Why Ethiopia?

So, how did we settle on Ethiopia for this adoption?

First, we considered what countries, or areas, we had an interest in. I had an interest in Eastern Europe, probably based on the horror stories I had heard years ago about Romanian orphanages. Jamie has long had a heart for Africa. Next, we started looking into what countries in these regions allow adoptions to the U.S. Not all do. We considered Malawi, since our church has an ongoing ministry focus there. However, Malawi, as of the writing of this post anyway, requires two years residency in country in order to adopt. Cross that one off. We looked at Romania, but it is currently closed to U.S. adoptions.

So, as we prayed about which country to choose, God began to move my heart toward Africa. Certainly, there is much need there. AIDS and war have orphaned many children. So has poverty. Perhaps my main reason for not wanting to adopt from Africa was that the child would not look like us. My heart began to change quite dramatically on this point over a period of weeks. If our lives are to glorify God, and the Gilchrists want their adoption to do so, what better way than to have a child that will bring questions? Africa it is.

Next, we started looking at Christian adoption agencies that work with African countries. It turns out there are only a few African countries that are currently working with the U.S. for general adoptions. Ethiopia was the primary one; Liberia was open as well. There were far more agencies that worked with Ethiopia than Liberia, so we started leaning that way.

Then we had to check out the requirements as set forth by the Ethiopian government for international adoptions. Fortunately, Ethiopia has less restrictive requirements for prospective adoptive parents than some other countries. Requirements vary by country, and may include such things as minimum age for both parents, no small children in the home, no more than one child in the home, maximum age difference for mom and dad, maximum age for either parent, stays of 6 weeks or more in country at time of adoption, minimum income, minimum education, can't adopt a child younger than age two, can't specify gender of child to adopt, must have blood ties to country, and the list goes on. For Ethiopia, we met all the requirements!

We sent out requests for information from quite a few Christian adoption agencies, and chose Christian World Adoption. They have placed a lot of children from Ethiopia, and simply put, they were great at answering all of our many questions, even before we signed with them! All of our correspondence with them has been excellent. We have seen God's blessing in this choice.