faith

For two years our lives had become  adoption seminars, on-line course work, home studies, blood work/tests, background checks, health physicals, interviews, governmental paperwork and applications and we were still no closer to finding our Ethiopian daughter than when we started.  Shawn and I were beginning to think that perhaps it was time for our family to move on.  Perhaps we were being called to help the children of Ethiopia in other ways.  It was about that time that we were reminded to have faith.  While driving through the prairies of Nebraska on our way to a softball tournament in Colorado, my cell phone rang.  It was our social worker calling to tell us about a little girl who had just come in to Hannah's Hope.  She was younger than our 6-8 year age parameters, but they wanted to tell us her story and see if the Gearys were interested in thinking outside of the box.  Shawn and I were in a minivan full of four girls, luggage, crushed goldfish everywhere, softball equipment, pillows, IPODs, etc., and were in no way thinking of Ethiopia.  We asked our social worker, Julie, to email all the information they had on this little girl  to us and we would look everything over that night (hoping, of course,  we would find a hotel with wifi in Nebraska!).  As luck would have it, in Ogalala, NE there was a hotel with wifi and we were finally able to put a face and name to the special child we were being introduced to.  Her name was Mekdes and she was beautiful!  Her story was tragic as is so many of the orphans stories in Ethiopia.  They said she was around 3 years of age, but there was a good chance she was older than that.   Her father died of malaria the year before and as she was the youngest of four children  her mother wasn't able to care for her anymore.  Her mother and her older siblings walked for days from southern Ethiopia to the capital city to take Mekdes to the orphanage.  Imagine her confusion when her family walked away and left her there!  Imagine her mother's heartbreak at having to do so!  What should we do?  This would change everything!  Two years of dreaming and hoping had come to this moment and we were in a hotel full of softball players!  I tried to call Julie the next day, but there was no cell phone reception as we were getting closer to the Rockies.  I won't go through all the frazzled details of how we found moments to talk and cry between softball games  and come to a decision that would impact our family and this child for the rest of our lives.  Suffice it to say, we finally had a blessed name and face to put with our Ethiopian daughter....MEKDES!  Our daughter's name is Mekdes...