Ethiocross Blog

Review-News:- Years ago, sometime around my marriage but before my children arrived, I almost did a story on an evangelical flock of Ethiopian immigrants who had found a home in the long-defunct Dayton's Bluff Commercial Club in St. Paul, converted to a church by a previous congregation.

Sr. Pastor Endrias Hawaz Ethiopian Evangelical Church in Minnesota

When Rev. Endiryas Hawaz and his flock settled in, they quickly learned a lesson about the frustrating level of bureaucracy that can bedevil St. Paulites: told by one part of the city administration that their building's brick exterior needed fixing up, they happily complied. But not before checking with another part of the city administration about regulations that come with owning a historic building in one of the city's historic districts, which of course means that they very nearly had to reverse course on the brick-red paint job they'd given their edifice.

Another paper beat me to the story, so - given any reporter's typically tight deadlines and limited resources - I never ended up doing that piece.

And I wonder now whether my life would have turned out slightly differently if I had.

You see, years after my wife and I had settled into our DINK (double income no kids) lifestyle, we both decided that we wanted to adopt children - two of them.

Being rather deliberate in nature, we considered all the options. Public adoption or private? Local or international?

The choices were mind-boggling, and - as anyone who has adopted children will tell you - the decisions were nerve-wracking.

After much study and soul-searching, we realized we wanted to adopt from Ethiopia. We loved everything we read, heard and saw about the country and its adoption efforts through agencies like Children's Home Society and Family Services, our chosen intermediary.

The country didn't hold you hostage for years for a child. It didn't require numerous visits. You were given the option of meeting the birth parent(s), if alive and willing. The orphanage was bright, clean, and amazingly well-staffed with workers obviously chosen for their love for young children.

Ethiopians for Ethiopians A program of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church in Minnesota

Our adoption of two beautiful little girls - sisters - went more smoothly than we could have imagined. Ditto for our transition from DINKs to double-income parents, or, as I call us now, DITKAs (double-income, two kids adopted).

But there were issues, of course. All of them ours. In class after class, article after article, we'd been warned about the challenges that can come with international and/or transracial adoptions.

Let me tell you, there are a few. Language, commonly being one. Hair is another, especially for someone like me, used to simply shaving off anything that sticks out more than an inch from my scalp. (It might have been a different story had we adopted boys. But my wife - long used to my bad haircuts - has warned me more than once that my getting either a scissors or clippers within 10 feet of my daughters is a divorceable offense).

And that's just for starters. So we knew that to raise our well-adjusted toddlers into well-adjusted adults, we'd need help. And we found it, at the very church I nearly wrote about all those years ago, thus making me wonder whether I could have saved myself a ton of research and hand-wringing if I had but simply done the story on the church back then.

You see, while every immigrant we've yet met from Ethiopia has bent over backwards to be friendly to us, the members of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church in Minnesota have gone one significant step further. They've decided to help the rather sizeable Ethiopian adoptive community here in the Twin Cities, forming a group called Ethiopians for Ethiopians.

Reaching out to families like ours, Rev. Hawaz and his congregation are letting everyone know that an education in many things Ethiopian is available, just through their church doors.

My wife and I - two very ambivalent agnostics - were at first quite leery of any social programming offered by a church. Especially an evangelical Christian church. But we needn't have worried. While I haven't yet met any church volunteers who hide their faith, they don't proselytize, either. It brings to mind the old Salvation Army motto of "Soup, soap and salvation" - better to attend to some of those more basic needs clarified by psychologist Abraham Maslow before an appreciation of the spiritual can begin, I guess.

Given how often we have participated in the program, it's pretty clear some of our family's basic needs are indeed being met. We have signed up for session after session of weekend events. While the girls get separated by age into classrooms to learn such things as songs and games in Amharic, one of the country's major languages, the adults gather for lectures and demonstrations by Ethiopian immigrants in various cultural approaches, crafts and trades.

I've stumbled through classes on hair (twice). Realized in Amharic language classes I'm in for a tougher slog than with the old college Russian. Eaten my fill at cooking demonstrations taught by local restaurant chefs skilled in Ethiopian cuisine. Listened intently to professors from Metro State University or as far away as Chicago State University discuss Ethiopian politics. And the list goes on.

Talking to the program's coordinator about its origins, I was told the members of the church had taken to heart the pain they'd seen in some from a past generation of adoptees - Koreans - experiencing what it's like to look Korean but sound Minnesotan, and in the worst of cases never really feeling at home anywhere.

Many of Rev. Hawaz's group of faithful are also obviously familiar with displacement, so it's not much of a surprise that they've taken it upon themselves to help the ever-increasing numbers of children still arriving here in the U.S. from their homeland.

We're far from the only parents with adopted children finding value in their work. This program with a dozen or so participants when it began has added over 100 families in a few short years.

And now I note with pride that the program is expanding beyond the walls of this East Side church to others across the country. First to Chicago, later this month. Soon to Washington, D.C. Then to New York, if all goes as planned.

Even four years ago, if you would have told me I would be happily walking through some church's doors week after week, restraining to the best of my ability two very eager children as I went, I'm pretty certain I would have looked at you like you were off your rocker.

Now I can't help but feel sorry for those internationally adoptive parents coping without such a valuable program. It's a vital, strong link to many things Ethiopian, and an easy connection to the girls' birth country would be sadly lacking from our lives if it didn't exist.

Source:- Review-News