Our Last Day With Our DC Church Family

Over the years BJ and I have discovered the importance of finding a church home as quickly as possible each time we move. It isn't about crossing Ts or dotting Is. Its not about tradition or even religion. We find a church because when we are so far from home God uses His church to give us family.
We first discovered this in Rapid City, SD and still treasure many of the people that became family to us while we were there. Each time we've moved since, God has graciously provided a church family to be our local support, friends, accountability, and encouragement. The Church gives us roots, love, guidance, and increases our faith.
When we arrived in DC we expected to be here for at least 2 but hopefully 3 years. Though we felt we had time, we also felt an urgency to find our church home. It took a few weeks but the day we walked into Portico Arlington we knew God had once again given us deep relationships and a source of strength.
We joined a wonderful small group the second week and attended the membership classes as soon as we could.
We'd only been attending a few weeks when we got our referral. After so many years and so many churches new friends were the first to see our daughter's face, and in God's perfect mercy they were as excited as any of our old and dear friends could have been. As we shared our good news with our new small group tears welled in the eyes of our new friends and love and excitement filled their hearts and truly overwhelmed us.
As we left for China, our church family bathed us in prayer and rejoiced with glad hearts our 1st Sunday home with our new daughter.
A few years back BJ and I had decided that when Sophie came home we would take her to our church in Las Vegas to be dedicated. Canyon Ridge was our family when we began the adoption. They were the family that laughed with us, prayed with us over all the paperwork, and cried with us when the waiting became unbearable.
When Sophie came home we began to make arrangements to have her dedicated this June, but when we found out about BJ's deployment it became clear that we would have to change our plans.
So this morning, our last day with this family that has been so wonderful to us, we had Sophie dedicated. It was sweet and sad, but as the congregation proclaimed that they would continue to support us, and hold us accountable to raising Sophie, it was like God cemented our relationship with this family.
We knew that this was going to be the place that God brought Sophia home too and we could see how He was laying the ground work for us to have the support, love and prayers that we would need. What we didn't know was that our time with this family would be so short.
We are so thankful for Portico Arlington, our small group and several very special people that have touched our lives. God has blessed us richly and our prayer is that we will come back some day, until then we thank God for social networking : )