Journey to Ethiopia (Part 3)

Today, I want to share a little bit about Elroi's past. She was raised homeless on the streets of Addis Ababa from birth. We had the privilege of meeting her parents while we were in Ethiopia. Her mother was a beautiful young woman with haunting eyes who is currently infected with the HIV virus. I was so moved to meet this young lady, and so saddened for her. Apparently, she found out she was HIV+ while pregnant with Elroi, and therefore she did not breastfeed her. Because of their poverty, they could not afford milk for her, so her father (who was her main caretaker) gave her sugar water to drink.

Needless to say, she was very malnourished when brought to the adoption organization approximately 3 months ago, when she was 15 months old. At that time, she still could not walk at all. She is still quite wobbly, but she does walk now.

Her father, Adonai, was extremely happy for us to be adopting Elroi. He told us (with the help of a translator) that as a young child, he had the opportunity to be adopted, but his parents had refused to allow it. He always was saddened by this, as his parents were in poverty and sleeping on the streets as well. He wanted to give his child this opportunity, because he knew that he could not care for her.

During our meeting with them, we were able to witness to them and pray with them to surrender their hearts to the Lord. They both acknowledged that they believed in and wanted to live for Jesus, and we also prayed for the mother's healing as well. Adonai, the father, searched the Bible for a scripture that he wanted to give to us, to bless us with. He gave us Psalm 128, which was an amazing blessing to us.

The entire meeting with her biological parents was quite surreal actually. Elroi seemed to have a primal recognition of who they were, but not entirely. There was a deep sadness in her that I believe was from the wound in her heart for being given up by them. While Elroi is not an orphan in the true sense of the word, she was a child given up (abandoned) by her parents out of their sheer lack of ability to care for her. It was a truly loving gesture by her father to release her, and I am forever grateful that they did what they could to care for her as long as they did.

It's truly hard for me to comprehend what this little child has already been through in her short life; what sights she has seen while living out in the street, sleeping in the open air at night, begging for food or possibly eating garbage. I have no idea, and can only imagine what it might have been like. Her life is truly a miracle; being raised in severe poverty and malnutrition, being born free from HIV to an HIV infected mother, and being taken care of by a father alone. But the Lord truly heard her cry, and I am so thankful. She is a warrior, a fighter, a precious child.