A Time to Celebrate

It all began last April after we received the referral of our two beautiful girls and began following the Ethiopian adoption blogs. We saw over and over again on the blogs the many children in the many orphanages in Addis. It tugged at our heart strings that there were so many children without families living in need. We knew that we had to do something to help. We gathered the humanitarian aid to take with us when we travel, but still felt like that wasn't enough. We really wanted to be able to do something more for the children in the orpanages. So, we got our community involved. My husband, John, designed tshirts. The tshirts say 'Barton' (which is the name of the community college where John teaches) in Amharic across the front. A donation of $30 would get the donor a tshirt, an Ethiopian child a tshirt, and the rest of the donation would go to provide for the needs of the children in the ophanages. As incentive, my crazy husband advertised that if we raised $10,000, he would shave his head at our community college's basketball game! With the help of so many people in our small community, we reached our goal!

We had to celebrate!!

We organized a Barton to Africa night at the college.....

Not one, but two men shaved their heads,

the Barton dance team performed an African dance,

the pep band played some African music,

and all in attendance were encouraged to wear their tshirts (which gained them free admission). We had four Ethiopian students from a nearby college attend the event. They sang the Ethiopian national anthem before the games began. We invited Mary T. to come and accept the check on behalf of Gladney, our adoption agency. Gladney will make sure that the money is used where the need is the greatest.

What an awesome town we live in...so many people were willing to support our efforts--we just had to ask.

We are excited to be able to donate this money, but realize that it is such a small amount in comparison to the overwhelming need of the children in Ethiopia. Our hearts break for the children in our daughters' birth country. I still wish we could do more.

Hopefully next month we will get to travel to Ethiopia to bring home our precious girls. We will get to distribute our tshirts to the children, give them hugs, pray for them and cry for them. Then, we will leave and come home to our comfortable home with our family. Then what? God help us to know!