9 days until we leave

Things are coming together. Ann has been working on packing and buying supplies etc. and I have been working on gathering all of the paperwork we left for the last minute. Everything needs to be done twice(once for each kid. In fact we took Saturday off and did Pat's run A 4.2 mile fun run honoring Pat Tillman the Army Ranger killed in Afghanistan. There were over 20,000 runners and it ended on the 42 yard line at ASU. That is fun to run on the field.

I also wanted to answer a couple questions that come up and might be on your mind.

Why do Ethiopians terminate their parental rights?

•Most children who need adoptive homes in Ethiopia are placed due to the illness of one or both parents, abandonment, or extreme poverty. When a parent(s) dies often the extended family members will try to parent the children, but often cannot do so because of their own level of poverty.

•Birth control is not common in this area so the remaining family members have many of their own children to care for, making it difficult to care for the additional children. It is socially unacceptable for women to have children before marriage and a young mother will have much difficulty trying to parent on her own.

Do we know know about the birth parents?

Yes we know a lot of information However we have learned through all of the reading and social workers etc. that the confidential information that has been and may be exchanged belongs to our kids. Once this information is heard by others it is no longer ours to be shared with our kids when we choose and feel it is appropriate.

We are just finalizing our travel plans what we are going to see etc. We are probably flying over on Eremites to Dubai and have a 12 hr layover. Which will be fun to see. then on to Addis arriving on May 1st. I'll post our schedule when i finalize it.