The welcome ceremony

Shaky, incomplete video at best... but it gives a little taste of what we were treated to when we got out of the poda-poda and seated ourselves at the head table under the protective palm branches of the boffa.

It was already getting dark when we arrived... Sierra Leone is on the 10th parallel, pretty stinkin' close to the equator... which means all year long their days stay relatively the same in length... little more than twelve hours of light a day. The sun rises around seven am and sets to complete darkness no later than eight pm. Under the boffa it was even darker, but it didn't stop us all from scanning the crowd of faces to see if one of us could spot Tejan...

Most of the bigger boys seemed to be lining the back of the space... leaning against the half-walls, much like junior high and high school boys in the States might do. I was looking there when I heard one of the kids say "There he is!" I turned my head to look out of the boffa, and saw him coming down the hill from his house.

Thankfully, he arrived before the ceremony had actually begun. I saw that as my opportunity. I jumped up and ran, followed closely behind by Kyler, Savannah and Ethan. We all enveloped him in a giant hug.

"Aunty Cathy..." he said as we embraced.

"I came back, T... and look who I brought!" We all took a step back to look into each other's eyes.

Asia had made his way to us and was standing behind me by now.

We were all together again. All the saving, scrimping, raising money and planning came together in this one moment... here was my family.

At the Welcome Ceremony, they gave us all African names and told us their meanings.

• I was to be called Aunty Jenneh (pronounced Yen-i) which means our mother
• Asia was Mookeh which means our father
• Kyler's name was Kommeh - let us meet in joy
• Savannah's name was Luba - blessing
• Ethan was given the name Batilo - meaning somebody's child

Once the ceremony was complete,  we were surrounded by kids... I asked Tejan if he would introduce us to Alhassan, the other little boy that we sponsor as a family. I chose Alhassan off the COTN website quite awhile ago... we were wanting to sponsor someone and Tejan didn't need a sponsor at the time, so I just went looking at pictures and chose Alhassan because of his sweet smile and great big brown eyes. T. was SO thrilled to hear that we sponsored someone else and eagerly took us to meet him.

When T. introduced us, it was so fun to see Alhassan's reaction to learning that one of his sponsors had come all the way from America... he immediately latched onto us and became an almost permanent fixture at someone's side the whole time we stayed in the children's village. He is a super sweet boy.

Our family continues to grow...