Ethiopian Adoption & Orphan Blog Christening

So this is the maiden blog post that I've been putting off for months now (that’s right months!). Why? Well I might as well be honest with you and me right from the get go – fear:

Fear? That’s right I said it – fear! I’m not proud of it, but it’s the truth. Isn’t that the reason we put anything off for long????? Oh yeah I could have come up with a list of believable excuses that could have passed as ‘truth’: “Well I never did anything like this and I just didn’t know where and how to begin blogging” (decent excuse don’t you think?) How about, I’ve been so busy that I didn’t have time to get started (oldie but a goodie). And finally, I don’t even really know what to say or do on a blog (whatever - there’s about 10 million of them on the web to learn from!).

So yeah, fear of stinking up the blog world with a lousy blog was holding me back. Fear that what I had to say might offend you was holding me back without me realizing it. In fact I had no idea of this until I finally sat down to post this entry. Ahhhhh, I feel better now that I cleared the air with that. I’m already liking the therapeutic effect of this blogging thing – now let’s get down to business……

Now that I’ve come clean with that, here’s the bottom line on this whole blog thing for me:

I’m a proud father of three (soon to be four) amazing children – two are biological (girl & boy), one is an adopted girl from Ethiopia and is home with us, and the final is a little boy we’re expecting from Ethiopia some time late next year (2010). Simply put, God used the miracle (yes miracle) of adoption to absolutely transform my life and set me on a course that I could never of imagined just a couple of years ago. As a matter of fact if you told me three years ago that I’d be the father of two African born children - I would have told you that you were out of your mind (though not quite as polite as that). Further if you told me that not a day would go by that I didn’t think about these poor orphaned children halfway around the world, in dire conditions with nobody to protect them, nobody to comfort them and nobody to guide them in this world – I’d a believed you were certifiable (i.e. nuts, crazy etc.).

But I am the father of one (soon to be two) former African orphans, and I do think about those beautiful kids left behind every single day– and it’s been one of the greatest gifts of my life. I want this blog to tell a father’s story of a heart changed by the grace of God and the resulting journey to care for some of the orphaned children who are left behind.

So in closing there are two key journeys I’m going to chronicle on this blog:

Our journey to bring home my son Mathew from Ethiopia
Our journey to care for those left behind – beginning with a mission trip led by Children’s HopeChest along with a crew of amazing friends (soon to be family) to visit and care for “the least of these” in Ethiopia.

It’s my privilege to have you join me on this journey and my prayer is that your heart will be even further opened up to the spirit of adoption and the needs of the orphan.

- Pete