Wordless Wednesday - Outside Church in Ethiopia

Awww... too cute :)

We Are NUMBER ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOO HOOO!!!!

Above is a picture of us at an inauguration party. Don't you love the African Obama flag behind us?

Could this day be get any better? We just had a nice dinner, just Bill and me, reflecting on this amazing day in our history. I just checked my e-mail and found an update from WHFC .... we are number one in our wait for our children!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are so happy! I was jumping UP and DOWN and hit my head on the door from excitement, which takes real talent, since doors are usually parallel to someone jumping up and down :)

Reflections on Barack Obama's Inauguration

I was asked to give a reflection for about 5 minutes today at the church where I now work. I was asked to do this Saturday night and thought it would be a tiny part of Sunday's service. How shocked I was to see that along with another person's reflections, this was actually the sermon for the day!

My husband, Bill, and I moved here 7 ½ years ago from living one year in Philadelphia and 3 years at Princeton Seminary. Bill had lived in Belgium for a year. I had lived in the Dominican Republic for a year – we thought we had an education. We bought a house in the CCCC neighborhood and we began to get a REAL EDUCATION. CCCCC is predominantly African American neighborhood. It is also predominantly low-income and has only a 23% homeownership rate.

With the input and help of the community, we began a non-profit organization, a movement of people. We began with a leadership development program for children. There, we were teaching children about leadership, about their God-given potential, about past and present leaders in the African American community and about the History of African Americans in our country, from slavery to the Civil Rights movement and the present.

In my mind, I wondered, as I looked at my neighbors, “Has much changed since the civil rights movement?” Children in the worst performing schools in our county are African American. African-American young men make up the greatest population of our prisons. The poorest communities in our county are predominantly African American. Just this week, we learned that our community is plagued with some of the worst air quality in the country. Had much changed?

When Barack Obama was elected, I celebrated and wept. My eyes got teary every time I thought about what had happened for about three weeks. After the election, there was talk of little else at our organization and at the African American church where Bill and I are members. During the 2 ½ hour church services, the name Barack Obama was mentioned in every prayer uttered. Older members of our church were openly emotional and thanked God for what was happening.

The Young African American college interns that work with us were engaged. They had worked the election. They had stood in long lines to vote for the first time. This was THEIR election. They felt part of a movement. As leaders of our summer Children’s Defense Fund Freedom Schools, they felt even more empowered to educate the children of our community, to make them a part of a larger movement, of THIS larger movement.

The children were excited. They saw the adults around them excited, but I also noted an innocent undertone to their excitement …. they didn’t realize how momentous the occasion was. After being bathed, day in and day out, in stories about great African Americans and of how they overcame in history, of how they made a difference in the story of our country, Barack Obama’s election seemed natural to them. It made perfect sense. One 5^th grade boy, a neighbor who attends our leadership program, was at our house recently talking to Bill. He walked through the house, picked up an apple and asked Bill, “What do you have to do to be president?” He had no idea how crazy his question would have sounded just a few years ago.

I do not believe that Barack Obama brings an end to the injustices that my neighbors experience. My CCCCC education has taught me that no one person can bring that kind of change. But my CCCCC education has also taught me the power of a movement. My CCCCC education has taught me the power of hope.

Barack Obama does not represent the end of racism, of poverty and of injustice. He does represent a renewed sense of HOPE. I see that hope and pride in the children of our community, in our college interns, in our staff, in my neighbors. I feel that hope, I feel that pride in my own self.

I am getting ready for a whole new chapter in my education. As Bill and I await the adoption of two children from Ethiopia, I am full of HOPE. I am hopeful, amazed and relieved that I get to bring my African children to an America where an African American man is president. And as I get ready to turn a page in my own personal life, my HOPE, my prayer, is that we in this country are turning a page, too.

Si se puede! Yes we can!

I am speechless. Last night means so much to me, to my children, to our nation and world. Whatever I write won't do it justice.

Here is the Three Continent Family celebrating last night. Samba had been asleep at the other end of the house until she heard the commotion and decided to join in :)