I have also started reading There Is No Me Without You by Melissa Fay Greene. This is not a required reading, but something I wanted to do on my own. (Thanks to Dan and Lori for getting it for us!) It is not what I thought it was going to be, but it has been very good. It parallels the story of an Ethiopian woman fighting to help orphans of AIDS while also including the history and devestation of AIDS as it has developed in Ethiopia. I encourage you to read it- but be prepared because it will make your heart heavy. Here are some statistics that Greene includes in the book:
- By 1990, 61 thousand children had been orphaned by AIDS in Ethiopia (p. 49), and the first diagnosis had only been made 6 years earlier in 1984 (115)
- In 1999, it was estimated that 30 million Africans are expected to die from AIDS in the next 20 years (113)
- By 2000, 2 million people in Ethiopia were infected with AIDS, the third most inflicted country in the world.
- By 2001, there were 989,000 AIDS orphans in Ethiopia, 2nd only to Nigeria
- As of 2006, 4.7 million people in Africa were in immediate need of life-saving AIDS drugs and only 500,000 had access to them (25)
I contemplate these numbers, and it is just overwhelming. My heart breaks as I read this book, and I am questioning what I will do with this new knowledge. It is not enough to just feel bad, and I am involved now...this is my child's country, his culture, his people. But what to do? I don't know. I think we can get the "it's too big for me to do anything" syndrome and allow that to distance ourselves from it. I feel like by adopting, we are just a tiny drop in a giant swimming pool. Could there be something more for us to do? I don't know. But I do know, God has awakened something in me...I don't know what it looks like or where it will take me, but I do want it to take me somewhere. Maybe it will take you, too...
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