touch my heart

I finally took a few days and gathered all the information I'd found on the birth families of my friend's children when I was in Ethiopia. I mailed out dvds of interviews and cds of photos. Well, they arrived and I'm getting some wonderful emails. I find that parents, myself included, are so happy to hear about their adopted children's lives prior to coming to the States. I look forward to the time when all adoption agencies in Ethiopia understand this desire and pay someone in Ethiopia to compile background information for families.

It costs about $500 a month, plus transportation, to hire a local person to research and create videos. For me, it took a few days to find leads on the children and make initial contacts. Then, a full day to travel and meet families that lived in outlying areas. Another day to edit the footage and send it out. So, a full time person with contact information supplied when I child was found could probably research a minimum of ten children a month, and edit a video for each of them. Say there is $50 in transportation costs, averaged for each person. Total: $100 spent before the trails run cold and it is harder to find families. I do not know one adoptive parent unwilling to pay an additional $100 for this treasure.


This note was emailed to me this morning from a girl who was adopted when my son came home from China. I took photos of her to her aunt (see above) while I was in Ethiopia. This precious note made my Christmas:

Dear Miss Heidi,

Thank you so much I love you. I felt happy to see my auntie in the pictures.
Thank you for taking the time to go see her. I love these pictures, I
appreciate them so much.

Have a Merry Christmas,

Love,
Hannah