The Ethiopian Church Journal Blog

"The best place for a child is in his or her family in their home community. Most children in orphanages have one parent still living or have an extended family that can care for them in the absence of their parents," said the charity's spokesman, Dominic Nutt. "International adoption can actually exacerbate the problem it hopes to solve. The very existence of orphanages encourages poor parents to abandon children in the hope that they will have a better life. International adoption and the orphanages that often provide the children to adoptive parents from overseas can divert money that could be better spent keeping families together and preventing children from having to be taken away from their parents in the first place. Read More . And here , here , here and here .

 The Lord God Will Seek Them Out     “For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured,

By Mitiku Adisu Pope John Paul II, arguably the most influential voice for morality, traveled far and wide but died without ever setting foot in Ethiopia. His successor Pope Benedict XVI is currently visiting Cameroon and Angola, and Ethiopia is not on his itinerary. Was this because Ethiopia had resisted the 17th century forced proselytization by Rome or was it the shameful act some 75 years ago of fascist Italy sending in troops (with the blessing of the current Pope) to ransack Ethiopian churches and machine-gun the clergy as they stood praying? Sandro, author of today's write-up [ Catholic Online ] beckons the reader to discover an "astonishing" island of Christian history. ... in Italy for the first time a major exhibition has been opened on another region of Christian Africa, Ethiopia, with icons, illustrated manuscripts, crosses, sculptures, paintings of evocative beauty, never before shown to the public. The title of the exhibition is: "

"The phenomenon reflects the scarcity of infants from overseas and humanitarian issues involved in adopting them... International adoption has become an ethical minefield, rife with scandals such as last month's report of children in India being stolen and sold for adoption to rich countries... As countries such as China tighten their programs to discourage corruption, the waiting time for infants has stretched into several years or more. As a result, many Canadians are extending the upper age limit in their requests, to shorten the waiting period and make sure they're adopting true orphans, agencies report... Ethiopia is emerging as a preferred source country for siblings ..." Read More .

"Ethiopia is exploding in terms of the amount of people getting on board to adopt," said Mrs. Houser, who works in Greensburg for the Pittsburgh office of Adoptions from the Heart... we'll see families reconsidering intercountry adoptions because of the expense and the drop in value of the dollar," Mr. Johnson said. "With the exception of Ethiopia, I think the days of a country like China allowing so many adoptions to take place are over." Read here and here .

“There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions. And he called him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’ And the manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do, so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.’ So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’ The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world a

Reverence for a Holy God and Holy Ground By Mitiku Adisu Debra-Libanos, Ethiopia What we think of God pretty much sums up our view of ourselves, of each other, and of holy places and objects. If we hold a high view of God, it would show; and if, on the other hand, that view is low, that too would show. “ For as a man thinks within himself, so he is ” [Proverbs 23:7] . The Holy is there to inspire awe and ultimately worship. One who has fear of God in his or her heart is sure to show respect for fellow humans as well as reverence that which is set apart for Him. Not everyone knows how to conduct themselves in the presence of the Holy. Such knowledge could be diminished or even lost where proper instruction is not passed on in what constituted ‘holy other’ and what did not. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. [Proverbs 9:10]  It is absence of this very notion of the ‘holy’ that is at the heart of moral fail