Yeabsira Miles, celebrating Ethiopian Christmas

The life stories of three children from Ethiopia and Liberia might have turned out much differently –and perhaps tragically-if families from this area hadn’t opened their homes to them this year. 

The Miles family of Woodstock and the Wood family of Barnard each adopted children from African countries this year.  Though the adoptions happened separately, the families’ stories are bound by a common thread-a desire to give a child a better life and enrich their own families’ experiences in the process. 

Donna and David Miles wanted a second child to grow up alongside their first son, Eric, a 15-year-old freshman at Woodstock Union High School.  Donna grew up with adopted cousins.  She knew the benefits it could bring to a family.  It could also help a child escape undesirable circumstances. 

“(David and I) are both of the mind that if we can help, we should,” Donna said.

They contacted an international adoption agency with help from the Vermont Children’s Aid Society and Children’s Home Society and Family Services in Minnesota.  The couple submitted their paperwork in June, and Yeabsira, a four-year old boy from Ethiopia, was referred to them in July.  The name meant “God’s work” in Amharic, one of the many Ethiopian languages.  In September, Donna and David went to Ethiopia to pick up their new son. 

Donna said Yeabsira’s mother had died days before they picked him up, probably a victim of AIDS.  She said 90 percent of adults in Ethiopia have the disease, and that leads to a very high number of orphans.  Yeabsira had been living with his grandmother and mother.  His prospects for education would have been bleak, Donna said. 

The couple noted the efficiency of the adoption system in Ethiopia, which involved much less paperwork and shorter waiting times than other countries. 

“The country seems to understand that the best option for these children is to get them out of there,” Donna said. 

Now, Yeabsira is getting accustomed to a very different culture.  But Donna said he had no trouble getting use to opening Christmas presents this week.  He also has another Christmas coming up on Jan.7, when Ethiopians celebrate the holiday.

Donna said Yeabsira’s English is coming along well, although there are occasional humorous misunderstandings.  For example, Donna once told him he could “jump in the shower.”

“He just said to me, ‘Why jump?’” she said.

Eric enjoys having a little brother to play with.  Yeabsira is a big fan of his older brother’s X-Box video game system. 

“All the time he’s saying, ‘Can I play?  Can I play?’” Eric said.

There is also the challenge of an entirely new cuisine, coupled with the usual fussy eating of a small child.  Donna said Yeabsira has a great fear of being abandoned and sent away again.  Eric said the young child cries at the very moment of the words “go away.”

“He has very vivid memories of home, mom and grandmother…and nothing that suggests, this is it,” Donna said. 

But she and David said things are going well, and they plan to expose Yeabsira to some Ethiopian culture when he is older. 

“We’ve learned an incredible amount about Ethiopia in three months, and it’s not going to stop there,” David said. 

“Deb and Al Wood adopted Zoe, 1, and Naomi, 2, from Liberia this year.  Like the Miles family, they worked with a country that had a relatively efficient adoption system.

The Woods, who already had three boys, had been thinking about adoption for a while. 

“We didn’t know where to start,” Deb said.  “It always seemed like too much.”

One day, she happened upon a Christian radio program that gave her some contact information to work with for an adoption.  She surfed the Web and eventually found the West Africa Children’s Support Network (WACSN).  The organization was started by Maria Luyken, a Liberian woman who had relocated to the U.S. when she was a child and then moved back home to start WACSN. 

The Woods filled out the necessary paperwork in July, and Deb and her sister were able to go to Liberia and pick up the girls in three-and-a half months.  They ended up staying with Luyken in Monrovia, the Liberian capital. 

That was Deb’s first trip to a developing country.  Liberia has a past marred by civil war, and many children under five die of malnutrition.  Deb said there was no electricity of traffic.  Hospitals flattened during the civil war were being rebuilt.  But she said the people were a pleasure to meet. 

“They’re just very gentle, quiet people, yet they’ve been through so much,” she said. 

She described the moment she met Zoe and Naomi. 

“They were a little leery of us, but they came right to me,” Deb said.

She said the girls love the Vermont show and always enjoy singing and dancing.  Deb said Naomi is getting used to different eating customs.  She explained that in Liberia the kids usually have a huge pot of food placed in front of them.

“And you have to be quick,” she said.  But Deb and Naomi is getting used to sharing more. 

Deb also said her three other children, Nehemiah, 8, Jackson, 7, and Christian, 5, are very helpful with the girls.  The boys help them with their jackets and other things, and the five children get along well. 

“They are very tender with the girls,” Deb said.  “It’s a different side of them than I’ve seen.”

She added, “We really want them to grow up with a sense of commitment to their own country at some point.”

A Couple Corrections
To the Editor:
We enjoyed the artcile about African adoptions that appeared in last weeks edition and were gratified to be included. However, there were a couple of misstatements that we felt were important enough to correct.

In noting that Yeabsira's (our son's) mother probably died from AIDS, the article stated that "over 90 percent of adults in Ethiopia have AIDS." What it meant to say was that "over 90 percent of adult deaths in Ethiopia are the result of AIDS." That is still a staggering statistic for us to grasp in this country.

Also, Yeabsira's mother did not die just a few days before we picked him up. His mother died in April and he joined our family in September. That is still extremely fast in terms of international adoption. And, lastly, all three members of our family, including our 14-year-old son, traveled to Ethiopia to bring Yeabsira into our family.

We do feel very blessed to have Yeabsira in our family and to be in a community that has been so welcoming to him in so very many different ways. Thank you for the wonderful article.

David and Donna Miles
Woodstock

Learn more about adopting from Ethiopia