Bring Zora home to reunite with her birth mother

We met Zora a couple of summers ago at COFFEE camp- a heritage weekend that celebrates our Ethiopian adopted children and Ethiopian culture. Zora became a part of our extended family and is one amazing kid. Not long ago, she reached out to a non-profit (Beteseb Felega) that helps reunite adopted U.S. children with their Ethiopian birth families- a process that led her to discover that her story was different than what she'd been told her whole adopted life. Zora was told that her birth mother was gravely ill which had prompted her placement in an orphanage in Addis. She and her sister had weekly visitations with their birth mother until one day the girls simply vanished from the care center.

 

Zora's birth name is Kalkidane Temesgene and she was adopted by an American family in 2008 at the age of 6 along with her younger sibling from a U.S. agency called All God's Children. Don't get me started at that irony.

 

So now we are here- and I'll make this as succinct as possible which is hard to do when trying to sum up twenty years of a life in a few short lines. Zora's birth mother Yeshimabet is alive!  Zora's adopted family was not told the entire truth. Yeshimabet was pressured to relinquish her children and fed misinformation. Zora tried to tell others while growing up that her mother had not been sick and that she didn't believe Yeshimabet had died as she and her sister had been told.

 

Fast forward to now- Yeshimabet is alive, was located by Beteseb Felega's non-profit, and is living in Addis Ababa. I have made a commitment to this remarkable young woman that I will find a way to get her back home to meet her birth mother and family in June 2022.

 

The funds will be spent in the following manner: airline tickets, hotel and transfers, interpreter, driver + gift to Yeshimabet of grains, food, supplies. 

 

Will you please help me bring Kalkidane (Zora) to meet Yeshimabet?