What's her story?

Funny how when I'm feeling something - and start surfing adoption blogs - it seems other moms are struggling with those exact same feelings too.

Like the fact of how you can become so engrossed with an adoption in the same way you become obsessed with a pregnancy. Remember?? Searching babycenter.com? Searching baby name sites? Actually reading books about 'What to Expect'? (And then, with Baby #3, just trying to remember when your next o.b. appt. was??? Much less read a book?)

But baby #4 - has me hooked. Reading been-there-done-that blogs. Reading articles. Reading moms-in-waiting blogs. Everything comes back to adoption.

So when I saw a young girl on Compassion's website, a beautiful, 15 year old girl - instead of the usual desire I have to love Compassion kids - this one was different. What if? What if that 15 year old girl was my baby's mother? She was 15. An only child in the home. With a mentally ill mother. And she was above average in high school. Above average.

What about here in the US? What chance would a 15 year old in the same situation have? Yes - she may be an over-achiever but as the only child in a single parent household, much less a mentally ill parent - what are the chances she would graduate? Much less get a college education? Much less live her life to the fullest? She would most likely fall into society's trap - going to work early. Trying to make ends meet. Trying to take care of her mother. But with our nation's package of benefits, food stamps, housing help, disability payments?

Now imagine that same, beautiful, over-achieving child in Africa. Without Compassion - where would she be? What would that child, CHILD, have to do - to make ends meet? Education would be out of the question. A real job would be out of the question. A real life --- or a life filled with heart-ache, most likely abuse, most likely letting her body be used, just to scrape together the money needed to take care of herself and her mother. And then what if that abuse led to an unplanned pregnancy, and possibly a death sentence in an unwanted disease. At 15?

That could be the story of my baby's mother. And as much as I desire to hold my child - never, never would I wish that story on any young woman. Much less a child.

But unfortunately, that is the story of millions of women, no girls, worldwide. Adoption doesn't take away those stories, it just tries to help pick up some of the pieces from those broken dreams. And to make a new dream for that little one who would not have stood a chance after being left on the steps of an orphanage. After her young mother can't afford to take care of her and can't bare to watch her child die of starvation or illness. Adoption isn't a fairy tale. It is a small band-aid to try to fix a huge, gaping wound. A wound of 147 million children as we speak.

But back to that 15 year old Gebreloa. SHE is in Compassion's program. Her schooling provided for. Her health monitored. Her mental wellness and social needs met. The love of Christ introduced to her. So in hope - I pray - that that 15 year old will be a success. Because, with Compassion, I have seen many success stories first hand.

But I also know - what could that above-average 15 year old accomplish with someone beside her? Cheering her on? Encouraging her to stay in school? To better herself for the sake of herself and her mother? Praying for her? Helping to lead her to the strong arms of Christ?

Her story could be so much different. And only someone like you could help write that story. Would you? Gebreola Shiferaw - I'm pleading for someone to sponsor her. She is only one child. But one child that deserves to be a child - and not a mother to my baby or someone else's.

James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

To search for a different child by birthday, gender, sex, or country - Click here. There are thousands of other Gebreola's with stories to be written.