Uganda.

Why did we choose to adopt from Uganda? 

I will be honest- we did not have some super spiritual moment where God swooped down and whispered in our ear "Uganda".  Actually, until we decided to adopt and began researching countries- we didn't know much about Uganda at all. 

Kampala, the capitol of Uganda.

We originally inquired about India- but God shut those doors quickly and I immediately knew that we would be going to Africa. 

We stumbled on an agency that we really liked. After talking to around 15 agencies- we had peace about this one- they had two programs in Africa. Ethiopia and Uganda. We were undecided. 

We prayed and talked about. 

Researched.

And prayed more. 

One thing both Mr. and I had in common during this week- Uganda continued to come up. Over and over again. We barely even talked about Ethiopia at all,  and the day that we applied with our agency we had to make the decision. 

It came down to peace. We had peace about moving forward to Uganda- and we did. (& now we are experts (well as much of an expert as you can be without setting foot in the country yet) on all things  Uganda. 

The LRA. 

Child soldiers.

Rampant spread of HIV/AIDS.

The 2.5 million orphans in a country the size of Oregon. 

The severe lack of education.

The corruption of adoption & "baby buying" that is all too common here. 

The average age of the people living in Uganda is 15, and life expectancy is 53. 

AIDS has wiped out almost an entire generation of parents. 

It was after we decided to take the step to Uganda that God made us passionate about the country and  the people, and we are still learning and today, we are one day closer.