A(nother) T-Shirt Story

The dad over at "Two More Waals" has posted 4 parts about the very special role that 2 t-shirts have had in the lives of at least 4 children who were adopted from Ethiopia. You have to head over there and read about it! That reminded me that I haven't gotten to update you all on the latest in our own t-shirt story!

When I traveled to Ghana in May to pick Bright up I brought over a t-shirt that I bought from Wal-Mart for around $3. I really liked the bright blue stripes and he looked fantastic in it!

It was size 2T and fit him loosly, but nicely. When I left Ghana I decided to also leave most of the clothes I had brought, for use at the newly established AAI Eban House Children's Home.

We had 6 kids at the home back then and one little boy, in particular, wore the shirt a lot. That was special to me because the little boy was being adopted by my friend Chanda. In fact, I just realized that not only is Bright wearing this shirt on the front page photo on my blog, but Chanda's son is wearing the shirt on the front page photo on her blog! Chana's son was 4 years old at the time, but the 2T seemed to stretch to accomodate her son just fine.

Eventually, the little boy at Eban House came home to his new family and I thought that would be the end of our t-shirt story. But it wasn't.

When I went to Ghana in February I visited an orphanage that was in desperate need of support. I was visiting because our families had donated money to give a food donation to the orphanage and I was delivering the donation. On our way out the door I noticed a little boy wearing a shirt just like the one that Bright and the Eban House little boy had worn. I mentioned it to Muna, our administrator. "Muna! Look! Bright had a shirt just like that!" Muna said, "Yes Ani, I donated some clothes to this orphanage recently. That is the same shirt."

I could hardly believe it. The shirt was just a shell of what it once had been. It was faded and extremely dirty. And it was being worn by a 7 year old little boy! Could a 2t shirt really stretch THAT much? Evidently. I snapped a quick picture of the little boy so that I remembered to tell Eric about it when I got home.

The story ends there, right? In a world without God it might. But there is more...

A few months went by and we ended up taking in several children for adoption that were transferred from the needy orphanage. We took in two brothers. Our administrator was describing the eldest boy to me and said, "Ani, don't you remember? He is the boy that was wearing Bright's t-shirt when you visited the orphanage."

Wow. So the t-shirt has now been on the bodies of 3 little boys adopted (or soon to be adopted) from Ghana, ages 1, 4, and 7 years old! Needless to say, the $3 Wal-Mart t-shirt has definitely lived a long and fruitful life!

Anita