The Krawietz family adopted Minte from Ethiopia in September 2009. “Every once in a while I take a step back and look at our family and say, ‘Wow, we could have missed this,’” Cyndi Krawietz said. (PHOTO/Jenny Pope/Buckner)
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ROCKWALL, Texas (ABP) — It all started with a single word, scrawled into the margins on Cyndi Krawietz’s Bible — “Adoption?” It was written with a question mark.
“I had written it there in January 2004,” she said. “It just seemed so impossible then. I thought there’s no way we could ever afford it.”
But now, when she looks at her three children — Bethany, 15; Kyle, 12, and Mintesinot, 10 — she couldn’t imagine life any other way. “Every once in a while I take a step back and look at our family and say, ‘Wow, we could have missed this.’”
The financial needs of being a single-income family raising and home-schooling two children were enough for Cyndi and Luke Krawietz. But when they developed a passion for international mission work through Lake Pointe Church, a Baptist congregation in Rockwall, Texas, they always found a way to make it work, crediting God for providing what they lacked. And after a year and a half of traveling as a family to Ghana and China, Krawietz added it all up.
“I had always had this number in mind that I thought it would cost to adopt, and when I looked back at all the mission trips we had taken, and the amount of money God had provided, I realized that it was the same amount” to adopt, she said. “It confirmed it for me — God’s will done in God’s way will not lack God’s supply.”
Connected to Africa
The Krawietzes set out to adopt a baby girl from Africa. They felt connected to the continent, they said.
The family chose as their agency Buckner International, a Texas Baptist agency that has entered into an adoption partnership with Dillon International in Tulsa, Okla. The family began the home-study process to adopt a little girl from Ethiopia. At the first meeting, they received a flyer about waiting older children living at the Buckner Baby Home in Addis Ababa. There were four older boys, and Cyndi Krawietz immediately felt drawn to pray for them.
Minte greets another adopted little girl, whom he used to live with at the Buckner Baby Home in Addis Ababa, upon his arrival at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport. (PHOTO/Courtesy of Cyndi Kraweitz)
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“We committed to pray for them as a family every night,” she said. They also made color copies of the flyers and hung them all over the church, sharing the boys’ stories wherever they went. But nobody seemed interested in adopting them.
A few months later, Krawietz was making the bed when she became overwhelmed with frustration. “We can understand as parents that ache to have a child, but what must it be like to be a child and ache to have a parent?” she thought.
“I started talking to the Lord about it, talking out loud, just asking, ‘Why won’t people adopt these older boys?’ And then it hit me. ‘Why won’t we?’”
That was the turning point, she said. Krawietz immediately went to her prayer journal and pulled out the flyer of the four boys, spreading it out on her bed. “I was just staring at the sheet, the one that had been in my prayer journal this whole time, thinking, ‘Is one of these boys our child?’”
The whole family starting seeing things in a new way, and they all felt drawn to one boy on the page — Mintesinot, whom they call Minte.
“I don’t want to over-emotionalize it, but there was a point when we felt more strongly drawn to Minte, and I think that’s because the Lord revealed to us that it’s possible he’s ours. Suddenly, it wasn’t just a child; it was our child.” Cindy Krawietz said.
The Ethiopian adoption process is one of the quickest in terms of international adoption and can take as few as nine months to complete. For the Krawietz family, those nine months couldn’t pass fast enough. The entire family flew to Addis Ababa to meet Minte and attend their embassy appointment, the final step in the process, on Sept. 9, 2008.
“We have some really great memories from that time together,” Luke Krawietz said. “The kids were playing together from the start. With Bethany and Kyle, I knew how their hearts were shaped. I didn’t have any real concerns with them being able to adapt, or welcome, or bond with a new sibling.”
“There was communication between us that transcended language,” Cyndi Krawietz added.
Minte plays his favorite card game, Uno, with his dad Luke. The Kraweitz family from Rockwall adopted 10-year-old Mintesinot through Buckner International adoption, now affiliated with Dillon International in Tulsa, Okla. (PHOTO/Jenny Pope/Buckner)
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A year later
Now that they’ve been home for almost a year, the Krawietz family has adapted well and continue to grow closer as Minte learns more and more English and opens up daily about his life in Ethiopia — his family, traditions and the friends he left behind who still are waiting for their “forever family.”
“There are a lot of neat things about adopting an older child,” Luke Krawietz said. “Sure, there are a lot of years that we didn’t get to be a part of. But little by little, he shares with us memories from earlier in his life. We’re kind of going forward with him, but going backwards as well. It’s all colliding.”
One of the first few days after Minte came home, he lost a tooth. He immediately ran outside to throw it onto the roof as his family watched, stunned. It’s an Ethiopian tradition to throw a tooth where the birds fly so they can carry it away. If a bird picks it up, it means a new, strong white tooth will grow in its place.
“I love that. If we hadn’t adopted an older child, we would never know things like that,” Cyndi Krawietz said.
Minte’s Ethiopian heritage has become an inseparable part of their lives. They regularly cook Ethiopian cuisine — including Minte’s favorite, a piquant spaghetti cooked with bere bere spice. And they frequently visit some favorite traditional Ethiopian restaurants in the Dallas area. Ethiopian items are displayed around the Krawietz home, along with a smattering of note cards written in English and Amharic identifying new vocabulary words. Home schooling with his brother and sister also has allowed Minte to learn English at his own pace, Cyndi Krawietz said.
The Krawietzes continue to pray for the boys living in the Buckner home, one of whom already has been adopted. The other two continue to wait.
“I think more people are called to adopt than they think,” Cyndi Krawietz said. “Of all the people who think about adoption, a very small fraction actually do it. And an even smaller number adopt older children.
“I think, whatever it is you feel comfortable doing, take that next step…. God won’t steer a parked car. But God will take you where you need to be.”
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Jenny Pope writes for Buckner International.
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International Adoption: Celebrating an adopted child’s cultural heritage
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