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 | An Ethiopian Adoption Tale
by Jennifer Eastman |
Halfway across the world, 8-month-old Seble quietly sits in a room crowded with children at an Ethiopian orphanage. Her brown eyes focus upon nothing in particular as she sits on the floor.
The orphanage sits off the dirt road, hidden from view like a secret passage in a mansion from the colonial period yet lacks the glamour. An old cloth doll sits on the doorstep, missing both arms. No one is able to fix the doll because time and resources are not available.
A sea of round faces and pleading eyes like innocent sheep being led to slaughter stare at you as you dare to enter the small house. Visitors are few. Personal attention is rare. Even five minutes of your time is priceless to these orphans. The children long to be held close.
The chocolate faces look at you with quiet desperation and eagerness. They call out your name without whispering a word. You fight back the tears as you quietly pray over these children. They are children without families — without love.
“The kids cling to you,” said Patrick Beard, executive director of Indigenous Outreach International, which supports nationals to do ministry in Ethiopia. “They are hungry for any attention.”
Yet Seble is fortunate. She has a ticket out of the orphanage.
“I can’t imagine a good reason not to consider international adoption,” Beard said. “Some people wouldn’t even consider it because of the cultural or interracial barriers. But that’s not a legitimate enough reason not to at least consider it.”
According to www.adoption.com, American adopted 135 Ethiopian children in 2003.
“(My wife and I) have even considered adopting an Ethiopian child,” Beard said. “We’ve got five kids. It’s not because we want more kids but because we want to open our home up to a homeless kid. How can that be a bad thing?”
Indeed, the process of adopting a child thousands of miles away is complicated, yet two white Americans named Lowell and Anna Easterling have entered into Seble’s life for this reason.
“We started the process of adoption before we exhausted the possibility to get pregnant,” Anna said. “The doctor told us a simple solution to the pregnancy problem, but God was leading us to adopt.”
The road to adoption for the Easterlings has not been typical, but adoption has been a discussed topic for the couple since they first got married.
“I always wanted to adopt,” Lowell said. “We looked at a lot of different places to adopt besides Ethiopia. We were afraid of what people would say, but the direction we were being led was Ethiopia.”
For little Seble, her miracle came when Lowell and Anna were willing to love her without having ever laid eyes on her.
“We agreed to be a part of a new government program,” Anna explained. “We agreed to adopt whoever they gave us.”
The couple had to rely solely upon their desire to adopt an Ethiopian baby girl. They would receive no pictures or medical history. They were just required to commit to adopting an Ethiopian baby.
“God had one child for us,” Lowell said. “We didn’t choose her. She was set before us.”
Even friends in Ethiopia clearly saw God’s hand guiding the adoption of Seble.
“We all are adopted children of God through Jesus, according to our Bible,” said Negash Gemeda, a national pastor from Ethiopia who visits Seble weekly. “So I see it as God’s provision for little Seble. Nothing less or more.”
However, Seble was not the first Ethiopian baby the Easterlings attempted to adopt. The first baby the couple tried to adopt died two weeks into the adoption process.
“I thought people would think I was stupid for being upset,” Anna said. “But she was ours for two weeks. In that time we had bought clothes for her and chosen a new name. We had a strong bond with her already.”
Since the death of the baby girl happened early in the adoption process, Lowell and Anna were entrusted with a new baby girl, Seble.
“We didn’t question whether we were doing the right thing,” Anna said. “It was just a lot harder than we expected. It was a lot more grief than I expected.”
The couple was set back six weeks in the adoption process.
Lowell and Anna proceeded in the adoption process and were set to get their daughter in February. Then, another bump unexpectedly surfaced.
Anna explained how somehow their adoption contract did not get signed. Thus, the couple was delayed another month. By this point in the process, Seble, who Lowell and Anna had decided to rename Phoebe, was legally their daughter.
Then another bump for the Easterlings hit — the discovery that Phoebe’s age was wrong. Originally, it was thought she was 3 months old when the adoption process began, but she was actually 6 months old.
“After we knew she was over there waiting on us — just sitting and waiting . . . we’re missing her as a baby. By the time we get there; she won’t be a baby-baby,” Anna said.
It was difficult for Anna to wait patiently, knowing with each passing day her Ethiopian daughter was spending another day without them. Anna has been able to pacify her longings for her expected daughter’s arrival. She spends time in the nursery she has made for Phoebe.
With various pastel shades of blue, yellow and green, the nursery invites you to stay like any good children’s fantasy book. As you set foot into the room, you embark on an adventure. You stroll along a well-trodden path through grassy rolling hills toward an Ethiopian castle — all of which is conveniently painted on the right wall of the nursery.
“I sit in here and think all I need is a little girl,” said Anna with a hopeful sigh as she scanned the room with her brown eyes.
Apprehensions about raising an Ethiopian baby are as real as purchasing round-trip plane tickets to Ethiopia. Yet, Anna is not overly concerned about any racial barriers.
“In our minds, we won’t see a different color skin, but a lot of people will,” Anna said. “My hope is that we’d be able to show Christ’s love when these situations come up.”
However, the gap of skin color in interracial adoption is beginning to fade. One in six children adopted is not the same race as his or her adoptive parents, according to a 2000 U.S. Census.
As Amber and Anna sat cross-legged on the floor of the nursery, eyes focused on little Eli rocking herself in the rocking chair. Excitement and anticipation of the future fill the air.
“I feel like we’ll have to be friends forever now. We’re determined our girls will have to be best friends,” Amber said with a smile.
The joys of motherhood they will share together saunter through their minds and hearts as they show Eli a picture of her future playmate, Phoebe, resting on top of the table next to the rocking chair.
But for now, everyone, including Seble, must wait. Love is on its way; it just takes longer because it is traveling across the ocean.
Jennifer Eastman, recently graduated from Union University in Jackson, Tenn., majoring in public relations. She is originally from western Colorado. She loves being outdoors, especially running or backpacking. She has served as sports editor, interned at a local newspaper and was a public relations intern at a camp in California.
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