Meeting Isaac!

This day started pretty horrible for me.  I woke up at about 5am with a bad case of Montezuma’s revenge, if you don’t know what that is google it! I think the bugs that cause this are 10x worse here in Addis than at home or anywhere else. We had a big day planned, we were going to go to an International Ethiopian Evangelical church service in the english speaking zone, we had an orphanage visit planned to meet Isaac and we were invited to dinner at our Ethiopian friend’s house. Unfortunately, we had to skip on the church service and dinner at our friend’s.  There was no way I was missing the trip to visit the orphanage, I managed to pull it together and was able to go.  We had to change our pick up time to 3:30 instead of 2:30 but we went!

We arrived at Abenezer orphanage. It was about a 20min car ride and it was situated in a residential neighbourhood behind a large wrought iron gate.



There was a a large courtyard for the children to play and all the children looked happy as they were playing.  We arrived with 2 large bags of donated clothing for the orphanage.  The owner was very thankful.  Thank you to our small group and our friends in England for your generosity, it was very much appreciated.



The orphanage director took us into the nursery where there was 8 cribs and 8 babies.  There he was in the first crib staring at us with his big brown eyes.  He is the cutest little guy ever and it felt so surreal to finally see him in person. We didn’t get to hold him because he isn’t legally ours until we pass court. We got to hold his hand, and touch him.  We told him how much he is loved back in Canada, and there are many people that can’t wait to meet him. He couldn’t stop staring at us and the look of confusion in his eyes as if he was saying: “Why are you strangers acting like you know me, when I have no idea who you are?”  He strarted to cry a bit and was immediately picked up by one of the caregivers who just adores him.  It really made us feel good that he is loved and obviously had a special bond with this caregiver.  While the caregiver was holding him, he grabbed on to my hair and tried to grab James’ glasses.  He felt more relaxed and gave us some big smiles.  We got to take pictures of his crib and caregivers but unfortunately we could not take any pictures of him until we pass court. Our visit with Isaac was very memorable, and we feel at peace that he is in good hands but most importantly he is loved.



After our meeting with Isaac, the orphanage director had a traditional ethiopian coffee ceremony prepared for us.  We had a chance to talk to her and found out that she lived in Toronto for 11 years .  She moved back to Ethiopia 5 years ago to open Abenezar orphanage.  She is a wonderful lady and we really enjoyed talking to her. Overall, it was great experience and one we will remember forever.