Biruk Sawtelle, right, with his adopted parents, Andrea Sawtelle, center right, Nate Sawtelle, center left, and his sister, left.
It took a community to get a 10-year-old North Wales boy to Ethiopia.
At the start of the summer, Biruk Sawtelle had a plan – sell Italian sodas outside his borough home to raise money for Hershey Park tickets. It only took a couple of days to reach his goal, but Biruk wanted to keep going.
“We knew that we were going to Ethiopia in the Fall to visit his birth country for the first time, so I said, ‘How about your plane ticket?’ He said, ‘Well how much is that?’ I told him around $1,200. He decided that he could totally do that,” said his adoptive mom, Rev. Andrea Sawtelle, Young Adult/Next Generation pastor at Immanuel Church in Towamencin.
Originally, Biruk thought he would sell all summer to raise money for his plane ticket, about 20 to 25 times should do it, he thought. As his parents, the Sawtelles thought if he met his goal through his efforts, the whole trip would become that much more meaningful.
Biruk raised more than enough money for one ticket – his Italian soda efforts raised enough for all four plane tickets for his family.
“Many people in our North Wales Borough Community bought drinks from him this summer. We also received checks from strangers, friends, former teens that were in our Youth Group that I pastored, family members, and more,” Sawtelle said. “He put out a stand, made drinks, and didn’t keep any of the money for himself. Sometimes, there were lots of people that showed up and sometimes there were hardly any, but he sat out there anyway.”
This Friday, the Sawtelles will say thanks to the community by giving out Italian sodas from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
The Sawtelles, Andrea and her husband, Nate, always promised their children that when they turned 10, they would take them back to their birth countries to experience their cultures, which is India for Biruk’s younger sister.
“Next week, we will be traveling to Ethiopia as a family and hope Biruk can learn a little bit about his culture,” Sawtelle said.
Perhaps the most life-changing experience for Biruk will be spending time with his birth mom, whom he will meet for the first time.
“We will forever be grateful that she chose to give him life and talk about that often,” Sawtelle said.
It was an infertility journey that led the Sawtelles to make a decision as to whether they would pursue the medical route or adopt internationally.
“We had traveled to Honduras for missions quite a bit and saw how great the need was after visiting several government-run orphanages. We began to pray about what we should do and felt like God was leading us towards international adoption,” Sawtelle said. “We started doing research and realized that Ethiopia was a country that allowed for international adoptions and had great need. We decided that was where we would adopt from.”
It took 25 months for the Sawtelles to be matched with Biruk, though it was only supposed to take about eight months for the process. Eventually, the Sawtelles headed to Ethiopia and started their family.
“The journey has been incredible,” Sawtelle said.
It has been nothing short of a blessing. In fact, Biruk’s name means just that in Ethiopian.
“We had no idea that a difficult story of infertility would turn into such a beautiful blessing,” Sawtelle said. “God has been so good to us, and we continue to be reminded that his story is far greater than any we could ever write for ourselves.”
Overall, the Sawtelles have been blown away by the community’s generosity toward their son. Social media comments were encouraging, then North Penn Now featured Biruk’s mission, as did CBS3 Philadelphia, who came out and interviewed them for the nightly news.
Even a YouTube channel based in Ethiopia picked up Biruk’s story.
“We are just ordinary people that the community has rallied around,” said Sawtelle. “It's truly been a testament to God's faithfulness throughout our whole story.”
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