Book Review

I feel like I've been in moving mode for a while now and it's hard to believe that we're finished!! We're moved into our new apartment and it already feels like home! Everything has a place, the pictures are hung, and the books are on the bookshelf.

As I was unpacking the books, there was one book I just couldn't put away before blogging about it. I have had it since we decided to adopt from Ethiopia, but I hadn't gotten around to actually reading it until a couple months ago. It's a biography about an Ethiopian woman named Haregewoin who rescued many orphans from Ethiopia. The book gets great reviews on every website and blog that I saw about it. The author even has a website. The title of the book is "There Is No Me Without You."

Joseph and Faith were once orphans in Ethiopia and now they are our children. They each have their own stories of how they were abandoned and left for the police to find them. We're grateful that they were found. I hold Joseph so tight sometimes thinking that I can't believe that I get the opportunity to be his mother. I can't wait to hold Faith and to be her mother too!

In the book, "There Is No Me Without You," Haregewoin is critcized by her friends and neighbors for taking in so many orphans. Her response to them really struck me. She said, "How can a child live without a mother?"

She took in many children who, sadly, had to watch their parents die from aids and other diseases. These children had also lived in such awful poverty. It was neat to read about how some of these very children were adopted. The author of the book writes, "It turns out not to be very difficult for children to adapt to electricity and plumbing, a clean water supply, modern medicine, cars, groceries, paved streets, playgrounds, school, shoes, bikes, dance lessons, and loving parents. What is hard - even impossible - is for children to survive the death of their parents without loving substitutes."

I was surprised when I found myself unable to put this book down at night. I read late into the night several times and talked about it nonstop to Tim for a couple weeks. Even my mother, who lives on the other side of the world from me, kept hearing me talk about it! I recommend it to anyone who is willing to allow their hearts to be broken for Ethiopia, for orphans, and for aids vicitms. After reading the book, I found myself feeling so privileged to have a small part in rescuing orphans.