Thankful for my mission family

Bringing a foster child into your home in order to eventually adopt is a very different experience than giving birth. Another adoptive mom on our team suggested that the "birth pains" are stretched out over a long period of time as you go through the whole process. One major difference is a bit of confusion about when to celebrate. If I had given birth to a child, I know that my family and friends would come to the hospital and probably have a shower to celebrate the child. But I didn't know how or when to celebrate Evie joining our family. 

Our missionary team sometimes has game nights where we get together just to have fun. Since many of us had recently returned from the states, I was excited to hear that someone was planning a team game night for last Friday. When we arrived, I found out that it was a surprise baby shower welcoming Evie to our family and to our missionary family! I cannot explain how much I felt loved and understood and so happy that I even began crying! I had longed for this type of celebration for my daughter, but didn't even realize how much I desired it until our missionary family surprised us with this party! 

Our team gave us this basin full of essentials like diapers, wipes, baby wash, formula, etc. and made these beautiful cupcakes to celebrate our baby girl. 

They even had beautiful decorations!

They were all trying to hold an adopted or foster Ugandan "baby" as we walked in to celebrate with us. We are not alone in this process! Our team actually has more adopted missionary kids than biological ones, but many of the children area bit big to carry. 😉

While I am sad that Evie has not yet been able to meet any of her new grandparents, aunts, uncles or cousins since they all live across the ocean, I am so thankful that she has such a loving missionary family who took time to plan a beautiful celebration welcoming her into our family! In Psalms 68:6 the Bible says that "God places the lonely into families." I am thankful that God placed Evie with us, but I am also so thankful that He placed our family in a missionary team that has beome a second family to us!