If You Can't Feed a Hundred People, Then Just Feed One

Today I was excited to receive these pictures of Adanu - my Ethiopian foster daughter (she is the little darling in the orange jacket) and her family from CHOIR.

Candian Humanitarian Organization for International Relief is the organization I sponsor Adanu through.

When CHOIR went on an expedition this past May to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, Adanu was not in the school when they visited. So I was disappointed that I did not get an updated picture of her, but very excited today when I received these pictures with a note saying that a team member had gone to Adanu's home to visit and while there had taken a few pictures. This was so much better than one picture of her.

After returning home from Ethiopia last year, I could not ignore the desperation in the faces of the people there. Children no older than my grandchildren begging for one birr - that is equivalent to one dime, but it was a fortune to them. Do you know that the average Ethiopian survives on only $110.00 annually?

Fostering a child seems like such a small sacrifice to make, but it makes an enormous difference in the lives of these kids.

Seeing these pictures brought tears to my eyes. It was difficult to see the conditions that they are living in and they brought back the memories of what Sebrina and I experienced in Ethiopia. On a happier note, it was however, nice to see a picture of Adanu's family. I have only seen pictures of her in the past.

Her father died last year, but she still has her mother and two brothers.

Her mother labours hard to support her family, taking whatever jobs she can find in the fields, cleaning the streets, etc.... It shows in the face of this young mother what she goes through daily for her family.

It makes me feel good to know that I am helping this little girl have a better life with the opportunity to attend school and as well she gets a nutritious meal each and every day - something so many children in Ethiopia do not have access to.

Will this secure a better future for Adanu? I like to think that it will. It may help her to gain access to more opportunities through education, but the larger question is - how many more of these children are there who will die in the streets from hunger, from exposure, from a criminal act .....

I'll never forget the words of a taxi driver we befriended who told me "As long as I stay here in Ethiopia I will never have anything."

It is so easy to turn our heads and ignore what is happening in these countries, but how hard is it really to spare $1.00 a day to help a child like Adanu? That is less than the cost of one cup of take out coffee.

You may not get the instant gratification that a cup of coffee brings, but you will get something deeper and more lasting when you give to someone less fortunate than yourself.

"It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing. It is not how much we give, but how much love we put in the giving."

Mother Teresa