Azalea & Mitiku
A GoFundMe Studios Original Production
In 2010, baby Azalea was adopted by an American family. Last year, her parents discovered that she had a twin—and he was still in Ethiopia. This is their story.
Azalea (born Mitike) and her twin brother Mitiku were born in a small remote village in Ethiopia. Shortly after, their mother became very sick and passed away. Then, baby Azalea’s body started failing due to malnutrition. The grief and worry were more than her young father Ashoro could bear. He found Mitiku a home with relatives and put Azalea up for adoption so that she could find a brighter future with better access to medical care.
Halfway across the world in Portland, Oregon, lived Sophie and Mark. The young couple had recently adopted a baby girl, but they had more room in their hearts and home for another child. So they began the adoption search again and discovered a little girl named Azalea.
Sophie and Mark flew to Ethiopia to bring their new daughter home. While there, they had a chance to meet with Ashoro, who communicated his gratitude through hugs, kisses, and smiles.
With the help of two interpreters, Sophie and Mark were able to glean pieces of Azalea’s story. But for every two minutes Ashoro spoke, only two sentences were translated back to them in English. Somehow, a big piece of the puzzle was lost in translation: Sophie and Mark never learned that Azalea had a twin.
That is, until January 2017, when a transcript from an interview with Azalea’s birth family arrived at Sophie’s office. She read the letter and was shocked to learn about Mitiku.
“After consulting with an adoption counselor, I told Azalea the next day,” said Sophie. “She was beaming with joy. It was like she had always known.”
Once Azalea learned the truth, all she could think about was meeting her brother for the first time.
For her parents, the reunion took on a special meaning, too. In 2013, Sophie delivered twin boys, Armand and Cyprien, who were born premature and passed away. So when Sophie and Mark learned that Azalea had a twin, it was a powerful moment, and they felt a calling to care for Mitiku:
“I feel deeply in my prayers that [Azalea] and Mitiku’s birth mother in heaven is happy that her children will soon be reunited,” said Sophie. “I like to think that she watches over our twin boys Armand and Cyprien in heaven while we will do our best to watch over her twins on earth.”
Sophie decided that she and Azalea would travel to Ethiopia to meet Mitiku. Flights, immunizations, and visas would be expensive, so they started a GoFundMe to help Azalea and Mitiku reunite.
With the help of donors, they raised over $3,500 to send Azalea, Sophie, and a photographer friend to Ethiopia for the reunion. In January 2018, they arrived.
The reunion was joyous between Sophie, Azalea, and Ashoro, and they all embraced. But throughout the trip, Mitiku was shy, nervous, and scared. Something wasn’t right.
“When we first met Mitiku, I thought he was just very shy,” said Sophie. “But I realized he was just the way Azalea was when she was two years old—confused by the environment and attached to adults. I saw all this behavior and understood that like Azalea, Mitiku is most likely hearing impaired.”
When Azalea was two, she was very shy and avoided other children and noisy environments. “She appeared to be in her own bubble, beating to her own drum, not in tune with the world around her,” said Sophie. “I wondered if she might be on the autism spectrum.”
But in 2013, they learned that Azalea had bilateral moderate hearing loss, meaning that she could only hear 50% of normal conversations, even when standing two feet from the speaker. So when Azalea got outfitted with her first custom hearing aids, it changed her life.
Azalea could hear birds chirping for the first time. She could understand her peers. And she could advocate for herself. Every year of school, she starts with a class show-and-tell about hearing loss to educate her classmates. Now, Azalea’s presentation is used district-wide.
In her spare time, Azalea also makes charms that attach to hearing aids. She has donated hundreds of them to her audiologist, who says they’ve helped many young patients feel more excited about wearing their hearing aids.
Being able to hear and communicate changed everything for Azalea. Now, she wants the same for Mitiku.
Sophie and Azalea hope to raise more money through a new GoFundMe to send Mitiku to an audiologist and enroll him in a school where he can receive the special attention he needs. Both of these changes would improve Mitiku’s life greatly, as he currently does not attend school.
They hope to raise $20,000, which will secure Mitiku in the school through graduation and pay for his medical treatment. Any additional funds raised will go to Azalea and Mitiku’s home village to help the children there as well.
