To wrap up writing about Ben and his adoption process, and what it was like for us as adoptive parents, I have to write some about our trip.

Getting a new, almost six-year old son is an emotional, overwhelming, amazing, life-changing event. However, traveling to Africa for the first time and experiencing all that is Ethiopia for the first time is also an emotional, overwhelming, amazing, life-changing event. When you put the two together, you are setting yourself up for one heck of a ride.

The trip from our tiny town in the middle of nowhere to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia is ridiculously long. By the time we arrived we were exhausted, and yet hyper all at the same time. Seconds after leaving the airport, we were hit in the face with the reality of the heart-breaking begging that is so common in Addis. When you are just coming off of an almost 36 hour trip and you are highly emotional at the thought of being hours away from meeting your new child, and then you unexpectedly are faced with a mother and baby, out at night, wrapped in rags and begging you for money, it is really, really hard. It was heart-breaking.

We saw poverty at a level we had never experienced. I had traveled to Vietnam, but since I went alone and had a small baby, I did not go out much and did not see much. Josh had only left the country to play a high school football game in Australia. Our eyes were opened to a lot.

We met an orphaned boy in the park who we will never forget, and filled us with emotions of guilt, sadness and the unfairness of life.

We spent time in orphanages filled with children, had them hang on or arms and legs and call us "mommy" and "daddy" hopefully. We left with a greater conviction that transracial adoption is a good thing and one of the only paths of hope for way too many children.

And of course we traveled to AHOPE, and for the first time, got a real picture of what HIV and AIDS is doing in Africa. We left not only crushed by the sadness of it all, but inspired by the work that some were doing, despite such limited resources. That day we also met our future daughter, and I don't know if I can put into words all of the emotions that I felt after holding her. Love and fear were the two big ones.

We traveled south to Assala,
and were honored to be fed by our son's grandmother and extended family, and will be forever grateful for receiving their blessing to adopt Ben. We were humbled to see the tiny home our Ben had lived in. We witnessed our son saying goodbye to his grandmother, family, friends and whole life, and bravely climb into a car to start the journey to America with us, his new parents. How do you prepare for those types of emotions?

Continued in my next post.