Our First Baby Shower...

It's been three weeks since we passed court and it feels like eternity.  Every day that passes is one more day that we are away from Biruk, and we are not big fans of that!  We are praying that we get submitted to embassy, pass, and travel as soon as possible.  In the meantime, we are "prepping" to be parents, and basking in all of the "firsts" of pre-parenthood.  I realized tonight that not only has it been three weeks since court, but it has also been almost three weeks since I last blogged.  I am behind and so much has happened.

For starters, my family threw us the baby shower of the century and I haven't even had time to blog about it. Several months back, my mom and sisters came to me attempting to find a date that would work for all of us to have a baby shower.  After a lot of debating, we chose a date, and then several weeks later, changed the date in fear that it would be too close to traveling for our first trip.  Little did we know that our first trip would come a lot sooner than we thought.  We came home from Ethiopia on a Thursday and the baby shower of the century was two days later on a Saturday.  While it was a crazy busy time, it couldn't have been more perfect timing to celebrate the news that we were officially Biruk's parents.  That makes for some serious celebration.

If you know anything about my family, than you know no one does anything halfheartedly.  When my mom and sisters started making plans for the shower, I knew that it would not be a simple task.  For weeks leading up, whenever I talked with them on the phone, they reminded me that it was going to be awesome.  They had every detail planned out, they had invited friends and family from out of town, and they wanted to make sure it was amazing.

Nate and I had decided to just go home to my parent's house as soon as we got in from Ethiopia.  Since my sister was in town, Nate's family was coming, and we had friends coming, we thought we would spend a few days home.  Friday morning, I woke up and was completely jet lagged and groggy.  I headed downstairs and found some coffee my Dad had made and then he informed me that he needed me to come to the airport that night and translate (in Spanish) for a pastor coming to visit from Cuba who didn't speak any English.  At that point, I was so tired, I was lucky I could speak English.  Regardless, I agreed, and that night my Dad and I set out to the airport.

We arrived at BWI and began searching for this Cuban pastor.  I was frantically trying to remember every Spanish phrase I could think of, while asking my Dad over and over again a series of questions as we waited..."What does he look like?  Are you sure he doesn't speak any English?  What gate is he coming from?  Are you sure he doesn't speak any English?"  Finally, after about 30 minutes of waiting, my Dad blurted out, "It's Amy Hanes!"  I was like, "What's Amy Hanes?"  He said, "Amy...she is coming to surprise you for your shower but I have no idea where she is.  Do you have your her number in your cell?"  Amy is one of my friends, who is a missionary in Honduras.  She had come to surprise me for my shower.  I turned around and saw her right away and then started freaking out.  The weekend was already off to an amazing start.

Saturday morning, we headed to the church and I was completely blown away by what I saw.  My mom and sisters had truly out done themselves.  There were pennants that were hanging with maps of Ethiopia, little kid party favors with pencils with mini flags on them, several of Biruk's little shirts hanging up, cupcakes that had cake pops in the center of them, food that was amazing every where, the cutest mason jars with Biruk's picture attached and yummy chocolate covered oreos and pretzels inside (thanks to my sister, Heather), and pictures of our trip pinned all over.

Side  note on the pictures...so my Dad went to CVS to get 5 sets of about 20 pictures of Biruk developed.  The CVS girl came over to him and said, "This is a beautiful baby!"  My Dad tried to reply, "That's my new grandson," but in Dad fashion, broke down in tears overwhelmed by the goodness of the whole thing.  The girl put her arm around him and said, "Sir, are you going to be ok?"  Oh my...I would have paid to see that.

Mom had placed plain burp cloths everywhere along with fabric markers.  She asked everyone to decorate one (which by the way, there were over 65 people there to support us!).  She also asked everyone to write Biruk blessings, which totally blew us away.  I can't wait until he is old enough for us to read them some day.  My sister Kristen gave us this awesome wall hanging of Africa with the lyrics to a powerful Steven Curtis Chapman song.  It's already hanging in Biruk's room  My sister Heather had this beautiful necklace made that had a bunch of charms that represented our journey.  I have been wearing it like crazy!  Nate's mom and sister even made it down...driving 6 hours to stay for a few hours.  It meant the world to us.

I had always imagined what it would be like to have a baby shower someday, but I could have never dreamed up the amount of encouragement and love we felt that day.  It wasn't about gifts that we got (although, we got more than enough gifts...people were incredibly generous).  It wasn't about the decorations (although I am pretty sure that my mom and sisters could easily go into the business of baby showers...it was that amazing).  It wasn't even about us.  It was totally about God's grace and faithfulness in a story that we could have never written or imagined if we tried.  It was about a community of friends and family members who have been praying like crazy for a child they have never even met.  It was about the celebration of a baby whose name not only means "blessed," but whose whole story has been a blessing in ways we could have never dreamed of.  It was about a God who never stops loving us and a God who is constantly weaving the threads of our lives to make something beautiful.  That is what blows us away.  That is what we are grateful for.  That is what makes the journey incredible.  Thanks be to God.