A day of frustration AND celebration.

There are days here which hold major extremes in emotions. Yesterday was one of those days. We started our day by turning away another family who was seeking our help. That is always heartbreaking – to tell someone we are full, and until we can fully fund the kids we have and then receive permission from the government to grow, we cannot help them. To look a mother in the eyes with her child on her back and say “no” tears me apart every time. We quickly moved on to frustration as we found out that the house we have invested 4 weeks in talks about is no longer an option since the landlord is unwilling to follow the law concerning taxation. We found out shortly afterwards that the same opinion applied to all the other 6 houses we have looked at that are currently for rent in Kore. Our broker said, “That’s it. There are no more available.” So, down goes the roller coaster.

BUT, then this afternoon we got to celebrate the birthdays of 9 children in the project whose birthdays were in either April or May. This was a BIG deal. First of all, birthdays are not celebrated much in Ethiopia…especially for these children. Secondly, some of these children were attempted to be aborted, but the abortion did not work and these children survived. In our opinion, that makes these kids miracle kids whose lives today we got to celebrate. And thirdly, we know that for each birthday these kids celebrate, there is a greater likelihood that they will survive because once they reach age 5 there is a great chance that they will make it. So, there were great reasons to celebrate – 9 reasons to celebrate in total.

We had the moms come to join us (some of them came all dressed up in traditional garb) and we had a great celebration. We had popcorn and lollipops for the kids and cookies for the adults. Each child who had a birthday got some new clothes, a stuffed animal, a ball and a small toy. We got a chance to sing happy birthday to each child and each one got their name chanted over and over again as they came forward to get their Birthday gift. It was a sweet celebration of their lives.

We celebrated the birthdays of: Sinayit, Blane, Selemon, Yeabsera, Abanezer, Hanna, Habtamu, Kalkidan Tadesse and Tedros. Please join us in praying life and blessing over each of their lives.

Here are a few of the birthday kids…