A little girl, Mekdes, lived with her mother, father and younger brother Yabsira in a mud and straw hut in Ethiopia. Mekdes watched as her father became sick. His voice rattled hoarsely while painful, black blisters covered his skin; he became thinner and thinner until, one morning, Mekdes woke to the sound of her mother howling over his dead body. Soon, the five-year-old girl saw the same blisters start to spread over her mother's body, watched the same pain and haunted eyes take over, and one night, discovered that her mother no longer moved. At the age of five, Mekdes, with her brother Yabsira, joined the ranks of AIDS orphans. Their grandfather and aunts tried to care for them; when they gave up because of extreme poverty, they took the children to Addis Ababa where a woman, Haregewoin Teferra, was known to take in children that no one else would. The newcomers stood on the edge of the compound, watching boys and girls run and play, and then the aunts slipped out. When Mekdes realized she was being left, she fell onto the dirt shrieking, then threw herself against the metal door over and over, then pounded her fists against Haregewoin who tried to hold her. She was inconsolable.

And then, Mekdes and Yabsira were adopted by a couple in Georgia. Ryan and Mikki Hollinger flew to Ethiopia, embraced the sister and brother, and brought them to a new family and home. Shortly after her adoption and her sixth birthday, Mekdes shared with her new mother about the day her aunts took her to Haregewoin's house:

“I am scream.”

“Why did you cry, baby?”

“I don't know this Ethiopia. I want my Ethiopia with Grandfather and Fasika. I don't want new Ethiopia.”

“You were sad.”

“No hope, Mommy. I have no hope.”

“Oh, honey...”

“Because no one told me, Mommy.”

“Told you what?”

“That you are here in America. I will not feel so sad if I know you are here...I am cry because I don't know you will coming.”

No hope, Mommy...I am cry because I don't know you will coming. I am stunned by the eloquence of a six-year old girl describing the desolation of orphanhood to her mother (and not even in her first language!)

Greene's lyrical writing interweaves stories and statistics in a tapestry that is both enraging and inspiring, heart-wrenching and hopeful and, occasionally, very funny. There is No Me Without You reveals the real desolation of orphaned children and their desperate longing for adults who will love and protect them. It also shows the remarkable intelligence, resilience and love that can be discovered in these children.

No hope, Mommy...I am cry because I don't know you will coming. It is fitting that “hope” is included in the names of many orphan care and adoption agencies. When children in orphanages glimpse the possibility of being taken into a family, they hope. They dream of love and protection, of being tucked into bed at night. For a few of the world's orphans, adoption fulfills that hope.

A photo of Mekdes shows her, in the only clothes she owns, desolately weeping after her remaining family has left her. In another picture, she has recently arrived at her new home in Georgia, her face radiant as she tries to get her arms around her very own, bright pink and yellow bed. Poverty to riches, loneliness to love. Mekdes' story almost reads like a fairy tale.

And yet our best “happily ever after” endings are shadowed, because of the memory of the parents who have died and the orphans who have been left behind, and also because even the best of our families is inadequate and flawed. Nothing can fill the needs of children's hearts except the inexhaustible love of God himself. To embrace orphaned children and give them a family, a future, a hope – this is a wonderful privilege and joy. But to embrace these children while pointing to the greater hope that will not disappoint, introducing them to the unfailing love of the God who calls himself Father of the fatherless – this is an honor beyond our deepest fathoming or most majestic words.

Thank you, Mekdes, for your words. May your memory of hopelessness and your experience of new life and joy bear fruit in our hearts and lives.