Thank-ful

The boys and I now venture out weekly and get the grocery shopping done.  I did it with my other four so here I am again shopping with the big cart that can never make the corners and seems to knock the elderly ladies carts every isle I go down.  Yes I take the wipes from my purse and wipe down the steering wheels that my boys like so many others hold onto as we drive through the store.

I have to say it is a different experience driving down the isle with these 2 little guys.  I often think of what a different world they live in now.  They could no longer live with their family  because there was not enough food for them.  Now they have so many choices of what cereal they can eat or what color apple they would like this week.  Just think about lettuce.  Kinda of strange but seriously think about how many types of lettuce can we choose from.

The boys love to go to the store with me.  Today Dawit ran out of his favorite thing.  Nutella.  He eats it on everything.  Today at lunch he put it on his broccoli and his orange.  He looked at the empty container and said, "go to store and get more".  Yes all we have to do here in America is just go to the store and get more.

Right now in the horn of Africa children are dying because there is no food.  Severe drought has left that part of the world in a place that we Americans can not even imagine. It is the worst drought they have seen in about 60 years and 13.3 million people are being affected.  On July 20th the UN declared a famine.  They have not declared a  famine in close to 30 years.  And here I am walking the isles of the grocery store with my African boys choosing and getting all that we need plus more that we don't.

Think I am a downer.  Maybe I am but the reality is sobering and holding and parenting these boys has changed me, made me more thoughtful about how I live and how my family lives.  Makes me more thankful than I could ever have imagined.  Makes me want to do more.  I don't know yet what that looks like but God is preparing and knocking on my heart and beginning to move me to a place I don't think I could ever imagined I would be a few short years earlier.

Looking forward to the journey ahead and  how God will again challenge my comfort zone.

The second favorite part of shopping with these guys is the unloading.  They love to put away all the food.  I have to look things over a little as I found the eggs in the freezer this last time and the cheese right next to the crackers in the pantry!