porridge.

As might be expected Enset is very starchy and has very little protein. While it is a stable crop and provides security, it does not have the nutritional value of other crops. Compare it to wheat for instance. 100gms of wheat has 344 calories and 11.5%protein. 100 gms of Enset provides only 190 calories and 1.5% protein. While it is lacking in nutrition there still are 7 to 10 million Ethiopians which depend on food made from Enset. The problem lies in the periods when people become dependent on Enset to fill the gap because there are not other crops available to them. During these times there has been found a need for outside help to provide supplemental nutrition for folks.

source material: upenn, un-eue, wikipedia.

Home Study Update

Just a bit more paperwork. Today we got our information in the mail to update our homestudy. Our original homestudy was good for 1 year, so we simply have to do a briefer update of information. So, we're sending off for updated child abuse clearances, state criminal history and fbi clearances, as well as going to the doctor for another physical. All the paperwork will be done soon!

Being a Child in Ethiopia video...

Here is an interesting video on being a child and also being a woman in Ethiopia.

Check it out at http://www.aglimmerofhope.org/why_ethiopia/index.html

Some Ethiopian History

While I have been posting some about the needs in Ethiopia, I wanted to also post about the incredible richness in the country as well. Ethiopia has a history and a richness about it that goes practically unrivaled. Here is some of that richness that Ethiopia has to offer:

Imagine living somewhere that the history dates back over 3000 years. The Kingdom of Axum is where it is thought that the Queen of Sheba came from who visited King Solomon.
Along with that history comes a rich Judeo-Christian heritage, too. There are Jews living in Ethiopia whom it is thought can trace their lineage back to the Tribe of Dan. At some point in time they chose to move south into Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church traces its beginnings back to the 10th Century BC when The Queen of Sheba met Solomon. There are even claims that the Ark of the Covenant is hidden in a rock Ethiopian Orthodox church in Northern Ethiopia.

Along the way there also has been incredible architecture. There are the Axum obelisks which were constructed in the 4th Century AD. There is a lot of speculation as to what they were for, however the design, architecture and sheer number of them is astounding. The largest obelisk which is still standing 1700 years later is almost 80 feet tall.

There also are the Churches of Lalibela that were cut out of rock in the 13th Century. They look absolutely amazing. I can't imagine taking a huge hill of rock and carving out both the outside and the inside of

a church. History says that they were constructed during Lalibela's reign. He wanted to build a new Jerusalem, since Jerusalem was under Muslim rule by this point in time.

And, there are the castles of Gondar. While they sound almost Tolkeinesque, they also look that way. These castles were built in the 17th century. At one point in time the rulers within Ethiopia lived in tents and were fairly mobile, however as time went on they started to set

tle into towns. In the 1600s, Emperor Fasilides established Gondar as a market town. It would eventually become the capital of Ethiopia. What is most notable are the beautiful castles that were built in Gondar.

This richness gets mixed in with the simplicity of the rural agricultural areas and the more westernized Addis Ababa to show a very rich and diverse Ethiopia.

I'm wondering what it must be like in rural Ethiopia...

In doing some more research, it seems as if I've been able to pinpoint a bit more about where the area where Hanna is coming from. She is from Le-Zembara, which is a small village outside of Mudulla. It is a very rural area which relies on agriculture.

I am so looking forward to being able to get as close as I can to this area. From maps it appears to be in a more mountainous region and the altitude is approximately 1800 meters. This definitely has an impact on the climate of the area. Typically in thinking of Sub-Sahara Africa the mind goes to a very hot climate. In contrast the southern region’s daytime temperatures hover around 70 degrees and the nighttime lows are

It would appear that life for a family would be quite difficult in a rural area such as this. The statistics for Ethiopia as a nation are staggering to begin with - The average lifespan in Ethiopia is 49 years old. One in every 8 children die prior to their 5th birthday. There is one doctor for every 100,000 people. However, this is a rural area where these things are even more exaggerated.

Because rural Ethiopia relies on agriculture, there is a continual need for rain. So much of the famine crisis that hits Ethiopia relies on the rains not coming when they are needed. There are two main rainy seasons in the area surrounding Le-Zembara. The one is called the Belg Rains. This is a shorter rainy season which stretches from February to May. There are short season crops which are reliant on these rains such as teff, wheat and barley. The crops grown during this short season make up a small percentage of the overall grain production for the country, however there are areas that rely on these crops for as much as 50 percent of their yearly food supply. (http://www.fas.usda.gov/pecad2/highlights/2002/10/ethiopia/baseline/Eth_Annual_Rainfall.htm). There also are longer cycle crops that are dependent on these rains, too. Corn, Sorghum and Millet are still dependent on these early rains in order to harvest a larger crop in September.

It is the Belg rains that did not come this year and has contributed to the shortage of food in the area. According to a recent United Nations report, “The failure of the rains has prevented farmers from planting crops necessary to bridge the hunger season. The livelihood of communities is highly threatened as the major root crop, Enset, has been severely depleted due to the drought, excessive consumption and diseases. Sweet potato, Irish potato, haricot beans, cabbages and green maize production has totally failed due to the extended dry season.” This is troubling.

The longer season of rain, called kiremt which lasts from June through September (hitting its peak in August) does seem to be coming, at least as I have been checking the weather in Ethiopia. This rain is very important for the cereal crops and the main growing season crops. Of course the pinch is this in between time when the crops grown during the short season would sustain people until the harvest in September.

Added to this is according to the UN, the daily rate for farm laborers has decreased. It once was 10 birr/day ($1 US) however it now has decreased to 4 birr/day (40 cents). That’s tough to swallow or imagine. This is in addition to the already difficult situations of lack of clean water, diarrhea as a primary taker of life, no electricity, miles of walking to water, harsh farming, high prevalence of malaria and other diseases we never have to think of in the U.S. and the threat of AIDS.

Life is tough in these rural areas. However, what I fully expect to find is a people who are full of joy and who while life is harsh, they are focused on what is truly important.

Much of this blog is from the May 2008 United Nations report found at http://reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/ASAZ-7FBGZ9?OpenDocument

we've got a court date

Yesterday we found out that we have a tentative court date of July 7th. While we know that there are those things which can slow the process down along the way, this part is moving faster than we expected. A possible timeline for us at the moment is something like this:
1. If the case is approved on July 7th, it takes about 1 week for the court documents to be prepared.
2. Then, it takes some time for MOWA (Ethiopian agency that deals with adoption) to prepare a letter, & 5 days for a birth certificate to be issued.
3. We could travel as early as 3 weeks after that. (But won't know our travel date until the birth certificate is received by our agency here in the US.)
We do know that things could be backed up because there are a lot of people waiting to travel, however it could be as early as mid August when we travel. Wow! I love the fact we are getting closer to meeting Hanna!

We can make a difference through clean water...

Last year I became acquainted with an incredible organization that is focused on digging clean water wells throughout the world. The organization is Living Water International. Their website is www.water.cc . They have drilled 30 wells in Ethiopia so far, some close to the region where Hanna was born. You can check out some of the places where they have been drilling - Click Here.

Last year in our church we took part in a campaign called Advent Conspiracy and we sent a portion of what we saved by giving relationally to Living Water. You don't have to wait until Christmas to help see wells drilled, though.

They have started a new campaign called www.onedollarwater.com . It is a simple way that you and I can make a difference by choosing to provide water for one person for one year at the cost of $1. Check out their website.

Lack of clean water is such a huge issue in the world...with diarrhea claiming the lives of over 1.8 million children per year. Its a crisis that has a solution - the drilling of simple wells - but it takes folks like you and I saying no to consumerism and saying yes to compassion to see it happen.

Here is an excerpt from their website with some simple science - "drinking poop kills."

from www.onedollarwater.com...

The science is simple: drinking poop kills.

Nobody wants to drink poop… but when water comes from a shallow well and the only place to do your business is a pit latrine, it happens.

Amoebas, cholera, shigella, campylobacter, salmonella… these parasites and bacteria have a problem: they kill their hosts. However, their survival strategy is brilliant. And gross. They multiply inside stomachs and intestines, and then cause their hosts to blast them out their colons in the messiest way possible.

This way, these microscopic killers come into contact with skin, fingers, and even dishes or unprotected drinking water, ensuring a free ride to the next host. For a human child, becoming a host may mean death.

Diarrhea vs. The Third Reich

Adolf Hitler’s rule lasted 12 years (1933-1945). His Third Reich killed between 11 and 15 million people: Jews, Soviets, Poles, Slavs, mentally handicapped people, homosexuals…

That’s at most about 1.25 million people per year.

Diarrhea kills 1.8 million children per year.1

Diarrhea wins.

In fact diarrhea kills five times more children than HIV/AIDS. Diarrhea kills more people than tuberculosis or malaria. Car crashes, cancer, war… diarrhea beats them all.2

But we’re smarter than amoebas, and we can win in the end.

How? It’s simple: drill a hole deep underground where the amoebas can’t go.

Diarrhea beats Hitler.

Deep water wells beat diarrhea.

Love wins… if we do something.

Footnotes:

1. This statistic was was calculated by the good folks over at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for their 2006 Human Development Report, Beyond scarcity: Power, poverty, and the global water crisis, and can be found on page 6.
2. Same folks, same report… page 42.

Please Pray for Ethiopia

Please continue praying for the people of Ethiopia and the drought there that continues to affect families severely there. Here is a video documenting a bit of the situation there. Warning: it is a bit graphic.

Click here for movie

The May 2008 UN report states that there are 6 million children under the age of 5 that are at risk of severe malnutrition. Sobering.

Where our little girl is coming from...

One of our desires in our adoption of Hanna is that we can learn as much about her culture as possible in order to raise her with a connection to that culture. She is Ethiopian by birth and she will always be Ethiopian by birth. So, I have been setting off to try to find out as much about the village she was born in as possible. I figured I'd start by Googling it - after all isn't that what we do anytime we want to know anything about anywhere? Very little information. So, I thought I'd go to wikipedia. Once again, very little to glean from there. I even went to Google maps - no luck there either. Finally, I was able to find the coordinates and type them into Google Maps. Here is the result of that search...

click here for map

The town where Hanna (pronounced Hah-nah) is from is named Mudula and is approximately 200 miles South of the captial city of Addis Ababa. If you look close, you'll notice that the closest road to Mudulla appears to be about 20 miles away. What we have heard is that while there are roads that go to towns, they are not roads like you and I think of them - or even what we would call a "cow path," rather they are fitting challenges for Land Rovers to navigate.

From what I can learn so far, Mudulla is a town within the Southern Region (called the SNNPR- Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region). Ethiopia is divided into 9 ethnic divisions (or regions) of which SNNPR is one ethnic division. SNNPR is bordered on the south by Kenya. This region is Ethiopia's most rural region with over 90% of the population living in rural settings. There appear to have been some major strides within the past 15 years in the area, in that the % of the population that has drinkable water has increased from 15% to 50% within that time. Much of the region is engaged in agriculture, especially subsistence farming, and this region is well known for its coffee (growing almost 50% of all of Ethiopia's coffee exports). Within the SNNPR, there are over 45 indigenous ethnic groups, many of which have their own spoken language - while Amahric remains the state language. I'll blog more about language in the future...

The red is SNNPR, the pink is all of Ethiopia.

Refining the search a bit further, Mudulla is located in the Kembata Tembaro Zone - otherwise known as KAT. KAT is one of 14 Zones within SNNPR. This zone appears to be mixed topography - flat to hilly to mountainous and has 3 famous mountains within it - considered to be holy mountains. As a reality check...74% of this zone is exposed to malaria and as of 2004 only 2% of the population has electricity. Check out this satellite map of this zone (and some surrounding area)... Mudula is the blue pin.

Hopefully I'll soon be able to find more info on Mudula itself...

By the way...we know that when we travel we will get to go to at least Hosanna, which you probably can see on the towards the top of the above map...a dream would be that we would actually get to visit Mudula, too!

This feels a bit like a treasure hunt...bit by bit of info along the way.