yonas

so in October we received awesome news about Johnny that i blogged about here,  then November proved to be equally awesome when i woke one day to "Yonas news" from Eyob.  brief refresher~ Yonas is a boy we met in 2010 when we were in Ethiopia picking up sweet AJ. 

 i've blogged many times about Yonas since our first meeting five years ago, but the very first time i mentioned him was here.  Yonas is now somewhere around sixteen years old and living in Addis Ababa.  he has some contact with Eyob, the man who is director of the organization and orphanage where AJ spent time before we were cleared to adopt him.  Eyob has facilitated Yonas' sponsorship by seven Canadian families~ all invested in loving this boy from across the world.  each family heard his story back in 2010 and wanted to be a part of speaking Hope and Love into his life.  pretty nice.  since that time, Yonas has received medical care that has led to a diagnosis of HIV, and he now has regular ARV medications and has regular assessments and treatments that have brought him around to a position of looking and feeling well.  Praising God for this!

so, we've attempted many various forms of communication with him over the years.  this has proved to be daunting, to put it mildly.  the coolest experiences have been when our two sets of friends, on two different occasions during two different years, visited Ethiopia and literally tracked him down, meeting Yonas face to face and delivering tangible love to him from all of us back here at home. chalk that up to amazing friends and impressive logistics and one powerful, loving Heavenly Father who helped to accomplish those precious encounters.  

soooo, one morning last month i woke to a message from Eyob.  gotta love Facebook, at least for this, right?  Yonas had come by his office on that particular day.  they'd taken some pictures and he'd even taken time to write a letter to us. 

the pictures below are the latest.  in the first one he's holding some shoes and clothes he was able to purchase from the sponsorship money sent by the seven families...

these two are pictures of a picture, so you do see a glare, but that's how they came to me...what a handsome young man.  so happy to see his sweet grin...

and this is his letter to us in Amharic...

 see the translation below, again blurry but probably legible if you click on the picture to enlarge it....completely melted me to read his sign off, "your son, Yonas"....so thrilled that he knows there are people in another land, far away, that care for him as surrogate parents.  Yonas hasn't a forever family of his own, and this means so much to see that he understands how much he is loved....

 well, you can imagine my eyes brimming with tears as i stared at his grown up face and his beautiful penmanship.  he looks like a young man now, all handsome and appearing healthy.  Eyob translated the letter for us as well~ super nice of him to do so. 

Yonas and Eyob, at the KVI office. 

 so awesome and wonderful.  i look forward to the day when Yonas has his own Facebook account and we can correspond more regularly.