Travel Journal: Days 5 & 6 - Trip to Durame

The Lord will fight for you; you need only be still. - Exodus 14:14

Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand.  You guide me with your counsel, and afterward take me into glory.  Whom have I in heaven except you?  And earth has nothing I desire except you.  My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.  - Psalm 73:22-28

We left very early Sunday morning for Durame, which wasn't a problem because we couldn't really sleep well anyway, between the hard-as-plywood mattresses, lingering jet lag and the 4 a.m. call to prayer at the mosque down the road.   Sleep was starting to feel like something that would never be normal.

Durame is the region where Abraham was born.  We drove by van on a mostly paved road through a beautiful countryside.  The trip took about 6 hours.  About 1 hour outside of Addis, it started to look like we had traveled back in time.  Huts made of sticks and thatch and mud lined the hills.  Farmers plowed their fields with crude handmade plows and donkeys.  Men transported their goods on carts.  Children played soccer and tetherball in the open spaces.  Never a stretch of land without people.

When we arrived in Durame, we settled into the hotel, which had a restaurant downstairs and rooms upstairs.  We had been told to expect camping conditions, but really, it was different...just different.  Here is

Samuel in the hotel bathroom with his mosquito net.  You can see the bucket next to the toilet for "flushing" (and I use that term loosely) the water down the toilet.  To his left was an open shower for those brave enough to try it. 

Next we went to the Holt Durame office for the birthparent meeting.  It's hard to describe how we felt waiting to meet Abraham's first dad.  All the adoptive families sat in a waiting room and were given a schedule of who would go first, second, etc.  The birthparents waited outside, but we had seen them on our way in.  One man caught my attention because he was much taller than the others, and handsome.  We were so nervous.  As I ran through what I wanted to say in my head, I realized that my words couldn't capture what I wanted to say.  I hoped we could communicate our love to him.  I hoped he would leave the meeting with peace.  At some point in the waiting room Adam looked at me and sensed my anxiety.  He led me outside and we prayed together in the courtyard. 

Finally our name was called.  We were led back to a small office and sat on a couch while we waited for Abraham's father to be ushered in.  It was him, the man that I had noticed before.  He was dressed in what was probably his nicest set of clothes, and his hair and face looked recently shaved and cut.  I instantly felt underdressed...and why in the world hadn't I put on any make-up?! 

He had a presence about him that was very serene and stoic and kind.  Oh my goodness, it was emotional.  Adam and I both had tears running down our face by the end.  He gave us so many gifts for Abraham in that meeting, gifts of heritage and blessing that will be passed to him as he grows.  Yes, our words failed us, and yes, there were many things that I forgot to say, but we got to sit across the table and look into the eyes of the man who entrusted his son's life to us, and for that I am forever thankful.

We left the office and went back into the waiting room together for a coffee ceremony.  We tried to communicate with gestures and the handful of English words he knew, but in the end we just ended up smiling at each other a lot.  We showed him the pictures and video we had of Abraham on our phone, and he smiled big smiles at the sight of his plump, healthy son.

We took several pictures of him, and then a group picture all together, and then it was time to go.  This was hard.  I hadn't counted on that.  Here we had just met this man.  We instantly loved him for who he was to our son and for the blessing he came to bestow on us, and likely we will never see him again.  As we pulled away in our van, I felt like I was leaving a piece of Abraham behind, and that made me very sad.

Our next stop was the Holt Durame care center (orphanage) where Abraham was first relinquished.  The children live in this orphanage until they are matched with a family and their adoptive family has a court case.  Around that time, they are transferred to the nicer transitional care center in Addis Ababa to wait for their families. 

The bright colors on the walls couldn't disguise the fact that it was an orphanage...one with very few resources and zero luxuries.  The workers were kind and the nannies were loving, but the conditions were not what any of us would choose for our children to live in.  I spent most of the time outside, where the sun was shining and life seemed brighter.  I lingered inside to take a picture of Abraham's first bed, in the special needs infant room, where he'd been set up in a tiny room with several beds huddled around a space heater.

When we finally left the orphanage, I did not feel good, emotionally.  The poverty, the orphanage, the birthparent meeting...it was a lot to take in.

That night we slept with one eye and one ear open.  We did not want to meet the hungry malaria-carrying mosquitos who ocassionally buzzed by our ears, and we struggled to keep our body parts under the mosquito nets.  We could hear wild animals fighting outside our room at some points during the night.  By about 4 or 5 a.m., we were finished fighting insomnia and joined several of our travel companions in the lobby to play cards and laugh off our sleepless night. 

How do I reconcile the luxury and waste that I am accostomed to while children on the other side of the world are taking care of babies?  When people can't get enough to eat?  When there is no source of safe, clean water to drink?  When there is a whole region of the world where parents are relinquishing their children because they do not have the resources they need to keep them alive?  How do I get over the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach whenever I go to the grocery store now and see the endless amounts of food we have at our fingertips?  And should I?

I don't know, still.

And that is why this part of the trip was the hardest, why it's taken me the longest to write about.  There are just no good answers.

Once our eyes are opened, we can't pretend we don't know what to do. God who weighs our hearts and keeps our souls, knows that we know, and holds us responsible to act..... Prov. 24:12