Adopting Family

Day 116 – when my daughter decided to go back here and enlist she was coming here as a “lone soldier”, a soldier who has no immediate family here in the country. Realizing the importance of a support group at times like that they take these groups of such kids and help them settle into a close neat farming community and pair them with families that will “adopt” them during their military service. These people are just amazing/ they take them in and make them feel like they are really part of the family. They do such an amazing job that even though I am here now and my daughter is not a lone soldier, she stays in close contact with the family and goes to visit them almost every week. Yesterday was the birthday of one of the kids in this family and so they invited us both to come and celebrate with them. We went to a restaurant and later we came back to their home and we played a cards game that we brought as a present.  It was so much fun. Their kids are so wonderful and they really make us feel like we are all one big family. And my daughter, being the youngest child in our family and always asking for more siblings, finally got 4 more and she just loves that. It is one of the things I love the most about this country, how everyone is so welcoming and so warm, how much we feel embraced and at home even with people we don’t really know for that long. This is the reason I wanted to go back here. This is the meaning of home.

I am so thankful for all the wonderful hospitality we get everywhere. I am thankful to the people of that settlement, who took our kids in and are taking such good care of them. I am especially thankful to that wonderful family, who opened their home and their heart to my daughter and also to me. I am thankful for the kindness of people here and for their love. I am thankful to be here and witness this.