One Child Makes it Personal.

One picture, one story, the face of one child makes statistics personal to me. Especially the statistic that 5 million orphans live in Ethiopia today. Here is a moving post from the "Every Bitter Thing is Sweet" blog that I regularly follow. The post shares some of Sara and Nate's story about their adopted daughter from Ethiopia and the greater orphan crisis. This picture and story puts a face on hunger statistics for Ethiopia and the world.      


This is our daughter, just after she arrived at the orphanage. Taken by a doctor who wanted to show us the extent of her malnourishment.

Yes, the orphan crisis is one of the few things that keeps me up at night. Children not only abandoned to AIDs, poverty and war but then subject to exploitation at the hands of traffickers in their own hometowns … and in my hometown. The lump in my throat comes not at the vast numbers of children orphaned throughout the world, but at the mental image of one single child. Cracked lips, hair matted from sweat, dirt caked fingernails and bloodshot eyes from yet another night of poor sleep on the street.


Millions of little cross-bearers fill our earth, without someone to help carry their load. I have yet to hear a story of an orphan enfolded into a home that didn’t reek of pain. The weight of my own personal pain has seemed unbearable at times, but it doesn’t hold a candle to what some of these 6 and 7 year-old orphans have faced. Alone. Their tolerance for pain stretched thin, and at an age where I didn’t have one “ouchie” go unkissed.

To read the full post go here, "Every Bitter Thing is Sweet."