This story has been difficult one to write.  Please forgive me for not writing it all at once.  Anyway, here is part one of "Bekah's Story".

BEKAH'S STORY

Part One

     Ten years ago my family and I arrived back in the United States from being stationed in Germany.  Unfortunately we brought something back that we didn’t plan on….non-active Tuberculosis.  Let me tell you, as parents, this is a scary diagnosis to hear coming out of your doctor’s mouth. 

     Thomas, T.C., and Sarah all had non-active TB.  For those of you that know me, I am very rarely away from my children.  How did they get it? Who did they get it from? Why didn’t I get it?  It was a mystery to us.  As the primary caregiver to all my children, it remained an unknown. 

     With a giant sigh of relief we found that TB is fairly easily curable, nine months of medication, but easily curable.  We wondered at that point…honestly…what the point was.

      It took ten years to get that answered…. but let me get to that later.

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   We were very busy with four children (12,10, 6, and 4 years old).  Being parents is the hardest and the best job there is.

   As a family we remained active in the kid’s school.  I (Kat ) headed an “Outreach” program at their school. It is a priority to us to bring into our children’s lives a since of giving, of making a difference.  During an "Outreach" is where the seed, the slightest inkling of Bekah’s existence in our family was started. 

     Every year, at the the school, we do an “Outreach” called “Gods Little Lambs” which comes to the aid of orphans.  I sat down at our computer and Googled (our search engine) “Russian Orphans + Number”.  Up popped the results, Ethiopian orphans topping the list.  Seven percent of the population seemed unreal at the time.  Could a nation have that many orphans? It was astounding.  A few days later we found our Agency started an Ethiopian program.  We weren’t looking for it, the information found us.  The next week an Ethiopian Grocery moved in down the street.  Within a short time TC started studying the Ethiopian Eunuch at Church.  Days later a “National Geographic-Africa” showed up.  It continued and continued.  God was trying to get our attention.  He succeeded.

      Bekah was slowly being planted in our hearts.  After seeking God, petitioning Him, pleading with Him to make it clear…our path…we found Bekah…or the knowledge that we had a child waiting for us in Ethiopia.  It’s amazing when that knowledge is presented to you, how quickly you feel the void in your family.  How quickly you realize it was never complete and you’re missing a vital component.

     After seeking “Hope International” as our adoption agency, we proceeded at an alarming speed.  Again, things that were taking months took half that time.  We were flying.  Having been given the knowledge that we were to expect 18 months from signing the contract to bringing our child home, we prepared to wait.   Approximately six months after signing our contract we received our monthly email from the “Co” agency we were working with (Interagency Adoption: Hope International works with Wide Horizons and their Ethiopia Program).  Toward the bottom of the email there were pictures…new pictures of little ones that were just admitted to Horizon House Ethiopia.  Waiting Children.  These children were either out of the age range most wanted OR, as was in our case, considered Special Needs children.  These children had either questionable Hep B status or a number of other ailments.  Ayane (EYE-ANNA) , as we knew her then, had a lump on the side of her neck.  It was extremely visible and of great concern to the nurses there.  She was tiny, at a year…only 14 ½ lbs….the size of an average three or four month old in the U.S. .  She could only sit up by herself…nothing more.  She sat there with her HUGE eyes in a boy’s dark blue polo shirt, spit up decorating the collar.  Her arms hung limply at her side like any sort of movement was beyond her.  At the time the email stated that she was 15 months old….we had stated the age range of a maximum of one year old.  She barely was outside of our age range…but there was something about her….a connection.  

   When Thomas FINALLY (that’s the way it felt) arrived home from work I (very casually) said to him “Oh honey,” I faked a laid back voice “we received the monthly email today and there is this beautiful little 15 month old girl on it named Ayane”.  I waited. Thomas cocked his head at me and smiled, he said “Well, why isn’t she ours?”. 

    That is how our journey to bring Bekah home began.  After a week of petitioning God (not just us, but Mark and Michelle, Amy, our Church's Prayer Chain and of course Mom) we were matched with our little sweet Bekah.

       We then started the planning.  We were given a beautiful baby shower by some wonderful women at Church.  We received pictures of our quickly transforming baby.  Her medicals stated the end conclusion was that she had Tuberculosis in her lymph nodes.  It’s funny how ten years later we find the reason for that TB from Germany.  It didn’t scare us. It wasn’t an unknown.

   We also waited…and waited for the travel email.  We shared with other adoptive parents as they got their travel email and struggled to just walk in faith and wait knowing our time would come.  TC and I danced (literally) and screamed around the house when we finally found out that we would be in travel group #42! 

    We set our airline tickets for May 29^th through June 9^th, ten days in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.  TC (our 12 year old) and I would be traveling.  It was too far for both of us to be away from all our kids.  We packed and repacked.  We practically brought a pharmacy, and ended up needing very little of it.  Isn’t that the way it usually is?

    As the day approached we started to get that anxious, nervous, butterfly feeling.  We were actually going.  Bekah, or Rebekah Ayane Emmali we would call her, was within reach.

    I kissed our amazing kids (except TC) goodbye with tears in my eyes, and we boarded our Lufthansa flight heading for Chicago; Frankfurt, Germany; and then on to Addis Ababa Ethiopia.

    The flight seemed to take an eternity.  We were so thankful for the portable DVD player for TC (there were some questionable movies on the flights) and for each others company.  After 31 hours in transit we FINALLY arrived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.  Mulat, our Wide Horizons driver, was there to greet us and all our bags (four overstuffed ones) arrived in Ethiopia with us (yea!).

     We grabbed some Birr (Ethiopian currency) and bottled water at the airport and proceed out into a dark starless night and a light, but steady downpour.  We didn’t care, our feet were on solid ground and we were within minutes of meeting our reason for being there.

     As we climbed into an older van, some chipped paint and faded posters on the inside, the windows quickly fogged up.  The only thing I remember seeing is a glowing Sun Microsystems sign.  Of course TC remembers differently, he remembers the glowing “Denver Broncos” sign…lol…of course.

      As we turned into a dark alley,  ramshackle shacks surrounded us on either side. It was odd…at the end of the alley as we closed in you could see big, beautiful gray gates.  Barbed wire surrounded the compound and broken glass set in concrete.  We pulled in front of the gates and Mulat honked the (odd sounding) vans horn…it sounded like a toy car from inside the van.  A uniformed guard pulled open the gates.  In front of us was a three-story building …three balconies and fairly nice looking.  To our left was a low setting row of what looked like multiple rooms….almost like you would expect in a school.  They were light brownish with corrugated tin roofs.  Women dressed in white stood outside and looked at us curiously. 

    We quickly took our bags upstairs and hurled back down to meet our beautiful little girl.  The women in white turned out to be the nannies that took care of all the precious children.

       This orphanage is wonderful and the love these children get is immeasurable.  There is usually one nanny (at all times) to every 6 to 8 children.  What is hard to comprehend is that many of these children are alive because of the wonderful nannies and the nurses there.  Most come in SEVERLY malnourished within weeks or days of dying.  Not all orphanages are as wonderful as where Bekah was, but most are gifts of our Heavenly Father.  They help save the of these orphans. 

     As we shed our shoes before entering Bekah’s nursery we immediately see the walls lined with cribs.  The outer edge of the small room had every inch filled with either a crib or bassinet.  To our left…in the very first crib a curly head laid with a slight sheen of sweat.  As we crept closer we could slowly see her beautiful glowing skin and her long eyelashes, shut in a heavy sleep only infants experience.  When asked if we wanted to hold her, of course the answer was “Yes”.  Maybe not the best answer we found out.  Bekah did not like being woken up and handed immediately to strangers, which is what we were to her at the time.  We then learned she could scream…lol.  I felt so bad.  Wondering (remember we had been traveling for 31 hours) if I ruined our relationship forever.  Ok, so I wasn’t really super rational, but was walking on adrenaline alone.

Tomorrow was another day.