Let me start by saying I LOVE the 4th of July! I love what it stands for, I love the fireworks, I love the colors…I love it all. I often tear up when I hear the Star Spangled Banner. I am blessed by God to live in America.
Ignore the news (whose theory is if it bleeds – it leads) and look at the people around you in every town and city and you will find people who love their kids and care for their neighbors. You will find people fighting injustice. You will see people serving food at a soup kitchen for those in need. You will find kids running lemonade stands to raise money for children in other countries (I know of 2 that happened locally in the last 2 weeks – all inspired by kids wanting to help kids). You will find firefighters who do everything they can to save someone’s house. You will find immigrants who filed all the paperwork and struggled to come to this country who are living the dream.
Do you know that one of the mentor’s in our program this year, whose husband got cancer, only asked for a sub twice! They worked it out so that she could keep her commitment to this boy who had been let down by so many others in the past. I had another mentor who had to have brain surgery 3 days after his first child was born. I arranged for a month worth of subs for him. The sub showed up on week 3 and saw the mentor’s name on the sign up sheet. The mentor went to the school with a helmet protecting his head and an IV of antibiotics attached to him to see the child that he committed to mentor for the full school year. I was BLOWN away and in awe of the kind of compassion that I saw the members of my church show to the at risk kids we committed to help this year. That’s the Real America and the reason that you should be excited about the 4th of July!!!
So all of that to say that I was very excited about Nadia’s first 4th of July as a US Citizen! It’s a big deal to me, even though it was the same as any other day to her. When she is older we can tell her about it. Here are some photos from the day.
