Quad Cities Ethiopian Adoptive Families Picnic

It seems that we have become a sort of hub or network center for Ethiopian adoptive families in the Quad Cities.  We continue to meet more and more adoptive families who have adopted through Ethiopia, and we do our best to reach out to them.  We have invited many of these families in to our home for a meal and a time of getting to know them.

Many months back, we started kicking around the idea of having a picnic or some get-together with the families in our area.  We have made contact with families from as far away as Dubuque, Iowa (60 miles north), to Galesburg, IL (an hour south), and many in between.

As our home is quite small, we didn't think that hosting 10+ families in our home was feasible.  So as we continued to talk about it, I came up with the idea of hosting it out at Bailey Retreat, a small property our church owns in Coal Valley.  It has a pavilion in case of inclimate weather, swings for the kids, shade in case it's hot, a port-a-pottie (which interestingly is in better working shape that our only bathroom in our home currently), and is fenced in (so the kids can run and have fun in a certain level of safety).

So Kathee nailed down a date, invited the families for the first-ever (that we know of) Ethiopian adoptive families picnic.  Although there were only 3 families that participated, all three families thought this event a great success and that we should continue meeting and doing so.

So who knows where this may lead.  We had fun, we enjoy both families, and will work something up again to meet!


A family in our church lent us their backyard games.  So here is Gideon helping with set-up.  

Kathee had to give Gideon the rundown of what to expect.  

As we set up a few hours before it was to begin, we were able to put Hope down for a nap in the pavilion, where she slept like a log.  

This is Ben and Elizabeth and their son and daughter, who are siblings from Ethiopia.  They adopted their kids 4 months ago.  We got into contact with them through my Thursday night Bible study.  One of the teens who was coming, was invited by another girl in our church to come.  Simone (the girl who was invited to come) is an African-American girl who volunteered to come early in order to take care of Gideon's hair.  One week when she came, she shared that she had a discussion with a teacher while in the bathroom that was adopting two kids from Ethiopia.  Simone shared about Gideon being adopted from Ethiopia and Liz asked Simone to give us her number.  So we called and invited them over for a meal.  They had just gotten back from Ethiopia and were new to the whole parenting thing, much less with two kids (one of which was 5) who didn't speak the language, etc, etc, etc.  So it was good to make contact with them.

The other family we met through the Christian lady that I co-lead a team of teenagers to Moldova with a few years ago.  Aaron and Laura had just started going to her church and upon hearing they were adopting from Ethiopia, was eager to share with us their information.  So we called them, prior to their departure to adopt their son, and spent time with them.

What fun.  We will see what happens next, but so far, so good.